Treasures of the World / Channel 4
Historian and documentary series host Bettany Hughes with 10,500-year-old Stone Age birch resin “chewing gum”
A piece of Stone Age “chewing gum”, chewed by a teenager 10,500 years ago, was recently discovered in Estonia by a team of archaeologists.
The Institute of History and Archeology at the University of Tartu, in Estonia, identified a piece of prehistoric birch resin impressions of teeth marks and traces of saliva, traces that indicate that it would have been used as a type of prehistoric “gum”.
This substance, obtained through the dry distillation of birch bark, could also be used as an adhesive, notes the .
After analyzing the DNA collected from the saliva present in the piece of resin, the Institute of Genomics at the same university concluded that the tablet had been chewed by a young woman with brown hair and eyes.
“The institute has DNA samples from 20% of the Estonian populationwhich allows scientists to make a modern genetic comparison to better interpret ancient DNA”, explains the historian Bettany Hughes.
The discovery was revealed by the historian last Saturday, in episode 7 of the documentary “”, part of the series “Treasures of the World of Bettany Hughes” on Channel 4,
“Having access to the team’s work it was a truly magical moment” said Hughes. “This shows how a simple disposable object can bring us face to face with people from the past.
“We now know that people chewed resin – burnt or heated birch bark – to, for example, relieve toothache or as glue. Today, it continues to be used as an adhesive, to repair cracks in tools and containers”, explains the historian.
“We even know that the teenager had brown eyes and hair, which fascinates me because itchallenges the idea that northern Europeans had blonde hair and blue eyes. It’s something so close to us, but at the same time extraordinary”, concludes Hughes.
In truth, this is not the first time that there is a girl from northern Europe, with brown eyes and hair, who liked to chew gum.
In 2019, a team of scientists from the University of Copenhagen reconstructed the appearance of the territory that is currently Denmark, from the DNA stored in a kind of chewing gum made from, you guessed it… birch bark.
The piece of birch was covered with human bite marks well-defined, suggesting that it would have been chewed like gum, like form of medicine for toothache or an infection, the scientists concluded at the time.
Science artist and illustrator Tom Björklund At the time, he was tasked with creating an artistic representation of the teenager. Behold Lolathe girl who liked gum (or had to chew it for health reasons):
Artist’s representation of Lola, the girl who chewed the 5,700-year-old piece of gum found in Denmark
Fragments of DNA from plants and animals were also found in the gum, specifically hazelnuts and ducks, which may have been part of the girl’s diet, which would likely have dark skin, dark hair and blue eyessimilar to those of hunter-gatherers who lived in central Scandinavia at the time.
