Flinders University geoarchaeologist Mike Morley and colleagues explored how ancient human, animal and plant DNA can be preserved in blocks of resin-soaked sediment for tens of thousands of years. This means that stockpiles of resin-impregnated archaeological sediment could become the next frontier of research in the quest for major discoveries about human and plant evolution. The team successfully extracted DNA from blocks prepared as long as four decades ago and showed that the process of impregnating sediments with liquid plastic does not affect DNA survival. “We were able to recover substantial amounts of Neanderthal DNA from only a few milligrams of sediment,” said Dr. Diyendo Massilani, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Microstratigraphic preservation of ancient faunal and hominin DNA in Pleistocene cave sediments.

Source: Ethiopian News December 28, 2021 20:02 UTC