The ruined city of Pompeii—its residents’ bodies so famously and eerily preserved by the very volcanic ashes that fatally buried them nearly 2,000 years ago—has seen better days. With neither the budget nor the personnel to protect itself against invading hordes of international tourists, the city is at risk of damage, structural collapse, and petty vandalism. Worse, the very ground beneath it might be unstable, leading to a much more dangerous problem down the road.
In the debut issue of a new journal called The Anthropocene Review, University of Leicester geologist Jan Zalasiewicz leads a team of five writers in discussing the gradual fossilization of human artifacts, including industrial machines, everyday objects, and even whole cities. They refer to these as "technofossils," and they’re destined to form a whole new layer of the earth’s surface.
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Roughly ten millennia ago, musicians didn’t lug amps or guitars around to their shows—they lugged lithophones, or instruments made of resonant rocks. The oldest lithophones ever found will be played in their first public concert next week in Paris. Sadly, it’ll also be their last.
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Ancient stone bridges dot the Spanish hills. Some are still in use, and all play a part in defining the region’s landscape and heritage. Now, researchers at Spain’s University of Vigo can examine the inner structures of these bridges without disturbing a single stone, thanks to some incredibly powerful imaging technology.
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A group of USC archaeologists received an unusual request. Their services would be required to dig up several large mammals—but not the Ice Age fossils
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We know that the rocks of Stonehenge were carried there from over 200 miles away
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Rio is currently pouring its energy into building stadiums, housing, and roads to host the World Cup next summer and the Olympics in 2016. But in the process, the city is uncovering relics of its past—including evidence of its one-time reign as the busiest slave port in the Americas.
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This mystery artifact unearthed during a rehabilitation project at New York City Hall had archaeologists puzzled. Was it a spice grinder? Maybe a needle case? Nope. It’s a 19th-century feminine hygiene product: that’s right, a 200-year-old douche.
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You don’t even need a flashlight to look for cave paintings in the dark: you just need the sound of your own voice. By listening to echoes as they walk through Spanish caves, acoustic archaeologists are unlocking the secrets of underground soundscapes.
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You might recall back in September of last year when we mentioned that a time capsule buried in Aspen, Colorado back in 1983 had been discovered. The time capsule was originally supposed to be unearthed in 2000, but no one could find it. The cast and crew from the TV show called Diggers set about trying to locate the time capsule and were successful.
The episode of the show with what has come to be known as the Steve Jobs Time Capsule will air on February 25 on the National Geographic Channel. In case you forgot, the capsule was buried as part of the International Design Conference in 1983. Jobs was on hand at the show and tossed the mouse from his Lisa computer into the capsule.
The people who dug the capsule up say that there was a strong smell of mold inside indicating that some damage likely occurred to the content. The good news is that the Lisa mouse and other items had been sealed in a plastic bag.
I wonder what sort of other items were found inside.
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