Lola. Just found this absolutely astonishing.

[Michael Weber]

This is simply unbeliveable. A small piece of birch pitch chewed by someone 5700 years ago in Denmark was discovered and DNA extracted. The complete genome was succesfully analyzed. It was the dna of a young girl who lived 5,700 years ago, had blue eyes, dark skin and dark hair. Her last meal included hazelnuts and mallard duck but no milk -- she couldn't stomach dairy.


The pitch acted as a time capsule, storing information about her oral microbiome -- the bacteria that lived in her mouth -- as well. The researchers were able to detect traces of DNA that revealed pathogens, including potential Epstein-Barr virus, one of the most common human viruses that can serve as the gateway to mononucleosis, also known as glandular fever. They also found the signature for pneumonia and she had gum desease.
There is a short CNN.com story about it that contains a link to the publishing journal.

There are some smart and clever folks in the world.

[Bill Jobe]

Very interesting, Michael.
Thanks for posting.

[Jim Becker]

I just read that article on CNN.com about an hour ago. It really is pretty incredible about the amount of information they were able to extract from that ancient "chewing gum", as it were. The part about lactose intolerant was also quite interesting and there was a mention that this was likely before humans started to condition themselves to dairy.

[Frederick Skelly]

Very interesting, Michael.
Thanks for posting.

+1. Thank you!

[Ted Calver]

+1 ^^ Thanks for sharing.

[Jim Koepke]

Another thanks for sharing.

jtk

[Kevin Jenness]

Another aspect of DNA analysis https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/03/business/china-dna-uighurs-xinjiang.html?searchResultPosition=1

[roger wiegand]

The cool stuff that continues to come out is the only thing that makes me sad about retiring from doing this kind of science.

[John K Jordan]

Very interesting. It's amazing what they do with DNA today. Imagine the future.

Reminds me of visiting the Ice Man (Otzi) museum in Italy. The body was so well preserved in the ice (from about 3400 BC) they were able to analyze so much, his diet, dietary deficiencies, the region he came from, his injuries, etc. His tools and clothes were found with/near him. He was found in an area disputed by Italy and Austria but with careful surveying Italy "won."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi

If you go to northern Italy, it's worth visiting the museum in Bolzano. There is actually another smaller Ice Man museum further north, close to the site where he was found. We were fortunate to meet the journalist/author who got to the site early and photographed and wrote about the discovery - he's family of some friends.

JKJ

[Bill Jobe]

I think there was a man found buried in a peat moss bog somewhere in the UK several years ago, also.

[Bill Dufour]

Photo attached below.
Bill D.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/12/nearly-6000-year-old-chewing-gum-reveals-life-ancient-girl

[Prashun Patel]

I share your astonishment. Thanks for sharing. Scientists are incredible.