Fish traps, which go by an astounding array of terms, are at least 8,000 years old, and were invented by complex hunter-gatherers all over the world.

Archaeological examples are found in Australia, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, and range in size from simple brush enclosures to massive stone built complexes to move fish just where we want them to go.

Read more about the latest information on fish traps and archaeology

A couple of articles published in the last month or so have continued the debate as to the earliest domestication of the dog.

The oldest dog-like characteristics on what some scholars are now calling "European Paleodogs" is still from Goyet Cave in Belgium, but the two new articles are supporting evidence that the transition from wolf to dog was in Europe or Eurasia about 35,000 years ago. Calling this "domestication" is problematic, which is after all what archaeology is all about anyway.

• Read more about the latest findings on dog domestication

Germonpré M, Láznicková-Galetová M, and Sablin MV. 2012. Palaeolithic dog skulls at the Gravettian Predmostí site, the Czech Republic. Journal of Archaeological Science 39(1):184-202.

Ovodov ND, Crockford SJ, Kuzmin YV, Higham TFG, Hodgins GWL, and van der Plicht J. 2011. A 33,000-Year-Old Incipient Dog from the Altai Mountains of Siberia: Evidence of the Earliest Domestication Disrupted by the Last Glacial Maximum. PLoS ONE 6(7):e22821. Open Access

Mongooses (Herpestes spp) are kind of like cats, in that they really never became what you could call domesticated, but they do make great pets. Like cats, they also make for an interesting story on their quasi-domestication, nonetheless.

Native to Africa and Asia, the Egyptian mongoose was brought to southwestern Iberia in the 7th century AD, when the Umayyad dynasty of the Islamic civilization conquered what is today the Andalusian region of Portugal and Spain. In the process, the Umayyads and their successors unarguably established a terrifically blended culture in the form of art, music, food and architecture. According to recent research published in the Journal of Archaeological Science last month, they also brought with them their pet mongooses.

• Mongoose History
• Islamic Civilization

Butrint, on the coast of Albania across from the island of Corfu, is an astonishing blend of architecture. Founded in the 6th century BC, the strategically important port was owned by Greeks, Romans, Normans, Venetians, Byzantines and Ottomans, all of whom left their imprint on the city's architecture.

The astounding architectural variety of Butrint's ruins (second only to Constantinople in Turkey) owes a lot to its location on a promontory jutting into the Mediterranean. There it played crucial roles in battles for trade supremacy by both the Roman Caesar Augustus and the Ottoman Pasha of Ioannina, some 18 centuries later. But really, you should read all about it...

• Butrint, Albania, my summary of the history and recent archaeological research there
• Explore Butrint, the official webpage