Armadillos play havoc with archaeological sites. The mischievous creatures rearrange artefacts as they dig their burrows, making it tricky for archaeologists to date pieces from the strata of soil in which they turn up.
To quantify the effect, Astolfo Mello Araujo from the University of São Paulo in Brazil placed a yellow armadillo in a mock-up of an archaeological site on display at a Brazilian zoo. The animal managed to bury some bits of ceramics in an extra 60 centimetres of soil, and raised others through the earth by a similar distance (Geoarchaeology, vol 18, p 433). The…
