Hearing the Ancestors: Archaeology in the Coachella Valley

Hearing the Ancestors tells the story of professional archeology in the Coachella Valley; not the Indiana Jones version, but archeology done for developers, golf courses, and housing tracts. Love describes the business of "contract archeology" in colorful detail, from the initial walk-over survey of desert land and the discovery of artifacts to the excavation of test pits, to full blown mitigation excavations, and finally to monitoring while surrounded by massive earthmoving machines during grading.

Coachella Valley archeology is tied closely to the comings and goings of Ancient Lake Cahuilla, of which the Salton Sea is but a remnant pond. Where the old shoreline runs across the desert floor, ancient villages thrived but were then abandoned when the lake receded, leaving behind remains that archeologists excavate and analyze, keeping one step ahead of developers.

Results of these excavations rarely reach public awareness. They are buried in technical papers in file cabinets and hard drives so that otherwise fascinating findings tend to disappear in the paperwork. This book is a partial remedy to that, bringing to the reader discoveries and highlights of Love's intensive period of Coachella Valley archeology.

Throughout the telling, Love weaves in anecdotes and episodes from his five decades of professional archeology-some humorous, some poignant-that punctuate this engrossing narrative.