* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Monday, June 2, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Rising stars: Young classical musicians surging on social media – Yahoo

    Meet the Next Generation of Classical Music Sensations Making Waves on Social Media!

    Devin Harjes Dies: ‘Manifest’ & ‘Boardwalk Empire’ Actor Was 41 – WyomingNews.com

    Tragic Loss: Devin Harjes, Star of ‘Manifest’ and ‘Boardwalk Empire,’ Passes Away at 41

    Why Starz Entertainment Stock Soared Today – The Motley Fool

    Unpacking the Surge: What Fueled Starz Entertainment’s Stock Explosion Today!

    Unveiling the Enigmatic: First Looks at Destruction and Puck in ‘The Sandman

    Jackie Chan Reveals This Family Member ‘Never Watched’ The Whole Of Any Of His Movies – Yahoo

    Jackie Chan Reveals This Family Member ‘Never Watched’ The Whole Of Any Of His Movies – Yahoo

    Mavs CEO holds firm on new arena, entertainment district in Dallas – Dallas News

    Mavs CEO Stands Strong on Vision for New Arena and Entertainment District in Dallas

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    ROLAND’S NEW WIRELESS TRIGGER TECHNOLOGY, PORTER & DAVIES ON TOUR, NEW 64 AUDIO ASPIRE UNIVERSAL IEM MODELS, WAVES FREE PLUGIN PACK – Modern Drummer Magazine

    ROLAND’S NEW WIRELESS TRIGGER TECHNOLOGY, PORTER & DAVIES ON TOUR, NEW 64 AUDIO ASPIRE UNIVERSAL IEM MODELS, WAVES FREE PLUGIN PACK – Modern Drummer Magazine

    This giant microwave may change the future of war – MIT Technology Review

    Revolutionizing Warfare: The Impact of a Game-Changing Giant Microwave

    Bajeed Pattan Joins Forbes Technology Council as Innovation Leader – PRWeb

    Bajeed Pattan Takes the Helm as Innovation Leader at Forbes Technology Council!

    Lafayette Regional Technology Council – Tech Leadership That’s Homegrown and Future-Focused – Discover Lafayette

    Lafayette Regional Technology Council – Tech Leadership That’s Homegrown and Future-Focused – Discover Lafayette

    Drone technology demo in Cambria County showcases future of lifesaving medical deliveries – local21news.com

    Revolutionizing Healthcare: Drone Technology Takes Flight for Lifesaving Medical Deliveries in Cambria County

    Revolutionary Harvesting Technology Promises to Slash CAR-T Manufacturing Costs!

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Rising stars: Young classical musicians surging on social media – Yahoo

    Meet the Next Generation of Classical Music Sensations Making Waves on Social Media!

    Devin Harjes Dies: ‘Manifest’ & ‘Boardwalk Empire’ Actor Was 41 – WyomingNews.com

    Tragic Loss: Devin Harjes, Star of ‘Manifest’ and ‘Boardwalk Empire,’ Passes Away at 41

    Why Starz Entertainment Stock Soared Today – The Motley Fool

    Unpacking the Surge: What Fueled Starz Entertainment’s Stock Explosion Today!

    Unveiling the Enigmatic: First Looks at Destruction and Puck in ‘The Sandman

    Jackie Chan Reveals This Family Member ‘Never Watched’ The Whole Of Any Of His Movies – Yahoo

    Jackie Chan Reveals This Family Member ‘Never Watched’ The Whole Of Any Of His Movies – Yahoo

    Mavs CEO holds firm on new arena, entertainment district in Dallas – Dallas News

    Mavs CEO Stands Strong on Vision for New Arena and Entertainment District in Dallas

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    ROLAND’S NEW WIRELESS TRIGGER TECHNOLOGY, PORTER & DAVIES ON TOUR, NEW 64 AUDIO ASPIRE UNIVERSAL IEM MODELS, WAVES FREE PLUGIN PACK – Modern Drummer Magazine

    ROLAND’S NEW WIRELESS TRIGGER TECHNOLOGY, PORTER & DAVIES ON TOUR, NEW 64 AUDIO ASPIRE UNIVERSAL IEM MODELS, WAVES FREE PLUGIN PACK – Modern Drummer Magazine

    This giant microwave may change the future of war – MIT Technology Review

    Revolutionizing Warfare: The Impact of a Game-Changing Giant Microwave

    Bajeed Pattan Joins Forbes Technology Council as Innovation Leader – PRWeb

    Bajeed Pattan Takes the Helm as Innovation Leader at Forbes Technology Council!

