Oldest DNA Recovered From 7,000-Year-Old Skeletons In Spain

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Oldest DNA Recovered From 7,000-Year-Old Skeletons In Spain

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday July 1, 2012 @08:52PM from the original-markers dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers published a paper in the current issue of Current Biology detailing their analysis of DNA from 7,000-year old cavemen in northern Spain. From the article: 'The bones of the two young adult males were found in a cave in the Cantabarian mountain range in 2006 by a handful of explorers, 4,920 feet above sea level. The cold atmosphere is what preserved the DNA in the remains of the two bodies. The cavemen lived during the Mesolithic period and were hunter-gatherers, as determined by an ornament one of the skeletons was holding. They have named the two skeletons Braña1 and Braña2 after the Braña-Arintero site in which they were discovered. They were in near-perfect condition.'"

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JP by kh31d4r · 2012-07-01 20:54 · Score: 3, Insightful

When are we cloning dinosaurs?
1. Re:JP by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-01 23:56 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  No time soon. Despite earlier signs, there has been no legitimate DNA recovery from the Mesozoic, the time of the dinosaurs. All the earlier discoveries from amber of that age have turned out to be bogus, as have claims of obtaining DNA from dinosaur bone (it was contamination). In fact, the story is the same for most younger examples too. The oldest legitimate DNA is no more than a few tens of thousands of years old, and very fragmentary. So, we may get information from mammoths, moas, and giant sloths of the Pleistocene, but apparently nothing from extinct dinosaurs. Check this paper [PDF] and this one [PDF] for short reviews, and this one for a longer review.
2. Re:JP by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 01:59 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Your links are a little dated since as of the most recent, dinosaur soft tissues have been discovered intact. Like T. Rexas blood vessels. See here. Granted it was only in 2006, but I was surprised none of the links were more recent.
  While this particular discovery didn't provide us with DNA, it does give more hints to the biology of dinosaurs in light of the absense of DNA. Though not equivocal, still very important to our understanding, as some conclusions can be drawn from soft tissue structure.
3. Re:JP by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 03:40 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Excellent TED talk on this. Jack Horner's team is taking a novel...somewhat terrifying approach since there's no DNA available, but he spends a LOT of time talking about trying to get some viable DNA from various sources:
  http://www.ted.com/talks/jack_horner_building_a_dinosaur_from_a_chicken.html
Santa is just an anagram by bmo · 2012-07-01 20:55 · Score: 4, Funny

They were planted there by Satan to test your faith in the Earth being 6000 years old.
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BMO
1. Re:Santa is just an anagram by buybuydandavis · 2012-07-01 20:59 · Score: 2
  
  Whaddya mean?
  Everyone knows humans and dinosaurs lived side by side. It was on tv, for Christ's sake. Ever hear of the Flintstones?
2. Re:Santa is just an anagram by LurkerXXX · 2012-07-02 00:59 · Score: 2
  
  Then the dinosaurs died in a flood.
  Why? Were they witches?
Re:But where are they? by Nyder · 2012-07-01 21:03 · Score: 2

Where are the 7000 year old cavewomen?!
They were vacationing in the South part of Spain.

--
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Re:Why ? by lazarith · 2012-07-01 21:07 · Score: 5, Funny

So that we can create an amusement park and sell tickets? Duh.... It's not as if it could end badly or anything.
Re:Why ? by zero.kalvin · 2012-07-01 21:08 · Score: 5, Funny

Science doesn't ask why should we! Science asks why the heck not put chainsaws on bears and fit them with jetpacks you insensitive clod!
Re:Why ? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-01 21:09 · Score: 4, Funny

food of course, they are basically just giant chickens
Re:Why ? by tsa · 2012-07-01 21:40 · Score: 4, Insightful

Of course we should, just to show we can. We'll worry about other things later.

--
-- Cheers!
Oldest human dna by tinkerton · 2012-07-01 21:41 · Score: 4, Informative

It's not the oldest dna, but the oldest human DNA that they've found. This site reports DNA extracted from a 20 million year magnolia leaf.
1. Re:Oldest human dna by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 00:03 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Yes, it's not the oldest DNA, but on further study, that plant example is thought to be bacterial contamination [PDF]. The oldest-known current examples are things like extinct mammoths and mastodons that are much younger than 20 million years.
2. Re:Oldest human dna by arobatino · 2012-07-02 00:37 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  A few months ago an entire high-quality 30,000-year old Denisovan genome was published.
3. Re:Oldest human dna by Dr+La · 2012-07-02 05:44 · Score: 2
  
  Actually, the oldest human DNA is that of the Sclayn Neandertal dating to 90,000 BP.
  
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This kind of surprises me by bhartman34 · 2012-07-01 21:42 · Score: 2

I thought that the earliest DNA recovered from early man was much older than this. Haven't we compared Neanderthal DNA to modern human DNA?
1. Re:This kind of surprises me by lbbros · 2012-07-01 21:49 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  As far as I can remember, these studies on Neanderthal used mitochondrial DNA (i.e., the DNA stored in the mitochondria, which is separate from the one in the nucleus) rather than genomic (i.e. the DNA in the nucleus of the cell).
  
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Re:Why ? by Taco+Cowboy · 2012-07-01 21:45 · Score: 2

Of course we should, just to show we can. We'll worry about other things later.
You're right, of course
Please accept my sincere apology

--
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Re:But where are they? by bmo · 2012-07-01 21:49 · Score: 4, Funny

You know when you tell a joke at a party and the entire room goes silent at the punch line?
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BMO
Re:Gays! by RivenAleem · 2012-07-01 22:04 · Score: 2, Funny

Yes, but one was holding a Football. The Scientists believe this to be the original Real Madrid and Barcelona FC captains.
Oh how I wish Slashdot would consider... by outsider007 · 2012-07-01 22:06 · Score: 3, Funny

Not perpetuating the stereotype of spaniards as gay cavemen.

