DNA from Stone Age ‘chewing gum’ tells an incredible story
For the first time, scientists used 5,700-year-old saliva to sequence the complete human genome of an ancient hunter gatherer, as well as the world of microbes that lived inside her.
She lived on an island in the Baltic Sea around 3,700 B.C. She was lactose intolerant and may have suffered from gum disease, and she had recently dined on a meal that included ducks and hazelnuts. Like many ancient European hunter-gatherers, she was likely blue-eyed with dark skin and hair.
What we can’t know about the individual researchers call Lola, however, is how long she lived—or even when or where she died—because all that’s known about Lola comes from DNA captured in a small wad of tree pitch that she chewed on and spat out some 5,700 years ago.
This unique genetic snapshot in history is revealed in a study published today in Nature Communications, marking the first time researchers have
