The cataclysmic eruption 74,000 years ago of Sumatra’s Mount Toba caused a volcanic winter and may have nearly annihilated the earth’s human population. The search for evidence of that eruption has contributed potentially groundbreaking advances to archaeological dating. Working at two sites on the coast of South Africa, researchers have discovered a layer containing glass shards from the blast that fell over a two-week period and are invisible to the naked eye. The precise time frame provided by the shards can serve as a control to test methods for dating rock shelters and other sites occupied millennia ago. “We’ve now sampled several other cave sites in South Africa looking for evidence of the Toba eruption,” explains archaeologist and paleoanthropologist Curtis Marean. “If we can find it, we can align those chronologies to a two-week precision—which is unprecedented.” As for the people living there, shell midden and toolmaking evidence suggests they survived, and even grew more productive. Marean says, “Hunter-gatherer economies are resilient because they can switch resources when needed.”

When USS Indianapolis was found last year (“Top 10 Discoveries,” January/February 2018), it laid to rest some of the questions that had always surrounded the location of her sinking. However, the exact number of people aboard Indianapolis when she went down continued to be debated. This uncertainty, too, has now been resolved, with the final correct number established at 1,195, not, as was previously believed, 1,196. While researching the discrepancy, naval historian Richard Hulver found a letter from Radio Technician 2nd Class Clarence W. Donnor’s mother, Ruth, in reply to a telegram informing her that her son had perished. She wrote that she had, in fact, spoken to Clarence since July 30, 1945, the day Indianapolis sank to the bottom of the North Pacific. The letter clarified that although RT2c Donnor had been on Indianapolis in San Francisco where she was docked, within an hour of arriving there, he received new orders to go to officer training in New York and left the day before the vessel departed on her final voyage. “I was somewhat surprised by the file,” says Hulver. “I felt relief for the Donnors that their son escaped being part of that voyage. There was also a sense of gratefulness as a historian that Mrs. Donnor submitted her letter. She finished it with the hope that it would ‘set the record straight,’ and it did—just 73 years later.” The official number of those who died in the attack has also been revised from 880 down to 879 to account for RT2c Donnor.

A sixth-century Lombard warrior buried in northern Italy appears to have worn a prosthetic weapon. A knife and buckle were discovered along with evidence that his forearm had been amputated. The stump was positioned across his chest and researchers identified a callus and bone spurs consistent with pressure from a prosthetic device. Significant wear on his teeth suggests he used them to tighten its straps. According to Ileana Micarelli of the Sapienza University of Rome, the man, possibly a combatant in the A.D. 568 Lombard invasion of Italy, was well cared for following the operation. “The strength of his relationship with the community is at the heart of the surgical intervention’s success,” she says. “And in my opinion, social relations are as important as the level of medical technology.”