Look at the author of the quote in the second Gurunet def.:pal·imp·sest (păl'ĭmp-sĕst')
n.
1.A manuscript, typically of papyrus or parchment, that has been written on more than once, with the earlier writing incompletely erased and often legible.
2.An object, place, or area that reflects its history: “Spaniards in the sixteenth century . . . saw an ocean moving south . . . through a palimpsest of bayous and distributary streams in forested paludal basins” (John McPhee).
[Latin palimpsēstum, from Greek palimpsēston, neuter of palimpsēstos, scraped again : palin, again + psēn, to scrape.]