The Lostness Framework: Rethinking How the Past Becomes “Lost”
When we say “lost city,” we often imagine a clean break between past and present. In reality, loss is layered. Pieces erode, stories are suppressed, and later generations rebuild meaning around what remains. The Lostness Framework is the model I developed to make these layers visible.
The five stages
Trigger — The initial shift that starts loss: abandonment, destruction, colonization, policy change.
Mechanic — The forces that deepen loss: erosion, looting, archival neglect, suppression of oral traditions.
Signals — The traces that persist: household objects, architectural fragments, maps, place-names, stories.
Afterlives — How fragments are reused or reinterpreted: folklore, museum curation, syncretism, art.
Modern Memory — How today names and frames the past: “rediscovery,” tourism branding, public history, scholarship.
Why it matters
The framework helps separate what vanished from how we talk about vanishing. That distinction clarifies debates in heritage, improves public storytelling, and offers a repeatable structure for case studies.
Examples I’m working on
Spiro Mounds (Oklahoma): a study in manufactured lostness through looting and later reinterpretation.
Pompeii (Italy): from catastrophic trigger to a long afterlife in tourism and scholarship.
GIS and memory: how datasets, map choices, and categories become mechanics of loss or recovery.
How to go deeper
Read the definitive overview on the Lostness Framework page for a visual, citations, and FAQs.
And follow ongoing applications in Field Notes.
If you work in archaeology, heritage, or storytelling and want to apply this model, reach out.