Campbell Ave. dig unearths Tucson's past

The endless chug, roar and bang of construction wipes out the Tucson of old. But, once in a while, it also turns the clock back to a time long before any modern resident's memory.

Working on her knees in a windblown, bare dirt lot next to a trailer park and across the street from the former Tucson General Hospital, Karen Russo gently scrapes the floor and walls of a shallow trench with a tiny metal trowel. Her eyes constantly scan the seemingly unremarkable, hard, tan earth for signs of the human past.

Each day, thousands of people on their way to and from the Foothills zoom by in fancy cars, unaware of the little Hohokam village where people were eking out a meager existence 1100 years ago. It's known as the CNN Camp Bell Site, the initials of Clayton N. Niles, the developer whose company is footing the bill for the work by Old Pueblo Archaeology Center.