An international team of researchers has recovered DNA from the owner of a deer-tooth pendant that was buried inside a remote Siberian cave for tens of thousands of years.
An international team of researchers has recovered DNA from the owner of a deer-tooth pendant that was buried inside a remote Siberian cave for tens of thousands of years.
In research published in Nature, Elena Essel of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and colleagues detail how they developed a new technique to extract DNA left behind on an artefact.
In much the same way police solve crimes using « touch DNA »—DNA recovered from skin cells or trace bodily fluids left behind when somebody touches an object—archaeologists will now be able to recover genetic traces of ancient humans from the artefacts they left behind.
These traces will reveal the biological sex and genetic ancestry of the individual who once held or wore a particular artefact, allowing archaeologists to link genetic and cultural evidence as they attempt to unravel the deep past.
When archaeologists find artefacts such as tools and ornaments at a site, it’s not easy to work out who used them.
Until now, we have had to rely on finding artefacts in « direct association » with buried people. That is, we could only link an individual to an ornament if we found them buried wearing it.
