Soldier Ant 

Miss Wurzel Todd describes the catacombe dei cappuccini:

Today more than eight thousand mummified bodies line the walls of the Catacombe dei Cappuccini in Palermo in one of the most macabre human "libraries" in the world.

The halls of the catacombs are divided into categories: Men, Women, Virgins, Children, Priests, Monks, and Professors (incl. the corpse of the famous painter Velasquez). The corpses are dressed in fine fabrics and occupy their own individual niches according to their social status.

Kottke points to this Beeb article on a (possibly) extinct race of 1m tall people, who used tools and must've mastered sea travel at some point. Most intriguing is the possibility that they're still around today:

The myths say Ebu Gogo were alive when Dutch explorers arrived a few hundred years ago and the very last legend featuring the mythical creatures dates to 100 years ago.

But Henry Gee, senior editor at Nature magazine, goes further. He speculates that species like H.floresiensis might still exist, somewhere in the unexplored tropical forest of Indonesia.

Here's a nice little timeline of the evolution of mapping:

Evidence of mapmaking suggests that the map evolved independently in many separate parts of earth. Marshall Islanders made stick charts for navigation. Pre-Columbian maps in Mexico used footprints to represent roads. Early Eskimos carved ivory coastal maps. Incas built relief maps of stone and clay. Chinese literature contains references to maps as early as 7th century B.C.