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Science Technology

DNA From 'Chewing Gum' Provides Clues To Life 5,700 Years Ago (cnn.com) 34

Posted by BeauHD from the land-before-time dept.
New submitter RG-man writes: DNA obtained from birch pitch used as a type of ancient chewing gum has revealed significant insights into the life of a young girl who lived 5,700 years ago. CNN reports: "...[Lola] chewed on birch pitch, a material that functioned a bit like an ancient chewing gum. A study of that birch pitch has uncovered the girl's entire genome and oral microbiome, marking the first time human genetic material has successfully been extracted from something besides human bones. The study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

By extracting DNA from the birch pitch, the researchers learned that it had been chewed by a female genetically closely related to hunter-gatherers from the European mainland, rather than those in central Scandinavia. Specific genes told them about her hair, skin and eye color, similar to that of other European hunter-gatherers. 'What is more, we also retrieved DNA from oral microbes and several important human pathogens, which makes this a very valuable source of ancient DNA, especially for time periods where we have no human remains,' said Hannes Schroeder, study author and associate professor from the Globe Institute at the University of Copenhagen. Plant and animal DNA trapped in the pitch also revealed that she had eaten hazelnuts and duck, likely staples of her diet."
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DNA From 'Chewing Gum' Provides Clues To Life 5,700 Years Ago More

DNA From 'Chewing Gum' Provides Clues To Life 5,700 Years Ago

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  • Science can be awesome (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Livius ( 318358 ) on Tuesday December 17, 2019 @08:37PM (#59530658)

    This is the most awesome thing I've heard in months, maybe years.

    • Re:Science can be awesome (Score:5, Informative)

      by Humbubba ( 2443838 ) on Tuesday December 17, 2019 @09:43PM (#59530790)
      Awesome science, indeed. Those ancients were pretty smart. Birch wood contains Xylitol, a naturally occurring alcohol, energy booster and sweetener that has medicinal properties. It helps prevent tooth decay, dry mouth; ear infections, sinus problems, and is somewhat antibacterial.
      https://www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-996/xylitol [webmd.com]

      • Ancestors with a genetic predisposition for healthy things, like birch gum, and fruit & vegetables, would've had an evolutionary advantage. Even alcohol is an advantaged consumption in certain instances... for me, people become 25% more interesting when I'm sucking on a whiskey.

        • Modern History TV (on YouTube, great channel btw, highly recommended) explained it quite well: If you were poor, "beer" was your best bet at stayong healthy. It was usually from a good source of water, and the brewing kinda disinfected it.
          I also put "beer" in quotes, because it was nothing like the beer we know today. It was more like a oat malt beer, naturally fermented from the air, with very little alcohol (probably around 1-2%), and no hops. Maybe with some local antibacterial/bitter herbs added. (Think

          • If you were poor, "beer" was your best bet at stay{i}ng healthy. It was usually from a good source of water, and the brewing kinda disinfected it.

            That's what *our* ancestors used as a strategy and as such they were strongly selected for their genetic ability to "deal" with that "disinfectant" (have better alcohol-dehydrogenase and aldehyde-dehydrogenase).

            At the same time, on the other side of the planet, you got poor who instead bet on *boiling* the water to disinfect it and throw in some herbs (partially also for the herbs' medicinal properties).
            That's why vast part of modern humans drink tea and/or coffee.
            That's also why large parts of Asia have de

      • Oh yeah, so smart. I doubt they even had Facebook or the Internets.

      • Awesome science, indeed. Those ancients were pretty smart. Birch wood contains Xylitol, a naturally occurring alcohol, energy booster and sweetener that has medicinal properties.

        That's what you got from this?

        She was eating duck and hazelnuts! FFS, that's too fancy for me [vindulge.com], and I'm a bit of a food snob.

        A bit of red wine, a hammock, some warm river stones for a massage, and she's the envy of the modern world.

        • Duck certainly wasn't fancy back then. Poor people food, like salmon and lobster, most likely.

          Rich people, if there were any there at thet time, ate the whitest bread and most sugary pure things they could, with too much of the rarest spices (like sugar) they could get. They were the most likely to get sick. :)

          Ok, maybe millennia later, but I doubt it was much different back then. If someone can afford a privilege, what do they care if it is healthy? Gotta brag do die tryin'! :)

        • That's what you got from this? She was eating duck and hazelnuts! FFS, that's too fancy for me... and I'm a bit of a food snob. A bit of red wine, a hammock, some warm river stones for a massage, and she's the envy of the modern world.

