Cathleen Allison/Nevada AppealNevada State Museum anthropologist Gene Hattori talks Friday about excavating artifacts from the construction zone outside the museum.
It came as no surprise to anthropologist Gene Hattori when construction crews working on the Nevada State Museum project turned up signs of buried artifacts in the courtyard next to the historic old mint.
In fact, he anticipated it, making arrangements with Reyman Brothers Construction of Sparks before they even started digging.
Less than a week into the project to connect the old mint building with the museum annex, Hattori, curator of anthropology at the museum, and his assistant, Cindy Southerland, found themselves in a four-foot-deep trench, carefully outlining the walls of an old pit where workers at the mint long ago buried some trash.