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If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
an ornament? by C0R1D4N · 2012-07-01 22:16 · Score: 4, Insightful

Seems to be jumping to a conclusion saying they were hunter gatherers by an ornament one was holding. I mean, they probably were just by the lack of agricultural evidence from that era, but what you are holding when you die hardly indicates the nature of your entire culture.
1. Re:an ornament? by arth1 · 2012-07-01 22:43 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Seems to be jumping to a conclusion saying they were hunter gatherers by an ornament one was holding. I mean, they probably were just by the lack of agricultural evidence from that era, but what you are holding when you die hardly indicates the nature of your entire culture.
  This is the problem I have with mainstream archeology - the jump to conclusions based on scant evidence, often "supported" by jumps to conclusions others have made before, based on even scantier evidence.
  There's a round dimple in this wall? Obviously they were sun worshippers! The skeleton's tibia was broken? Obviously this was part of a human sacrifice, because they were sun worshippers!
2. Re:an ornament? by epine · 2012-07-01 22:56 · Score: 2
  
  ... but what you are holding when you die hardly indicates the nature of your entire culture ...
  Depends whether it's an iPhone. Twenty years ago I might have agreed with you.
3. Re:an ornament? by turkeyfeathers · 2012-07-02 00:50 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Yeah I could not find out what the ornament was.
  It was a medallion that said "Member of the Hunter-Gatherer Club of Braña-Arintero". How much more proof do you need?
4. Re:an ornament? by tomhath · 2012-07-02 01:08 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  It's hard to tell from the article, but I got the impression these two were carefully buried in the cave by other humans. Articles that are buried along with a body tell a lot about the culture. These ornaments depict red deer, which they very likely hunted.
5. Re:an ornament? by ElectricTurtle · 2012-07-02 01:23 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  In the first place, you're talking about anthropology, not archaeology. In the second place, that's how science works. If you have a hundred artifacts, you try to find a pattern from them, and then if somebody finds a hundred more that invalidate all or part of the previous hypothesized pattern, so be it. You come up with a new one that fits the available data.
  
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Re:Blue eyes by azalin · 2012-07-01 22:16 · Score: 4, Funny

Did you know that all blue man are descended from a single individual who lived only 10,000 years ago ?
That's why we call them the blue man group.
Re:Why ? by Rogerborg · 2012-07-01 22:18 · Score: 2

Not because it's easy, but it because it gets nerds hard.

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This is bad by Errol+backfiring · 2012-07-02 00:26 · Score: 4, Funny

Can't you even have privacy if you are dead for 7000 years?

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Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Re:Oldest? by vipw · 2012-07-02 01:02 · Score: 2

Read the headline again carefully. It's the oldest DNA extracted from these 7000 year old skeletons. Obviously you can extract older DNA from older tissue, but good luck extracting older DNA from these skeletons!
Misquote in article by tomhath · 2012-07-02 01:02 · Score: 3, Interesting

What the scientist actually said:

“These are the oldest partial genomes from modern human prehistory,” said researcher Carles Lalueza-Fox, a paleogeneticist at the Spanish National Research Council.
He qualifies it with "modern human", which makes sense for a 7000 year old skeleton.
Re:Oldest? by vipw · 2012-07-02 01:04 · Score: 2

After reading the headline just one more time, I have to conclude that there is another possibility. It is possible to extract older DNA from these skeletons if you move the skeletons out of Spain.
Re:But where are they? by hvm2hvm · 2012-07-02 01:12 · Score: 2

Look up the movie "The Man From Earth" - pretty good one.

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ics
Irony by b_dover · 2012-07-02 01:13 · Score: 2

Anyone else find irony in the fact that a journal named Current Biology publishes an article about 7000 year old DNA?
1. Re:Irony by fibonacci8 · 2012-07-02 07:19 · Score: 2
  
  Nope, in the scale of known existence, 7000 years back is still pretty current.
  
  --
  Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
Re:Must be fake. by Titan1080 · 2012-07-02 01:37 · Score: 2, Informative

The sad thing is, most Americans actually believe that.
You are citing from them ? by aepervius · 2012-07-02 01:58 · Score: 4, Funny

http://creation.com/about-us#what_we_believe

You gotta kidding me , right ? You are DAMN fucking me ? "Creation magazine" ? Pleeease.

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C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Neandertal DNA is much older by peter303 · 2012-07-02 02:38 · Score: 2

And more detriorated. But shot-gun fragment analysis has recovered over 85% of a Neandertal genome. Enough to make detailed analysis to say how its related to homo sapiens.
Re:Must be fake. by Sentrion · 2012-07-02 02:57 · Score: 2

Remember, when arguing with a creationist, that the "possibility" of their argument is all that matters, not the "probability". The creationist counter-argument is:
1. A light-year is a unit of distance, not time, so does not prove age older than 6,000 years.
2. God created "light" as a separate creation event, so the light from the star is just the illumination of God-created light. If you deny that God created the light, then you have to presume that the light traveled for millions of years from the apparent source. An analogy is if you see an arrow in a tree, you might reasonably presume that someone recently used a bow to shoot it, but reality might be that I just jabbed it into the wall with my hand. The point supposedly being that unless you know the whole story [as revealed in the Bible] your deductive reasoning is going to fall short.
Re:CREMATE ME PLEASE by Sentrion · 2012-07-02 03:01 · Score: 3

I'll be damned if one day I wake up inside the fortress of DOOM
Sounds like a reasonable definition of damnation to me.