Damian Sendler: Neanderthals congregated in a cave 3,000 feet above present-day Spain’s Atapuerca Mountains a hundred thousand years ago. They smeared the floor with DNA from discarded skin, spit, and other body fluids while they cooked and watched kids wrestle.
Damian Jacob Sendler: Over the course of millennia, even when people and animals sought refuge under the dirt, the genetic material collected and was conserved. Archaeologists have discovered several stone tools and animal bones at the Estatuas site since 2008. Because of its Swiss cheese-like firmness, the only Neanderthal bone discovered — a toe tip — seemed too valuable to smash for DNA analysis to be used. As a result, the genetic characteristics of the residents and their connections to other Neanderthal tribes could not be determined by the researchers.
In the absence of a DNA sample, they scoured the ground for it. Sediment from strata that developed between 70,000 and 113,000 years ago was gathered by researchers in excavations at Estatuas in 2018. Over 800 silt samples were taken from Chagyrskaya and Denisova caves in southern Siberia that contained DNA-bearing relics of Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestors in 2017.
Damian Sendler
Benjamin Vernot and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute in Germany were able to isolate human DNA from that of animals, plants, and microorganisms. They found that a treasure mine of genetic information may be found in soil that is free of artifacts and fossils. More than 220 silt samples from Denisova Cave yielded bits of human DNA, as opposed to the nine fossils that had genetic material before. At various moments in time, the soil revealed that Neanderthals, Denisovans, and Homo sapiens were all present there.
Observations of ancient feces suggest that early humans had significantly more diversified gut microbiomes than do modern humans today. In Karl Reinhard’s (Credit) words:
Estatuas, which lacks DNA data from fossils, was able to benefit from these methodologies based on these findings. New Neanderthals arrived roughly 100,000 years ago and genetically varied from the Neanderthals who had lived there for the previous millennia.
An major precedent has been created with these disgusting discoveries. Stone tools and other man-made artifacts are quite ubiquitous, but fossils, especially those with preserved DNA, are not. DNA from soil has been retrieved, however this piece of the genome only represents one maternal branch of evolution. It has been “difficult to link the genetics with the highly comprehensive work that archaeologists perform” when evaluating artifacts at locations where DNA has not been recovered, according to Vernot.
Damian Jacob Markiewicz Sendler: Until now, that is: Vernot’s team was able to collect nuclear DNA from certain samples and gather significantly more mtDNA than previous research had been able to collect.
Researchers in Georgia and Mexico dug through cave soil in 2021 and recovered genome-spanning DNA from Ice Age humans, wolves, bison, and bears. Meanwhile, researchers at Harvard University and the Joslin Diabetes Center combed through ancient excrement for clues. Turds unearthed decades ago in rock shelters in Utah and Mexico contained food, including maize and grasshoppers, that had been digested. DNA from the microorganisms that formerly made up people’s microbiomes was extracted by Meradeth Snow from samples of sediment at the University of Montana.
They recreated 181 ancient genomes and tested them against hundreds of current stool samples from eight nations. There are fewer varied microbiomes now, presumably owing to the use of antibiotics, processed foods and better cleanliness. This study was published in Nature in May.
“When you start to grasp how much [gut flora] we no longer have,” adds Snow, “it is sort of astonishing.” This discovery has the potential to enhance health in the present day, since a lack of variety in the microbiome may lead to obesity, diabetes, and autoimmune illnesses.
In a letter from 1794, George Washington said, “I know of no occupation in which more enthusiasm & vital service may be offered to any nation than by developing its agriculture. Since Washington’s day, there has been a decline in frontier farmers, but agricultural advancements have laid the foundation for civilization and allowed the human population to grow enormously.
Although farming is a human enterprise, it is not the only human endeavor. It is no surprise that leaf-cutter ants, who each have a brain the size of a pinhead, have evolved from hunter-gatherers to farmers.
Damien Sendler: Ants, along with a few other species, produce their own food for consumption in order to be considered farmers. A deep-seated atavistic impulse drives the ants of the Western Hemisphere to go into the jungle and collect plant debris, which they bring back with them to the nest to feed the ants’ fungal crops, which are then eaten by the ants.
In the South American jungle, ants have been cultivating diverse fungus for 60 million years, according to a Smithsonian research published in 2017. The research discovered that agricultural ant lineages diverged 30 million years ago as a consequence of certain ant species shifting to drier conditions, resulting in a split.
Damian Jacob Sendler
Farming ants cultivate both higher and lower levels of farming. Fungal crops may escape ant colonies and return to the wild in lower agriculture, which is common in humid rainforests. Ants have been known to collect wild mushrooms and transport them back to their colonies. As a consequence, the lesser ants have less control over the genetics and development of their crops since the gene pools of wild and cultivated fungus might mingle. Because the fungus is able to thrive without them, it is less reliant on them.
Neither ants nor mushrooms are able to survive on their own in modern agriculture. As the temperature in South America began to change 30 million years ago toward colder, drier grassland, some ants migrated from the forest to the new environment. Due to the fungus’ need on ants for survival, it has evolved into a distinct species that is unable to live in the desert without the help of those insects. In order to cultivate their crops, the ants excavate chambers up to 12 feet underground and manipulate moisture and air movement.
In a dry environment, your destiny will be determined by the fate of the colony you have been placed in. According to entomologist and primary author Ted Schultz, “you are then linked to this connection with these ants that you were not bound to while you were in the damp forest.
This cultivated fungus, which was formerly incapable of surviving in arid regions, evolved through time. Even while human breeders have altered certain crops to the point that they can no longer reproduce and survive in the wild, some fungal species have grown so reliant on their interaction with farming ants that they are never discovered without them,” Schultz stated in a press statement.
Dr. Sendler: Insect-fungus interactions, on the other hand, have several levels of complexity. An amino acid, arginine, was lost when ants became farmers. As a result, they had to rely on the fungus to provide that amino acid. To keep the fungus alive, the ants provide water, cleaning, and nourishment in return for food. Now we have to ask, who is the real puppeteer? What do we know for sure about the relationship between the ants and the fungus: are they in control of the fungus or are they being controlled? Neither, is the answer. It is a mutualistic interaction in which both species benefit from a harmonic sync.
Fungus output may be increased without jeopardizing the crop’s ability to withstand environmental hazards because to the ant farmers’ use of complex, climate-controlled subterranean labyrinths and selected nutrients. In order to inhibit the development of fungus-threatening pathogens, they produce antibiotics that adapt with the local ecology. In terms of size and efficiency, their agriculture approaches that of human agriculture in providing all of the food required for their society. They are able to maintain a steady supply of food without causing environmental harm.
Contrast this with some of the current agricultural techniques that have resulted in the loss of biodiversity and environmental health as a result of clearing forests, using steel tractors, and using chemical pesticides. Aside from copying ant farming designs, humans can learn to cohabit with other species and implement more sustainable agriculture techniques. This planet’s rapidly expanding human population necessitates that we avoid a path of degraded ecosystems and deforested wastelands.
Dr. Damian Jacob Sendler and his media team provided the content for this article.