Published March 1, 2024 | Version v4
Dataset Open

Metagenomic analysis of Mesolithic chewed pitch reveals poor oral health among stone age individuals

Authors/Creators

  • 1. Mersin University, Faculty of Science and Literature, Department of Biotechnology Mersin, 33343 Turkey
  • 2. Uppsala University, Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Engelska parken, Thunbergsvägen 3H Box 626 751 26 Uppsala, Sweden
  • 3. Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 6762. St. Olavs Plass NO-0130 Oslo, Norway.
  • 4. PAES, Ecosystems and Environment Research Programme, Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science, Viikinkaari 1. P.O. Box 65, University of Helsinki, Finland
  • 5. Foundation War-Booty Site Finnestorp, Klarinettvägen 75, SE-434 75 Kungsbacka, Sweden
  • 6. Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Osteoarchaeological Research Laboratory
  • 7. Uppsala University, Department of Organismal Biology, Human Evolution, Evolutionsbiologiskt Centrum EBC Norbyvägen 18 A, Uppsala, Sweden
  • 8. Linnaeus University, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Department of Chemistry and Biomedical Sciences, 44018, Hus Vita, Kalmar
  • 9. Karolinska Insitute, Department of Cell and Molecular Biology (CMB) Karolinska Institutet P.O. Box 285 SE-171 77 Stockholm, Sweden
  • 10. İstanbul University, Faculty of Science, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics 34134 Vezneciler, İstanbul, Turkey
  • 11. Centre for Palaeogenetics, Svante Arrhenius väg 20C, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden

Description

Prehistoric chewed pitch has proven to be a useful source of ancient DNA, both from humans and their microbiomes. Here we present the metagenomic analysis of three pieces of chewed pitch from Huseby Klev, Sweden, that were dated to 9,890–9,540 before present. The metagenomic profle exposes a Mesolithic oral microbiome that includes opportunistic oral pathogens. We compared the data with healthy and dysbiotic microbiome datasets and we identifed increased abundance of periodontitisassociated microbes. In addition, trained machine learning models predicted dysbiosis with 70–80% probability. Moreover, we identifed DNA sequences from eukaryotic species such as red fox, hazelnut, red deer and apple. Our results indicate a case of poor oral health during the Scandinavian Mesolithic, and show that pitch pieces have the potential to provide information on material use, diet and oral health.

Notes

This dataset contains, data and codes to reproduce Kırdök et al.

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