You Never Know What You'll Find Digging in Dirt

It has been a busy couple of weeks in the historical dirt industry, aka "archaeology." Some of these newly announced discoveries offer startling new evidence that could upset several very traditional narratives (for instance, see my link last week to the Homo erectus discoveries in Central Asia), while others are just interesting and cool and provide further data for historians and other social scientists to pour over excitedly. Here's a brief round-up of those most interesting to me:

• "Fossil Ardi reveals the first steps of the human race": Researchers working in Ethiopia have announced a potential new candidate to replace "Lucy," the most famous Australopithecine fossil ever discovered, for the oldest human ancestor fossil. Dubbed "Ardi," this new species (Ardipithicus ramidus) dates to roughly 4.4 million years ago and provides evidence of the earliest human ancestor to walk upright on two legs found thus far.

• "Rome archaeologists find 'Nero's party piece' in dig": The Roman emperor Nero was a particularly strange fellow that historically has a reputation for his tyranny, his love of public performance (e.g. singing and 'fiddling'), and his extravagance. Well, Roman archaeologists, working on his grand palace -- the Domus Aurea -- have uncovered what they believe is his rotating dining room, a round room 50+ feet in diameter that supposedly rotated "night and day, in imitation of the motion of the celestial bodies." I believe EPCOT used to have a restaurant that did that as well.
  

• "5,000-year-old Venus figure found in Çanakkale": File this one in the purely interesting column. An archaeological dig near Çanakkale, Turkey (which is close to the site of the ancient city of Troy), led by a German professor at the University of Tübingen, has uncovered a 5,000 year old Venus figurine, often used as a fertility symbol in the early Bronze Age and previous periods. Just think, students, you too could be digging up treasures like this; although I do not believe archaeologists carry whips anymore.

• "Dig along upper Hudson opens window to NY fort": Some times the opportunity for new archaeological discoveries comes from the "forward march of progress." Case in point, while dredging the Hudson River in upstate New York for PCB-contaminated sediment, environmental clean-up crews discovered timbers from the original Fort Edward, built by the British in the 18th century to project the southern approaches toward Albany from French attacks. This has given archaeologists a chance to learn more about "how military engineers built large fortifications in a wilderness where resources were few and soldiers were the only source of labor."

What sort of interesting discoveries have popped up on your radar this week?