I stumbled across this amazing photo on Flickr, of a paint chip found at the recently demolished but formerly popular LA graffiti spot, Belmont Art Park. The caption says that the chip is about 1 cm thick, but has between 150 and 200 layers of paint, showing just how heavily used this park has been over the years.
It raises interesting questions about urban archaeology, cultural loss and the current value society places on street art vs. how it will be perceived by future civilizations. Photos like this suggest that what soil samples, ice cores and tree rings are to paleoatmospheric scientists today, graffiti paint stratigraphy and dendrochonology will be for the archaeologists and anthropologists of the future.
They'll have to dig pretty far down below the basements of the housing development that's being built over Belmont Park to find any paint chips, though.
