Scientists Sequence Human Genome Stuck On 5,700 Years Old “Chewing Gum” Artistic reconstruction of Lola. What a 5,700-Year-Old Wad of Chewed Gum Reveals About Ancient People and Their Bacteria Scientists dig into the diet, health and history of Danish hunter-gatherers in a … DNA of 5700-year-old chewing gum recreates photo of woman who chewed it Researchers have different theories about the use of this "chewing gum" including its use as glue to make tools, to help in toothaches, to suppress hunger, or just for no specific purpose like today. 5,700-year-old 'Chewing Gum' Helps Recreate Image of Its Consumer. Birch pitch is a black-brown substance obtained by heating birch bark and has been used as an adhesive and hafting agent as far back as the Middle Pleistocene. “The fact that she was more closely related genetically to people from Belgium and Spain than to people from Sweden, which is just a few hundred kilometers farther north, tells us something about how southern Scandinavia was first populated,” Schroeder says. Scientists suspect several reasons why people would have chewed it: to make it malleable once again after it cooled, to ease toothaches because it’s mildly antiseptic, to clean teeth, to ease hunger pains, or simply because they enjoyed it. 5,700 year old 'chewing gum' reveals entire genetic code of stone age woman Save 'Lola' had dark hair and blue eyes and recently ate a meal of duck … When hunter-gatherers living in what is now southern Denmark broke down pieces of birch bark into sticky, black tar about 5,700 years ago, they almost certainly didn’t realize that they were leaving future scientists their entire DNA. During excavations on Lolland, archaeologists have found a 5,700-year-old ty Carbon dating showed the gum to be about 5,700 years old, meaning the chewer lived around when humans stopped hunting and gathering and started farming and domesticating animals. Get the best of Smithsonian magazine by email. So all these other ancient [European] genomes that we know about, like La Braña in Spain, they all have this combination of physical traits that of course today in Europe is not so common. What a 5,700-Year-Old Piece of Gum Reveals About Its Chewer From a wad of pitch less than an inch long, researchers have painted a detailed portrait of … Researchers from the University of Copenhagen have succeeded in extracting a complete human genome from a thousands-of-years old “chewing gum”. Researchers uncovered the wad of gum last year from the site of the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link tunnel. Ancient “Chewing Gum” Reveals a 5,700-Year-Old Microbiome. The entire genome of a female human who lived in Denmark 5,700 years ago was mapped from a piece of birch pitch that she chewed. By analysing the 5,700 old chewed wad of pitch from Denmark, the team of researcher obtained the genome of an ancient human. Chewing on birch pitch would have made it pliable again for using on tools. Scientists Reconstruct Entire Genome of a Woman From Her 5,700-Year-Old Chewing Gum Additional archaeological work has shown that the era was one of transition. From the DNA, researchers can start to piece together some of the ancient woman’s physical traits and make some inferences about the world she lived in. They have been noted in reconstructions of a 10,000-year-old British skeleton called the Cheddar Man, as well as other European hunter-gatherers. By IANS 19 December 2019 TWC India This image is an artistic reconstruction of the woman who chewed the birch pitch. Scientists found that the person who chewed the gum … Stone Age “Chewing Gum” Yields 5,700-year-old Human Genome and Oral Microbiome Thousands of years ago in what is now Denmark a young Neolithic woman chewed Thousands of years ago in what is now Denmark a young Neolithic woman chewed on a birch pitch.DNA analysis of this prehistoric "chewing gum" has now revealed, in remarkable detail, … 5,700-year-old 'Chewing Gum' Helps Recreate Image of Its Consumer Danish scientists have managed to extract a complete human 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. Excavations began at the site in 2012 in preparation for the construction of a tunnel, affording the Museum Lolland-Falster a unique chance for archaeological field work. 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