A deer tusk necklace found in Denisova Cave contained both animal and human DNA. This was reported by the Max Planck Society’s Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Denisova Cave is located in the Altai Territory of Russia. He gained fame after discovering the remains of the Denisovans, a new species of ancient people in it. At the same time, on the territory of this paleontological monument it was possible to find traces of life of ancient people from other periods, including the Late Paleolithic period (about 20,000 years ago).
Elena Essel and colleagues afflicted Genomic analysis of an ancient pendant in this cave discovered by Russian scientists in 2019. It is a deer tooth with a drilled hole. German scientists isolated not only the animal’s own DNA, namely the red deer, but also a large amount of DNA from an ancient human. “The amount of human DNA we extracted from the necklace was extraordinary,” says Elena Essel, “almost as if we had taken a sample of a human tooth.”
Based on the analysis of mitochondrial DNA, a small piece of the genome that is passed on only from mother to child, the researchers concluded that the human genomic material belongs to an individual. Genetic analysis put the necklace at 19,000-25,000 years old.
The authors also recovered a significant portion of the human owner’s nuclear genome. They determined that the necklace was worn by a woman based on her X chromosome number. We also managed to find that this woman is genetically closely related to the contemporary population of eastern Siberia.
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