One man’s fossilized excrement is another man’s treasure. Specifically, scientists studying the health and diets of ancient populations. Sanitation facilities date back to the third millennium BC, when primitive toilets were used only…
One man’s fossilized excrement is another man’s treasure.
Specifically, scientists studying the health and diets of ancient populations.
Sanitation facilities date back to the third millennium BC, when primitive toilets were used only by the affluent classes; everyone else had to squat over pits in the ground.
Such healthful living, it’s safe to assume, left most people with an intestinal parasite or two. Which, before the advent of modern medicine, must have made for some very unpleasant daily ablutions.
But it also means a goldmine of information for folks like veterinary scientist Martin Søe and his colleagues at the University of Copenhagen and Aarhus University.
As described by a new study published in the journal PLOS One, the Danish researchers unearthed centuries-old latrines and sequenced the DNA found in the primordial poop.
Most samples, according to NPR, came from the early 11th century to the 18th century in northern Europe—present-day Denmark, Netherlands, and Lithuania.
The oldest, most decomposed samples look like “high organic soil you might find anywhere,” Søe told the news service. More recent specimens—only 400 years old—are more easily recognized as human feces.
“Some of it even smells a little,” he said.
After filtering and sequencing their collection, the team was able to identify plants, animals, and parasites by comparing their results to a database of known genomes.
From there, Søe can make a pretty educated guess about what people were eating based on the sycophants in their stool.
Danish privies, for instance, revealed tapeworm eggs contracted specifically from eating raw or undercooked pork or fish; the lack of beef tapeworms suggests cow meat was more thoroughly prepared.
Søe also found DNA of fin whales from the Viking age: “So they were hunting or maybe collecting the whale meat,” he added.
Humans weren’t the only ones suffering: DNA from sheep, horses, dogs, pigs, and rodents show that other colonial species got diarrhea, too.
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