The Alamogordo Atari Excavations
William R. Caraher · University Press of Florida eBooks · 2024
This chapter provides a report on an excavation in the New Mexico desert designed to determine whether the Alamogordo landfill became the final destination for a large assemblage of Atari games dumped at the site in 1983. It describes the structure of the landfill as well as the characters of both the landfill and the Atari assemblage. This chapter also offers some basic analysis of the dig. This analysis situates the Atari excavations in the context of the archaeology of the contemporary world, the history of the postwar American West, and the contemporary nostalgia for childhood.