possibly not the *best* analogy...

[thanate]

Archaeologists dissect a site like a researcher would a medical anomaly, sorting through the contents with care and precision (how much of each depends on the scientist), pulling out the information that might be useful and sorting through each grain of dirt and rock to leave an empty space where the site once was and its contents in untidy piles about the yard, while they take the heart of the site away, analyze it, and seal it up in little plastic bags to take up warehouse space forever.

I was originally thinking about drawing parallels to mummification-- gutting the body, wrapping the organs in separate jars and throwing the brains away-- because I was leaving the almost-finished site this afternoon thinking: "goodbye, site, I won't be back; you were cool, but we already took you heart and it's in the lab, anyway."