2006 Top 10 Discoveries

Five of the Top 10 Discoveries of 2006 named by magazine Archaeology in the January/February 2007 issue are epigraphic in nature.

Number 3, though experts disagree, Olmec Script found on the Cascajal stone block may be the oldest example of writing in the New World.
Number 5, Peru's Temple of the Fox and Number 10, Brazilian Stonehenge, are ancient astronomical markers.
Number 6, China's "Guest Worker" and Number 9, Scythian Mummy, show contact between central Asia and China between 250 and 500 B.C.

Rare Hopewell Painted Pottery Chards Two of 1,100 pottery chards recovered last summer at Ohio's Fort Ancient had a black painted stripe, the Ohio Historical Society announced. "This is a very unusual find," said Dr Robert Riordan, leader of the Wright State University Field School investigating the recently discovered 200-ft-diameter circle at the Park where the chards were found.
  
First Europeans From Russia? Discover magazine reports human carved artifacts recovered 250 miles south of Moscow were dated to 40,000 years ago from identification of the surrounding ash as being from an eruption in southern Italy. This predates any human-associated artifacts found in Eastern Europe.