    Lafayette Regional Technology Council – Tech Leadership That’s Homegrown and Future-Focused – Discover Lafayette

    Lafayette Regional Technology Council – Tech Leadership That’s Homegrown and Future-Focused – Discover Lafayette

    Drone technology demo in Cambria County showcases future of lifesaving medical deliveries – local21news.com

    Revolutionizing Healthcare: Drone Technology Takes Flight for Lifesaving Medical Deliveries in Cambria County

    Revolutionary Harvesting Technology Promises to Slash CAR-T Manufacturing Costs!

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home Science

DNA from Stone Age chewing gum sheds light on diet, disease in Scandinavia’s ancient hunter-gatherers

January 22, 2024
in Science
DNA from Stone Age chewing gum sheds light on diet, disease in Scandinavia’s ancient hunter-gatherers
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

DNA from Stone Age chewing gum sheds light on diet, disease in Scandinavia's ancient hunter-gatherers

A mold cast of one of the chewed pitch pieces found in the Huseby Klev site. Credit: Verner Alexandersen.

Some 9,700 years ago on an autumn day, a group of people were camping on the west coast of Scandinavia. They were hunter-gatherers that had been fishing, hunting and collecting resources in the area.

Some teenagers, both boys and girls, were chewing resin to produce glue, just after eating trout, deer and hazelnuts. Due to a severe gum infection (periodontitis), one of the teenagers had problems eating the chewy deer-meat, as well as preparing the resin by chewing it.

This snapshot of the Mesolithic period, just before Europeans started farming, comes from analysis of DNA left in the chewed resin that we have conducted, now published in Scientific Reports.

The location is now known as Huseby Klev, situated north of Gothenburg (Göteborg), Sweden. It was excavated by archaeologists in the early 1990s, and yielded some 1,849 flint artifacts and 115 pieces of resin (mastic). The site has been radiocarbon dated to between 10,200 and 9,400 years ago, with one of the pieces of resin dated to 9,700 years ago.

Some of the resin has teeth imprints, indicating that children, actually teenagers, had been chewing them. Masticated lumps, often with imprints of teeth, fingerprints or both, are not uncommon to find in Mesolithic sites.

The pieces of resin we have analyzed were made of birch bark pitch, which is known to have been used as an adhesive substance in stone tool technology from the Middle Paleolithic onward. However, they were also chewed for recreational or medicinal purposes in traditional societies.

A variety of substances with similar properties, such as resins from coniferous trees, natural bitumen, and other plant gums, are known to have been used in analogous ways in many parts of the world.

The power of DNA

In some of the resin, half the DNA extracted was of human origin. This is a lot compared to what we often find in ancient bones and teeth.

It represents some of the oldest human genomes from Scandinavia. It has a particular ancestry profile common among Mesolithic hunter gatherers who once lived there.

Some of the resin contains male human DNA while others have female DNA. We think that teenagers of both sexes were preparing glue for use in tool making, such as attaching a stone axe to a wooden handle.

But what of the other half of the DNA that was of non-human origin? Most of this DNA is from organisms such as bacteria and fungi that have lived in the mastic since it was discarded 9,700 years ago. But some of it was from bacteria living in the human that chewed it, along with material the human had been chewing on before they put the birch bark pitch in their mouths.

Analyzing all this DNA is a demanding task and treads new ground. We had to both adapt existing computing tools and also develop some new analytical strategies. As such, this work has become the starting point for developing a new workflow for this kind of analysis.

This includes mining the DNA using different strategies to characterize it, trying to piece together short DNA fragments into longer ones and using machine learning techniques to work out which DNA fragments belong to pathogens (harmful microorganisms). It also involves comparing the data to what we see in the mouths of modern people with tooth decay (caries) and periodontitis.

Higher organisms

Naturally, we found the kind of bacteria that would be expected in an oral microbiome, the range of naturally occurring microorganisms found in the mouth. We also found traces of bacteria implicated in conditions such as tooth decay or caries (Streptococcus mutans), and systemic diseases such as Hib disease and endocarditis. There were also bacteria that can cause abscesses.

Although these pathogenic microorganisms were present at an elevated frequency, they were not clearly above the level expected for a healthy oral microbiome. There is thus no conclusive evidence that members of the group suffered from diseases these microorganisms are associated with.

What we did find, however, was an abundance of bacteria associated with serious gum disease—periodontitis. When we applied a machine learning strategy (in this case, a technique called Random Forest modeling) we reached the conclusion that the girl who chewed one of the pieces of resin had probably suffered from periodontitis—with more than a 75% probability.

