Using a non-invasive technique, scientists have been able to obtain the DNA information of the owner of a 25,000-year-old pendant. This is the first time that researchers have succeeded in extracting human DNA from a stone age object and they have used an interesting method to do this.
According to CNN, in the past, extracting DNA information from ancient objects was associated with damage to that object. For this reason, many archaeologists were not willing to give these objects to DNA testing laboratories. Now scientists have been able to use a new technique from one deer teeth which has been used as a pendant, get DNA information.
This pendant was obtained from a cave in southern Siberia and apparently around 19 to 25 thousand years ago It was used by a woman in the Stone Age. He belonged to a group of North Eurasian ancients who are genetically related to the first Americans. A new DNA extraction method may help scientists learn more about the gender and characteristics of Stone Age people.
Discovering DNA information from this pendant can be the beginning of a new path
“It’s amazing,” says Marie Sorcy, a professor and member of the Human Origins Research Board at the Faculty of Archeology of Leiden University in the Netherlands. This means we can get answers to very simple questions like what were the roles of women and men at a certain historical moment.” This technique can also be used to determine whether Neanderthals or the ancestors of Homo sapiens used a particular tool.
In the past, scientists used a small drill to make a hole in objects or bones to extract their DNA. But in this new technique, this pendant is inside a material consisting of Sodium phosphate Was placed. Then its temperature was gradually increased so that the DNA enters the solution and then it can be separated.
The researchers say that this method simulates a washing machine-like operation where the washing water is valuable to us. Of course, this research is still at the level of a proof-of-concept experiment and it is not clear to what extent it can be used to extract human DNA from other bone objects and tools.
The results of the current research have been published in the journal Nature.
