Prospects for the Recovery of aDNA from Asphaltic Faunal Remains

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Asphaltic deposits are a valuable source of well-preserved faunal assemblages; however, DNA extraction from such deposits has remained problematic. Harsh chemical treatments and boiling are generally used to remove asphalt from faunal material in these contexts as it does not damage the morphology; however, it may impact biomolecule preservation. Additionally, age and taphonomy likely cause preservation issues. As such, previous attempts to extract DNA from asphaltic remains have been unsuccessful. However, advancements in aDNA methodologies, in conjunction with recently excavated teeth (with minimal asphalt absorption) without the chemical treatments, make a fresh attempt feasible. Here, we attempt to extract DNA from untreated canid teeth (40,000–50,000 years old) excavated from an area of the La Brea Tar Pits that generally has less asphalt impregnation. We manually removed asphalt from remains and used high-yield laboratory methods—including sequence capture and single-stranded library preparation—to maximize the likelihood of successfully isolating canid DNA. While we were not able to definitively recover canid DNA from the asphaltic samples, this research pushes attempts to recover DNA from degraded materials forwards. Future developments in aDNA methodologies will potentially make such research more viable.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37188.0