Using a needle several inches long, a hand surgeon slid wires into Nicholas Toth's and Kathy Schick's forearms and hands.
Then the two began chipping away, shaping simple stone tools the way that human ancestors did for millions of years. Signals began flowing along the wires in an experiment that helped to reveal which muscles are important in making tools.
Volunteering their bodies to figure that out is only one example of how far the husband-and-wife anthropologist team from Indiana University will go in their quest to understand the roots of humanity.
Hat tip to Andie at the Egyptology News Blog
More on toilet archaeology Archaeologists Lift Lids on New Zealand Toilets
Excited archaeologists are sifting through the contents of 150-year-old New Zealand toilets to get a better understanding of the everyday lives of early settlers.
Although there is plenty of oral and written history, there are gaps which can only be answered by lifting the lid on the sanitary habits of pioneering families, they say.
About 30 of New Zealand's leading archeologists arrived in Wellington Thursday to start a five-week project to collect and document information from historic sites along an inner-city bypass route.
Antiquities Market update New hope for NH artifacts
Hundreds of rare artifacts collected by the late archaeologist Howard Sargent have been saved — at least for now — from the auction block.
The objects include tools and arrowheads excavated by Sargent, considered the grandfather of New Hampshire archaeology, from American Indian sites in the Merrimack and Pemigewasset River valleys throughout his career.
This seems good Protected since 1889, Goodman Point Pueblo slated for initial mapping in April
A 142-acre high-desert parcel a dozen miles northwest of Cortez so impressed federal officials in 1889 that they set it aside and made it off-limits to homesteaders.
They gave this protection to the ancient Indian village more than 15 years before the great pueblos of Chaco Canyon and spectacular cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde were so protected.
More sites from Iran 65 Archeological Sites Found in Moghan Plain
65 archaeological site have been found during the recent identification works in Moghan Plain, in Ardabil, Northwest of Iran.
With the first phase of studies by a joint team of foreign and domestic experts reaching completion, some 65 archeological sites were discovered in Moghan Plain of Ardabil.
Moghan Plain, located in the northernmost part of Ardabil Province, is a fertile agricultural area, where previously 6 other archeological sites were found.
According to head of the archeology team, Karim Alizadeh, the studies were based on aerial and satellite pictures provided years ago by Jason Alik Ur from New York State University.
The geographical coordinates of the area have been provided and samples and pictures have been taken, Alizadeh told CHN, adding that their detailed study would certainly take a long time.
Most of the 65 historical sites discovered date back to the Sassanid and Islamic times, yet remains and physical evidence found in 8 of them make them as old as the prehistoric times.
Alizadeh says that what makes these archeological areas really surprising is their compression. The only area with similar number of historical sites congested in such small areas is the Khuzestan Plain, in south parts of Iran, which is dotted with sites dating from prehistoric to Islamic eras.
Odd formatting to that page so we've posted the whole thing.
Lost city. . . .found! Explorers find ancient city in remote Peru jungle
An ancient walled city complex inhabited some 1,300 years ago by a culture later conquered by the Incas has been discovered deep in Peru's Amazon jungle, explorers said on Tuesday.
US and Peruvian explorers uncovered the city, which may have been home to up to 10,000 people, after a month trekking in Peru's northern rain forest and following up on years of investigation about a possible lost metropolis in the region.
The stone city, made up of five citadels at 9,186 feet above sea level, stretches over around 39 square miles and contains walls covered in carvings and figure paintings, exploration leader Sean Savoy told Reuters.
Ramesses on the move World archaeologists help move Ramses Statue to meit Rahina
The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) decided to seek help of world experts to move Ramses II Statue from the Ramses square, downtown Cairo, to a new location in Meit Rahina.
The expertise of the world experts will guarantee secure moving of the statue, said Zhai Hawas, the SCA Secretary General.
Meit Rehina is the village and area where the recumbent statue of R-II along with several other monuments in an open air museum area a few miles south of Cairo.