Ancient poop is something that you and I wouldn’t dare touch, but it is something that archaeologists want to put their hands on. After all, information about the ancient people’s health and diet, as well as information about the evolution of parasites, lie within this paleo poop.
There’s just one problem, however: archaeologists have a hard time determining if the poop came from a human being or an animal.
The challenge of determining whether paleofeces and coprolites are of human or animal origin dates back to the 1970s. Usually, only those samples found with human skeletons or mummies could be designated as being of human origin with any certainty. Exceptions could be made for samples found in ancient latrines, since they are highly likely to be human; samples found in trash deposits, however, are more ambiguous.
Now an international team of scientists has devised a new method of doing so that combines host DNA and gut microbiome analysis with open source machine-learning software, according to a new paper in the journal PeerJ.
More details about this over at Ars Technica.
(Image Credit: Jada Ko, Anhui Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology/ Ars Technica)
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ill be monitoring the situation
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