Top tens.

* Ten best books of the year.

* Ten best archeology finds of 2008.

* Ten sci-fi films that should never be remade, and five that probably should be.

* National Geographic's top ten most viewed photos of 2008.

Jim Rugg's "Stoned Ape Theory" from Backwards City #1 seemingly confirmed by archeologists working in the Caribbean.

Stonehenge! Where the demons dwell, where the banshees live and they do live well. Stonehenge! Where a man is a man and the children dance to the pipes of Pan...

Researcher Tudor Parfitt thinks he has traced the Ark of the Covenant to the bottom shelf of a museum in Harare, Zimbabwe.

There, amidst nesting mice, was an old drum with an uncharacteristic burnt-black bottom hole ("As if it had been used like a cannon," Parfitt notes), the remains of carrying rings on its corners; and a raised relief of crossed reeds that Parfitt thinks reflects an Old Testament detail. "I felt a shiver go down my spine," he writes.

The ngoma is an artifact of the Lemba—who according to genetic markers appear to be correct in their belief that they are one of the lost tribes of Israel—and is said to have been built out of the ruins of the original Ark.

The top ten archeological discoveries in 2007, including one that will undoubtedly be of crucial importance for culturemonkey in the new year: chimpanzee use of tools is several thousand years old and may predate the human species entirely. Also via MetaFilter.

(Don't forget, culturemonkey returns with a new mission statement and a new blogger on Jan. 2...)