Archaeologists borrowing an old technique from crime scene investigations have recovered 13,000-year-old blood residue from large mammals, most likely mammoths and mastodons, embedded in the sharpened stones that ancient Clovis people used for hunting.
“In Africa, [large mammals] are quickly being eradicated from most areas by poaching and habitat loss,” Moore said. “These extinctions will have profound and permanent effects on the ecosystem in Africa by removing the large herbivores. The same ecosystem transformation happened in North America 13,000 years ago.”
” in North America, Moore said. Even so, Clovis people appear to have left behind a strong genetic imprint.mapped the genetic blueprint of a Clovis male skeleton and concluded that “some 80 percent of all present-day Native American populations on the two American continents are direct descendants of the Clovis boy’s family.”
The artifacts were washed in an ultrasonic bath with a weak ammonia solution to remove the protein residues. Lab workers then tested the residues using a technique called crossover immunoelectrophoresis, which was once used to identify blood or semen from crime scenes. The method takes advantage of the way the immune system responds to foreign substances, or antigens, by confronting them with proteins called antibodies.
of years without being washed away by rain or contaminated by urine or feces from animals. However, Moore said the protein residues accumulate in micro-cracks in the stone and become sealed over and protected by clay and other sediment.
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