A publication of the Archaeological Institute of America Top 10
Discoveries of 2009 Volume 63 Number 1, January/February 2010
ARCHAEOLOGY's annual list of the year's most exciting
discoveries--from North America's earliest canals to evidence
for chemical warfare at a Roman outpost in Syria--highlights
sites, artifacts, and scientific studies we feel most enrich our
knowledge of the past. Archaeology is an incremental science,
and "eureka" moments are rare. Often the most significant
advances result from many years of research. For instance, we
feature the work of archaeologists who have dug for four decades
at a second-century B.C. Greek city in southern Russia. They
were only recently able to identify a large structure at the
site as the palace of King Mithradates VI, a legendary foe of
Rome. Two elite tombs excavated this year are on the list, one
belonging to a Moche lord in Peru and the other to a family of
Iron Age priestesses on Crete. Meanwhile, graves of exotic
animals now emerging at the Predynastic