The ancient people who inhabited Scandinavia were not always fair-skinned blondes. DNA analysis of a lump of ancient 'chewing gum' made from birch pitch has showed that a Danish hunter and a gatherer of wild plants had dark skin and blue eyes who ate duck and hazelnuts 5,700 years ago.
The scientists from the University of Copenhagen, who conducted the study, said the ancient "chewing gum" found on the Danish island of Lolland has abundant human genes, as well as ducks, hazelnuts and viral DNA. Based on the obtained data, they managed to put together the image of a woman who lived in the Stone Age.
It was a rare success: according to Associate Professor Hannes Schroeder who led the research, “It is amazing to have gotten a complete ancient human genome from anything other than bone.” The woman who once used it to refresh her oral cavity was genetically more closely associated with hunter-gatherers from mainland Europe than with those who lived in central Scandinavia at that time. Further analysis revealed that the prehistoric hunter-gatherer may have been infected with the Epstein-Barr virus, which can cause infectious mononucleosis or glandular fever.
Primitive chewing gum made from heated birch bark, which is periodically found during archaeological excavations, according to experts, has been used as glue and as a chewing gum by children since the Middle Pleistocene - from about 760,000 to 126,000 years ago. Often, small pieces of this material retain teeth imprints, and experts say they can become an invaluable source of information for modern science.
The results of a complete research are published in the Nature Communications.
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