Thursday, December 19, 2019

Nearly 6000-year-old chewing gum reveals life of ancient girl

Absolutely amazing stuff!

"More than 5700 years ago, a girl spat out a wad of chewing gum at what is now an archaeological site in Denmark. Today, researchers report in Nature Communications that they have sequenced a full genome from that gum, the first time they have extracted so much information from anything other than ancient bones or teeth. Although no human remains have been found at the site of Syltholm, archaeologists found a wad of gum from birch pitch. She left traces of her most recent meal in the gum—she had been chewing hazelnuts and duck. But her oral microbiome also revealed that life could be hard—she had the Epstein-Barr virus and probably had suffered from mononucleosis in her life"

Nearly 6000-year-old chewing gum reveals life of ancient girl | Science | AAAS: Made of birch pitch, the gum was found at an archaeological site in Denmark

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