When did the earliest archaeological dig take place, what tools were used, and what was found?
   Sarah, 16, Wisconsin

Dr. dig responds:
This is an interesting question, as it depends very much on how we define an archaeological dig. The societies that buried their dead with grave goods were plagued by tomb robbers from earliest times. The robbers would use a considerable amount of cunning to re-excavate the dead, but these are thefts rather than true excavations. Many ancient societies were interested in their immediate past. The Romans, for example, collected Greek and Egyptian antiquities, while the Aztecs studied their Toltec ancestry. King Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon (555-539 b.c.), even excavated an ancient temple. However, if we define a dig as a scientific investigation of the past whose the aim is to record and collect knowledge rather than objects, the first true archaeological dig was probably that conducted by Thomas Jefferson when he cut a section across a burial mound on his Virginia property in 1784. He was able to identify different layers within the mound, and recover many human bones. Jefferson later became president of the United States.