It seems that while there is nothing new under the sun, there’s a lot of new stuff in bogs. New-ish stuff. New-to-me-and-you stuff.
Sometimes it’s just horse shit.
But sometimes it’s special. Special horse shit. That, apparently, is a thing.
You see, some folks dug up some old shit and decided they know who put it there.
In a study published Monday in the journal Archaeometry, researchers argue that new evidence in the form of some very old poop might hold the key to solving this mystery once and for all.
Yup! Using ancient horse shit, scientists are pretty sure they’ve figured out Hannibal’s route over the Alps.
They say that microbial evidence suggests a “mass animal deposition” (a.k.a. poop) occurred in the Col de Traversette pass in 218 B.C. — just when Hannibal was making his journey to Rome. By digging around in a peaty bog along the pass, the researchers found what they think are microbes usually associated with horse manure.
“Over 70% of the microbes in horse dung are from a group known as Clostridia and we found these microbes in very high numbers in the bed of excrement,” study author of Queens University wrote in an article for the Conversation.
Now, you might ask, where are those legendary elephants? I don’t know.
Here’s what they say:
Horses trudging through the Alps are suspicious, but solid evidence of elephants in their company might close this case for good. Until then, Allen and his colleagues will have to keep probing the poop and surrounding areas for more clues.
There are also reports of horsey tape worms. But I do believe that that is a subject for another fake medical expert’s blog. It’s bad enough that I did two poop posts in a row. This is becoming a pattern.
Oh, and I personally have experience with horse poop of the European variety. See: https://fiftyfourandahalf.com/2012/05/24/me-and-julie/
Sometimes, a woman just has to accept her fate. Shitty though it may be.