We also found DNA from larger organisms than just bacteria. We found DNA for red deer, brown trout and hazelnuts. This DNA probably came from material the teenagers had been chewing before they put the birch pitch in their mouths.

However, we need to be a little bit cautious because exactly what we find is also dependent on the comparison data that we have. As genomes from eukaryotic organisms—the group that includes plants and animals—are larger and more complex than those from microorganisms, it is more complicated to assemble a eukaryotic genome of high quality.

There are fewer eukaryotic genomes in the samples of resin, and they are of lower quality. This means that our brown trout, for example, may not actually be a brown trout, but we at least feel certain it is from the salmon family.

We also found a lot of fox DNA, but this is harder to interpret. Fox meat may have been a part of the diet, but these teenagers could also have chewed on tendons and fur from foxes for use in textiles. Alternatively, the fox DNA could even be from territorial marking and got into the resin after it was spat out.

However, what we have learned for sure represents a big step in understanding these fascinating records of human culture from the Stone Age. As we analyze more of these, even more surprises could emerge.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.The Conversation

Citation:
DNA from Stone Age chewing gum sheds light on diet, disease in Scandinavia’s ancient hunter-gatherers (2024, January 21)
retrieved 21 January 2024
from https://phys.org/news/2024-01-dna-stone-age-gum-diet.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : Phys.org – https://phys.org/news/2024-01-dna-stone-age-gum-diet.html

Tags: ChewingscienceStone
Previous Post

It’s Squirrel Appreciation Day!

Next Post

James Webb Space Telescope: Finally, the edge of the universe and beyond

Frans and Liu receive outstanding paper in landscape ecology award – Michigan State University

Frans and Liu receive outstanding paper in landscape ecology award – Michigan State University

June 2, 2025
‘Amazing Worlds of Science Fiction and Science Fact’ Review: An Education in Exoplanets – WSJ

Exploring the Fascinating Realms of Science Fiction and Fact: A Journey Through Exoplanets

June 2, 2025
2-Year-Old Prodigy Joins ‘High IQ’ Club Mensa as Youngest Member Ever – ScienceAlert

Meet the 2-Year-Old Prodigy Who Just Became Mensa’s Youngest Member Ever!

June 2, 2025
Labubu Fever Ignites a Global Craze for Lifestyle and Investment – iChongqing

Labubu Fever Ignites a Global Craze for Lifestyle and Investment – iChongqing

June 2, 2025
Erin Hills ‘dominates’ Nelly Korda at U.S. Women’s Open, where she finished second – Golfweek

Nelly Korda Falls Short at U.S. Women’s Open as Erin Hills Takes Center Stage

June 2, 2025
Economy Shrank Less Than Previously Thought in First Quarter – Investopedia

Economy Shrank Less Than Previously Thought in First Quarter – Investopedia

June 2, 2025
Rising stars: Young classical musicians surging on social media – Yahoo

Meet the Next Generation of Classical Music Sensations Making Waves on Social Media!

June 2, 2025
Medicaid work rules could leave a million Californians with no health insurance – CalMatters

California’s Medicaid Work Rules: A Million Residents at Risk of Losing Health Coverage!

June 2, 2025
Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke returns to Houston area for another town hall – Houston Public Media

Beto O’Rourke Makes a Comeback: Join Him for an Engaging Town Hall in Houston!

June 2, 2025
In Indore, Alstom’s advanced metro train and CBTC signalling technology transform urban mobility as revenue service commences – Alstom

Revolutionizing Urban Mobility: Alstom Launches Advanced Metro Train and Cutting-Edge Signalling Technology in Indore

June 2, 2025

Categories

Archives

June 2025
MTWTFSS
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30 
« May    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (659)
  • Economy (673)
  • Entertainment (21,580)
  • General (15,256)
  • Health (9,716)
  • Lifestyle (676)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (675)
  • Politics (682)
  • Science (15,894)
  • Sports (21,178)
  • Technology (15,660)
  • World (661)

Recent News

Frans and Liu receive outstanding paper in landscape ecology award – Michigan State University

Frans and Liu receive outstanding paper in landscape ecology award – Michigan State University

June 2, 2025
‘Amazing Worlds of Science Fiction and Science Fact’ Review: An Education in Exoplanets – WSJ

Exploring the Fascinating Realms of Science Fiction and Fact: A Journey Through Exoplanets

June 2, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version