Can new types of transactions be included the current block chain? I was putting an answer for this question together when I realised my idea would require a new type of transaction to be invented and included in blocks.

Then I wondered how that could work. There are many mining rigs out there which would have no way of validating my transaction type.

Even if some miners do recognise my transaction and even included it in a winning block, all the other miners would not accept that winning block and instead continue mining on the previous block.

What would happen if we wanted to devlop Bitcoin this way? Would we instead have to establish Bitcoin2 with a new block chain?
Miners will accept block with transactions they don't understand, so long as the transactions don't attempt to create Bitcoins out of thin air. They won't include transactions they can't validate in their own mined blocks though.

There is active effort at the top levels of the Bitcoin developers to get new transaction types into the client. M-of-N transactions (transactions that require a set of signatures), for example, are close to obtaining a consensus.