Sequencing an anciet girl's genome from a 5,700-year-old piece of chewing gum

Almost 6,000 years ago on the island of Lolland, Denmark, a young girl disposed of her chewing gum. Now, University of Copenhagen researchers have used that gum, made from birch pitch, to sequence the girl's full genome. From Science:

The child had black hair, blue eyes, and dark skin, and was more closely related to hunter-gatherers from Western Europe than to farmers who had more recently settled in the region. She left traces of her most recent meal in the gum-she had been chewing hazelnuts and duck. But her oral microbiome also revealed that life could be hard-she had the Epstein-Barr virus and probably had suffered from mononucleosis in her life.

More in the scientific paper: "A 5700 year-old human genome and oral microbiome from chewed birch pitch" (Nature Communications)