ROME—Shedding new light on the demise of the long-extinct sovereignty, archeologists from Princeton University announced Wednesday that they had located the impact crater made by the asteroid that destroyed the Roman Empire. “This astonishing find helps us understand what really occurred during the final days of the great epoch when Romans ruled the Earth,” said lead researcher Alicia Shelangoski, confirming that the date of the impact coincided with the end of the Empire and should put to rest longstanding theories attributing Romans’ demise to volcanic activity near Pompeii or global temperatures becoming too low for Mediterranean citizens to survive. “Based on the size and location of the crater, we believe that the projectile originally collided with the Forum, effectively obliterating the seat of Roman power, then ricocheted off against several key roads and aqueducts before finally making ground on the shores of the Tiber. It happened so quickly that these once-mighty emperors and patricians likely never saw it coming.” At press time, Shelangoski admitted that some scientists continued to theorize that Romans who were able to adapt to the new political climate had actually spread and flourished throughout Byzantium.