Gathering round the fossilized lump, the conversation will likely descend into educated speculation ... Certainly it was royalty, perhaps even a demigod, who dined on gem stones fed by faithful commoners seeking favor.

No, it must have been a mine worker, who in its exuberance over discovering a cache of precious nuggets, accidentally inhaled the prize.

Or it could it have been a subject in an ambitious 21st-century alchemy experiment to see if a life form could be used to metabolize priceless jewels.

Of course speculation, even among bright minds, is merely that, so off to the lab the fossil would go, revealing the sparkly bits are, in fact, rhinestones, a segue into new round of speculation.

What will finally tip the balance, however, is the tiny little pink shoe they will discover as they cut deep into the fossil.

Knowing that even among the ancients, the smallest known people would have been too gargantuan to slip even a toe into such a fine slipper, a doll is the natural conclusion, and in linear fashion, a child enters the picture.

Not just a child, mind you, but a child born into a family with means enough to have such things as rhinestones and fancy heel shoes for dolls, and resources enough for a pet dog with access to such playthings.

And thus, the framework of a culture is born.

By the time the research culminates in a display at an anthropological museum, the picture is strikingly close to accurate — a middle-class family in a turn of the century setting, a pig-tailed little girl playing happily on the floor as a small black and white female pup impishly eyes her doll's shoe from the sidelines.

The exact circumstances that led up to the passage of rhinestones into the fossilized matter –when the dog jumped onto the couch and ate a special and particularly glitzy hair bow — will remain a mystery, but future generations will get the big picture.

Yes, you are what you eat, but what few realize is that what you eat is also history and can be grossly valuable in understanding what's passed (couldn't resist).

Some researchers who prefer to work in the here and now, use trained "scat dogs" to sniff out fresh "information" about elusive species. After all, why risk stressing a critter when a well-trained snout can find the smoking gun (or steaming, as the case may be), with minimal fuss.

Excitement over excrement may be hard to stomach, but quite frankly, nothing is quite as rich in information as a diet journal, complete with samples of ingredients otherwise long-gone.

Hardly wasted, from the leavings of ancient humans and animals, scientifically referred to as coprolite, scientists are able understand plant and animal life, inter-species cohabitation, and establish DNA and even viral and microbial profiles.

Ancient dog piles, for instance, create timelines for the relationship between man and beast by being found in close proximity to human waste containing similar ingredients, an indication of shared meals and living arrangements.

The opposite is also true, as in the 2011 discovery of a 9,400 year-old canine bone fragment in fossilized human waste from Texas — showing an invitation to the cook fire didn't pay off for all pups.

And coprolite found in the Paisley Caves of Oregon points to the caves being inhabited by pre-Clovis people, camels, now-extinct horses, dogs and foxes.

So next time you see the hind feet inching towards the front, cross your fingers, hope your pooch didn't eat anything embarrassing and muster a little pride, 'cause he just might be making history.

Sharna Johnson is a writer who is always searching for ponies. You can reach her at: insearchofponies@gmail.com or on the web at: insearchofponies.blogspot.com