Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.


Did It Keep Its Flavor? Stone-Age 'Chewing-Gum' Yields Human DNA

Agence France-Presse

   PARIS - Danish scientists have managed to extract a complete DNA sample
   from a piece of birch pitch more than 5,000 years old, used as a kind
   of chewing gum, a study revealed Tuesday.

   The Stone-Age sample yielded enough information to determine the
   source's sex, what she had last eaten and the germs in her mouth. It
   also told them she probably had dark hair, dark skin and blue eyes.

   And genetically, she was more closely related to hunter-gatherers from
   the mainland Europe than to those living in central Scandinavia at the
   time, they concluded.

   "It is the first time that an entire ancient human genome has been
   extracted from anything other than human bones," Hannes Schroeder of
   the University of Copenhagen, told AFP.

   Schroeder is co-author of the study, which was published in the review
   Nature Communications.

   They found the sample during an archaeological dig at Syltholm, in
   southern Denmark, said Tehis Jensen, one of the other authors.

   "Syltholm is completely unique," he said.

   "Almost everything is sealed in mud, which means that the preservation
   of organic remains is absolutely phenomenal."

   The researchers also recovered traces of plant and animal DNA -
   hazelnut and duck - confirming what archaeologists already know about
   the people who lived there at the time.

   But they were not sure why their subject chose to chew the bark:
   whether to turn it into a kind of glue, to clean her teeth, to stave
   off hunger - or simply as chewing gum.