Dear all,
A student from York’s Archaeology department has a general aDNA question that I,
and her, would like to pose to the aDNA community. Hopefully, this can
stimulate some exciting discussion! To answer the question, use the reply
e-mail address of the group above.
Q:
I have a colleague who is considering an attempt to extract what I believe
would be nuclear DNA from bones soaked in the sea for 400+ yrs. The remains
look great because they were covered by sediments, which protected them from
bacterial activity, but I am concerned about drilling holes into truly unique
specimens. Teeth in intact mandibles and skulls would be used to match collagen
samples from the post crania, as my colleague wants further evidence (beyond
macroscopic assessment) that certain post-cranial elements belong to each other
and to particular skulls.
I have suggested using the less-complete skels to see if amplification of
nuclear DNA is viable but past amplification of mtDNA on bones from this same
assemblage gives her confidence that this can work. I am wondering if nuclear
DNA can potentially be extracted from submerged remains, and am curious about
others' opinions.
Thanks
Rose Drew
Rose Drew PhD student Dept of Archaeology University of York
____________________
Danae R. Dodge
Graduate School of Archaeology
West Court
2 Mappin St
University of Sheffield
Sheffield
S1 4DT
Tel: 0114 222 5102
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