Ancient Secrets Unveiled: 10,000-Year-Old ‘Chewing Gum’ Reveals Scandinavia’s Oldest Human DNA
The research was published in the journal Communications Biology and emphasizes the regional scarcity of human bones from the Stone Age. The bones that have been found contain only poorly preserved DNA and has consequently left the scientific community with a notable void. It may have taken science a few decades to catch up, but the excavated item — found at a site called Huseby Klev on the west coast — has finally become an informative source of data.
“Much of our history is visible in the DNA we carry with us, so we try to look for DNA where ever we believe we can find it,” said Anders Götherström, who works in the Archaeological Research Laboratory at Stockholm University.
This early form of gum is now officially the oldest human DNA ever sequenced from this part of the world, but masticated birch bark itself was actually not a shocking find as Stone Age peoples commonly used its tar as glue to build tools.
Per Persson/Stockholm UniversityThough the gum was excavated at Huseby Klev decades ago, science had to catch up to properly analyze it for DNA.
As such, discovering this in an early Mesolithic hunting and fishing site wasn’t abnormal.
For the first time since its unearthing, however, scientists are able to make informed deductions from the item. These span across food, disease, and social habits of the region during that time. Indeed, researchers have even now revealed that the DNA on the bark belonged to two females and one male.
“When Per Persson and Mikael Maininen proposed to look for hunter-gatherer DNA in these chewing gums from Huseby Klev we were hesitant, but really impressed that archaeologists took care during the excavations and preserved such fragile material,” said Natalija Kashuba of the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo.
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