          You're right, of course. Know-it-all I'm not. I even left out where the article said that birch wood contains Betulin.
          BTW, if she was having Foie Gras with toasted hazelnut, well, she'd definitely would have been out of my league. As for getting a buzz on, a hot stone massage, then kicking back in a hammock, sure, why not? They were just as smart as we are now, and as hunter-gatherers, they had far more leisure time. Hummmmm. Maybe they were smarter.

      • Those ancients were pretty smart. Birch wood contains Xylitol, a naturally occurring alcohol, energy booster and sweetener that has medicinal properties.

        . . . and in another 5,700 years, future DNA archeologists will be examining teen DNA from discarded vapers, and saying what dumbasses we were back now.

    • "This is the most awesome thing I've heard in months, maybe years."

      Indeed.

      I met her in a club down in old Soho
      Where you drink champagne and it tastes just like
      Coca Cola
      C-O-L-A Cola
      She walked up to me and she asked me to dance
      I asked her her name and in a dark brown voice she said, "Lola"
      L-O-L-A Lola, lo lo lo lo Lola

  • Duck and Hazelnuts (Score:3, Funny)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Tuesday December 17, 2019 @08:56PM (#59530704)
    That actually sounds pretty good. I need to get that recipe.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by jwymanm ( 627857 )
      There is a lady on youtube that does reviews of ancient / lost recipes but nothing 5700 years hah. Sounds like a good cookbook idea. Or maybe a horrible one.

    • Add a couple of local berries and grains. All crushed a bit with an egg and some local herbs, and maybe if you had it, some fermented drink too.

      Serve with honey-roasted root vegetables or broad beans braised in animal fat, and you'd have a realistic primitive meal, I think.

      • bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

      • that would be very hard to cook over an OPEN FIRE ;)

        Stuffing the duck would make the insides cook more slowly.
        Maybe if you had some kind of stone oven , but I don't think they were normal for hunter gathers.
        Most likely duck roasted on a spit or kabob. Hazelnuts raw. Not sure if they could make a stew or a soup either,

        Remember, no iron tools , no pots or pans,no silverware to eat with, no foil, Might wrap in big leaves,
        open fire and stones. You need to be able to rebuild it every couple of months.

        • Hot stone cooking.
          Earth oven.
          Approximation of "brick piles" but out of stones (or even carved stones. We're speaking about *paleolithic* after all).
          Bamboo-stick steaming (though not in this case in Scandinavia)
          Wrapper in leaves and put in host ashes/embers.

          (and I'm probably missing lots of them)

          And all of them can be easily assembled and dismantled. And either easy to transport or easy to source local material.
          (So suitable for a nomadic pack of hunter-gatherers)

  • Little has changed (Score:5, Funny)

    by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Tuesday December 17, 2019 @10:47PM (#59530924)
    The summary neglects to mention that the birch pitch was found wadded up beneath what is believed to be a primitive type of school desk showing that our ancestors have a surprising amount in common with the youth of today.

  • That is not far from the pyramids time. There likely were already high cultures during that time.
    Probably not in Europe, though, but TFS makes it look like this was closer to caveman times. Which it most certainly wasn't.

    • Civilisation progress isn't 100% perfectly homogenous accross the whole planet (even more so in an old per-global-communication era).

      Yes there were civilization in Egypt and Summer.
      But in Scandinavia that wasn't the case yet in Lola's hunger-gatherer pack/tribe - they weren't that much advanced.

      (Even nowadays there are a few "uncontacted tribes" that are happy at hunger-gatherer level).

    • Most Native Americans were were still stone age hunter gathers until Europeans came. Some tribes in the Amazon still are. The date doesn't determine the technology. Europe was populated in three distinct genetic waves. The original hunter-gathers, which this person was part of, the early European farmers, and finally the Indo-European steppe herders. These groups didn't move everywhere at once, they slowly expanded. So the Scandinavia area was late, and didn't reach bronze age level until about 1700 BCE.

  • Did it lose its flavor on the bedpost over 5,700 years? That's the REAL question. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

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