A half-century after it was built for the forward-looking 1964 New York World’s Fair, the New York State Pavilion in Queens is at once iconic and run-down. The site consists of three parts—the Tent of Tomorrow, three observation towers, and the “Theaterama.” The city has just budgeted millions for restoration work that will change the site forever. A team led by Lori Walters of the University of Central Florida has stepped in and is using 3-D laser scanners to record the structures’ current state. Ninety-six highly detailed laser images will be stitched together to produce a digital replica—and to help preserve past notions of what the future might be like.

Radiocarbon dating of two pairs of trousers discovered in a cemetery in western China has revealed they were made between the thirteenth and tenth centuries B.C., making them the oldest known surviving pants by almost 1,000 years. German Archaeological Institute scholar Mayke Wagner, who led the study, says the dates amazed his team. “In most places on Earth, 3,000-year-old garments are destroyed by microorganisms and chemicals in the soil,” he says. The two people who were buried wearing pants were likely prestigious warriors who functioned like policemen and wore trousers while riding on horseback. “The trousers were part of their uniform and the fact that they were made between 100 and 200 years apart means it was a standard, traditional design,” says Wagner, whose team worked with a fashion designer to re-create the garments. “They are surprisingly good-looking, but they are not particularly comfortable for walking.”

Next time you’re walking down a city sidewalk and see a dog’s paw print in the concrete, remember that, despite the passage of centuries or even millennia, the ancient and modern worlds are not nearly as different as you might think. Archaeologists working at a site called Blackfriars in Leicester, England, have recently found several clay roof and floor tiles with the prints of not only dogs, but also those of a cat and a sheep or goat, who all ran across the tiles as they were drying sometime in the second or third century A.D. While not an especially rare discovery, as such imprints have been unearthed at many Roman sites, “they are always a lovely find as they are such a unique snapshot into the past,” says project archaeologist Nick Daffern. “I think these kinds of finds bring the archaeology to life and give emotional engagement—you can imagine how the person reacted when they found their lovely batch of tiles had been disturbed.”

The animal prints are not the only evidence that the neighborhood’s ancient inhabitants shared many of the same obsessions as modern people. Daffern’s team identified, along with the stone foundation of a sizeable building dating to the second or third century, several phases of earlier, Late Iron Age/early Roman timber construction. According to Daffern, the site presents “an interesting mix” of high-status and utilitarian items. “There is almost a feeling of keeping up with the Joneses here,” he says. “They tried to develop the building from timber origins to a more impressive stone structure, but, for whatever reason, they couldn’t go all the way. The original masonry is very impressive, but some of the repairs and adjustments look botched, and we have even joked that maybe they encountered a Roman credit crunch!”