Author:
Kırdök Emrah,Kashuba Natalija,Damlien Hege,Manninen Mikael A.,Nordqvist Bengt,Kjellström Anna,Jakobsson Mattias,Lindberg A. Michael,Storå Jan,Persson Per,Andersson Björn,Aravena Andrés,Götherström Anders
Abstract
AbstractPrehistoric 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 profile exposes a Mesolithic oral microbiome that includes opportunistic oral pathogens. We compared the data with healthy and dysbiotic microbiome datasets and we identified increased abundance of periodontitis-associated microbes. In addition, trained machine learning models predicted dysbiosis with 70–80% probability. Moreover, we identified 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.
Funder
Mersin University BAP project
The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey BIDEB-2219 post-doctoral research grant
Pioneers of NW Europe
Riksbankens Jubileumsfond
The Swedish Research Council
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC