Archaeology magazine, a publication of the Archaeological Institute of America, has selected the 10 most important archaeological discoveries in 2007, published in its January/February 2008 issue.Travelers have noticed the 13 stone towers rising over Peru's coastal desert since at least the nineteenth century. But researchers only last year discovered the structures' purpose: they make up a sophisticated solar observatory, one of the earliest known in the Americas.
Nebo-Sarsekim Tablet, The British Museum, UK
: Last June, AustrianAssyriologist Michael Jursa was doing what he has done since 1991, poring over the more than 100,000 undeciphered cuneiform tablets in the British Museum.
But while analyzing records from the Babylonian city of Sippar, he made a startling discovery with Biblical implications. It came in the unlikely form of a tablet noting a one-and-a-half pound gold donation to a temple made by an official, or "chief eunuch," Nebo-Sarsekim.
New Dates for Clovis Sites, North America
New radiocarbon dates kept
the controversy over the peopling of the Americas simmering in 2007. An
analysis of dates for the best-documented Clovis sites suggests the
culture arose later and was shorter-lived than once thought, a finding
that some say deals a blow to the "Clovis first" theories that maintain
thebig-game-hunting people were the first immigrants to the New World.
Early Squash Seeds, Peru
New research favors the
idea that agriculture began in the New World shortly after it first
appeared in the Old World. Tom Dillehay of Vanderbilt University has
the squash seeds to prove it.
Ancient Chimpanzee Tool Use
Archaeologists led by Julio
Mercader of the University of Calgary have uncovered the first known
ancient chimpanzee archaeological site, a grouping of stone hammers
that were used by apes 4,300 years ago to smash open nuts. By analyzing
pollen grains embedded in the stones, the team was able to identify
five species of nuts the tools were used to open, four of which are not
eaten by humans.
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Archaeological finds at Bosnian Pyramid site
Mystery Surrounds Leavenworth's Underground City
Hidden Gobi Desert relics found
The Stone Pyramids of Prehistoric Japan
Ancient Rainforest Revealed in Coal Mine
Mysteries of Glastonbury Tor
Gold coin horde found in Jerusalem
4,000-year-old flowers found at grave site
Ancient Mediterranean flood mystery solved
