'Chewing Gum' of 5,700-year old helps recreate image of its consumer

For the first time, researchers have extracted a sample of an ancient human genome without using bones. The genome was extracted from a "chewing gum" found during the archaeological excavations at Syltholm in southern Denmark. The gum is believed to be 5,700-years-old. The find is important because this is the first time researchers have extracted an ancient human genome from a sample other than bones. Now a new fresh news has been revealed about the gender and personality of the person who chewed the gum. Her discoverers named her Lola, perhaps in honour of the eponymous Kinks song: “I asked her her name and in a dark brown voice she said, ‘Lola.’” Read to know more.

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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. The Stone-Age sample contained enough information to determine the source's sex, the germs in her mouth and what she had last eaten. The reports revealed that she probably had dark hair, dark skin and blue eyes. At that time, she was genetically more closely related to hunter-gatherers from the mainland Europe compared to those living in central Scandinavia, they concluded. Tom Björklund from the University of Copenhagen, also made an image.

Researchers from the University of Copenhagen have succeeded in extracting a complete ancient human genome from a 5,700-year-old birch pitch. The image is an artistic reconstruction of the woman who chewed the birch pitch & has been named Lola. Illustration by Tom Björklund pic.twitter.com/zvONHpb8LM

— Lonnie Hicks (@Lnnie) December 18, 2019

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Hannes Schroeder is a co-author of the study, which was published in the review Nature Communications. Schroeder of the University of Copenhagen told a daily that it is the first time that an entire ancient human genome has been extracted from anything other than human bones. One of the other authors, Tehis Jense also spoke about the discovery. He said that they found the sample during an archaeological dig at Syltholm, in southern Denmark. Syltholm is completely unique. Almost everything is sealed in mud, which means that the preservation of organic remains is absolutely phenomenal.

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The researchers also recovered traces of animal DNA and plant, which reportedly are duck and hazelnut. It is 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 clean her teeth, to stave off hunger, to turn it into a kind of glue -- or simply as chewing gum.

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