Oldest DNA Recovered From 7,000-Year-Old Skeletons In Spain

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers published a paper in the current issue of Current Biology detailing their analysis of DNA from 7,000-year old cavemen in northern Spain. From the article: 'The bones of the two young adult males were found in a cave in the Cantabarian mountain range in 2006 by a handful of explorers, 4,920 feet above sea level. The cold atmosphere is what preserved the DNA in the remains of the two bodies. The cavemen lived during the Mesolithic period and were hunter-gatherers, as determined by an ornament one of the skeletons was holding. They have named the two skeletons Braña1 and Braña2 after the Braña-Arintero site in which they were discovered. They were in near-perfect condition.'"

JP

[kh31d4r]

When are we cloning dinosaurs?

Re:Why ?

[tsa]

Of course we should, just to show we can. We'll worry about other things later.

an ornament?

[C0R1D4N]

Seems to be jumping to a conclusion saying they were hunter gatherers by an ornament one was holding. I mean, they probably were just by the lack of agricultural evidence from that era, but what you are holding when you die hardly indicates the nature of your entire culture.

Re:an ornament?

[arth1]

Seems to be jumping to a conclusion saying they were hunter gatherers by an ornament one was holding. I mean, they probably were just by the lack of agricultural evidence from that era, but what you are holding when you die hardly indicates the nature of your entire culture.

This is the problem I have with mainstream archeology - the jump to conclusions based on scant evidence, often "supported" by jumps to conclusions others have made before, based on even scantier evidence.

There's a round dimple in this wall? Obviously they were sun worshippers! The skeleton's tibia was broken? Obviously this was part of a human sacrifice, because they were sun worshippers!

Re:an ornament?

[ElectricTurtle]

In the first place, you're talking about anthropology, not archaeology. In the second place, that's how science works. If you have a hundred artifacts, you try to find a pattern from them, and then if somebody finds a hundred more that invalidate all or part of the previous hypothesized pattern, so be it. You come up with a new one that fits the available data.

Re:JP

[Anonymous Coward]

Your links are a little dated since as of the most recent, dinosaur soft tissues have been discovered intact. Like T. Rexas blood vessels. See here [smithsonianmag.com]. Granted it was only in 2006, but I was surprised none of the links were more recent.

While this particular discovery didn't provide us with DNA, it does give more hints to the biology of dinosaurs in light of the absense of DNA. Though not equivocal, still very important to our understanding, as some conclusions can be drawn from soft tissue structure.