Ancient Brick From 2,900 Years Ago Turns Out to Be a DNA Time Capsule

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The brick analyzed by the researchers

For the first time, researchers have been able to extract DNA fragments from an ancient clay brick, demonstrating how these building blocks from times long past could be used to catalog flora found in the environment at the time.

When this brick was made some 2,900 years ago in what is now northern Iraq, the process would have involved mixing mud from the banks of the Tigris river, with materials such as chaff, straw, or animal dung.

Small plant particles amid the animal waste and straw can remain protected inside the brick for millennia – as has now been demonstrated by the team from the University of Oxford in the UK and the National Museum of Denmark and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

Having extracted a sample of the brick, the researchers used an analytical technique previously used on other forms of porous material, such as bone. This gave them the ability to sequence (or decode) the DNA in the plant matter, identifying 34 distinct taxonomic groups of plants.

https://www.scihb.com/2023/08/ancient-brick-from-2900-years-ago-turns.html