Its a shot in the dark to say the least but I figure there has got to be someone out there that has read this story and remember the title.
The short story was from a collection we were made to read in high school about 7 years back. (I did say it was a long shot)
It was a sci-fi story about a team of archeologists on an alien planet excavating some ancient alien ruins. Among the ruins were some ape like animals that the workers are hunting for sport. They surmise that the creatures are some sort of de evolved version of the ruins creators but carry on all the same.
Anyway, after reading on a bit one of the team stops the rest of them killing the creatures justifying it along the lines of them being an endangered species. Soon after it turns out those creatures are infact intelligent and have been watching them since they landed.
The creatures divulge to the archeologists that the ruins aren’t in fact made by them, they are in fact made by humans. That Humans were all but wiped out in a vast interstellar war thousands of years prior. That Humans are finally starting to expand out to the stars again and it is in fact humans that are the endangered species.
This ring a bell with anyone? I've been trying to find it for a while now, however any searches I do turn up nothing but articles on various endangered species around the world.
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