Oldest Human DNA Found in the Americas

In an Oregon cave, scientists have found some really old s@!t

By Dawn Stover Posted 04.04.2008 at 10:15 am 5 Comments

The poop on early Americans Archaeologist Dennis Jenkins holds a piece of dried human feces dated to 14,300 years ago. University of Oregon

Native Americans living in Oregon thousands of years ago did what came naturally before the advent of flush toilets (or the state of Oregon): They relieved themselves in a lakeside cave. Thanks to them, scientists now have samples of the oldest human DNA ever found in the New World.

The ancient coprolites (dried excrement) left behind by these early Americans remained in place until 2002, when University of Oregon archaeologist Dennis Jenkins and colleagues began finding them during summer field work at Oregon's Paisley Caves. A team at Denmark's Centre for Ancient Genetics has since studied the coprolites, and today published its analysis of DNA recovered from six of the specimens.

Radiocarbon dating done on the coprolites found that some of them date back as far as 14,300 years ago. That is 1,200 years older than the Clovis culture, long associated with the earliest Americans. Other sites believed to represent pre-Clovis habitation have been investigated, but intact human DNA has never been recovered from any of them.

If the radiocarbon and DNA evidence hold up during additional testing now being done at other labs, says Jenkins, "then we have broken the Clovis sound barrier, if you will."

In addition to human DNA, the scientists also found DNA similar to that of a coyote or wolf in the coprolites. That could mean that the early Americans ate such an animal...or that the animal left a calling card of its own.

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5 Comments

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usernamelevi13

04/04/08 at 12:47 pm

and as history continues we find more and more answers. we write our story as we go :) and just more proof against faithers..... i wish all the religious people could get with the program and join the rest of us in the 21st century....

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kempstep

04/04/08 at 2:11 pm

Okay, so here we have a perfectly tame article about something scientific, then someone has to go and make it all about religion.

Well, I just happen to be a scientist... and a devout Christian. Oh My!! Stop the press!! Can it be true!!?? For your information, there are more of us than you might think. I once heard a statistic that something along the lines of 90% of the sceintists in America said they believe in Jesus Christ. That seems a bit high to me, but to be honest, of all the scientists I've met, only one wasn't, and she was Muslim --Oh no, another religious person, watch out!

So, without getting into how God and science can and do coexist, or any other science and religion topic, just let us read our articles without ruining it please. Lets try to stick to the original topic here, preferrably without the unnecessary and uncalled for bigotry.

Have a great day!

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dave21

04/04/08 at 3:09 pm

You could not be more right Kempstep.

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majin davito

from Belcourt, North Dakota

04/04/08 at 6:47 pm

"A mans ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man wuold indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." By Albert Einstien And so happen I am Christain as well but you have to say the man makes alot of sense on our dense society.

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geopro

09/29/09 at 3:07 pm

Dear kempstep,
I am a tenured college professor, as well.

Where do you get your statistics from :-) Here is where I am getting mine:

1) Only 7% of prominent US scientists believe in GOD.
2) Nobel Prize winners are "remarkably irreligious"
3) Only 0.2% of prisoners are atheist, while
39% are catholic and 35% protestant (Note that atheists were about 14% of the general population at the time, while Christians (most of whom catholic and protestant) were about 75% of the general population, so Christians were 70 times more likely to be in prison than atheists were!!!)

NEED WE SAY MORE?

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Larson and Witham present the results of a replication of 1913 and 1933 surveys by James H. Leuba. In those surveys, Leuba mailed a questionnaire to leading scientists asking about their belief in "a God in intellectual and affective communication with humankind" and in "personal immortality". Larson and Witham used the same wording [as in the Leuba studies], and sent their questionnaire to 517 members of the [U.S.] National Academy of Sciences from the biological and physical sciences (the latter including mathematicians, physicists and astronomers). The return rate was slightly over 50%.

The results were as follows (figures in %):

BELIEF IN PERSONAL GOD (year 1914)
Personal belief (27.7)
Personal disbelief (52.7)
Doubt or agnosticism (20.9)

BELIEF IN PERSONAL GOD (year 1933)
Personal belief (15)
Personal disbelief (68)
Doubt or agnosticism (17)

BELIEF IN PERSONAL GOD (1998)
Personal belief (7)
Personal disbelief (72.2)
Doubt or agnosticism (20)

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"Beit-Hallahmi (1988) found that among Nobel Prize laureates in the sciences, as well as those in literature, there was a remarkable degree of irreligiosity, as compared to the populations they came from."

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1997, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 0.21% of inmates were atheist

The Federal Bureau of Prisons does have statistics on religious affiliations of inmates. The following are total number of inmates per religion category:

o Catholic 29267 39.164%
o Protestant 26162 35.008%
o Muslim 5435 7.273%
o American Indian 2408 3.222%
o Nation 1734 2.320%
o Rasta 1485 1.987%
o Jewish 1325 1.773%
o Church of Christ 1303 1.744%
o Pentecostal 1093 1.463%
o Moorish 1066 1.426%
o Buddhist 882 1.180%
o Jehovah Witness 665 0.890%
o Adventist 621 0.831%
o Orthodox 375 0.502%
o Mormon 298 0.399%
o Scientology 190 0.254%
o Atheist 156 0.209%
o Hindu 119 0.159%
o Santeria 117 0.157%
o Sikh 14 0.019%
o Bahai 9 0.012%
o Krishna 7 0.009%