aDNA Extracted from Textile Fibers from Los Molinas, Peru

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Little ancient DNA work has been done on archaeological textiles due to the difficulty of extracting sequenceable DNA from dyed materials in which the presence of various pigments often inhibit biochemical analyses. However, DNA extracted from textiles would add an additional line of evidence in regards to, for example, choices of raw materials, husbandry practices, and trade of domesticates. A preliminary sample of textile fibers from Los Molinas, Peru (0-400 CE) have shown promising results for DNA retrieval. In this study we extract DNA using a hair-targeting extraction protocol from textile fibers and use this information to determine the raw materials (cotton vs. wool), including, when possible, the specific species, and examine how these choices of raw materials vary over time and between contexts. Genetic results allow us to distinguish between the specific camelid species used for wool in instances when morphological evidence is insufficient or when species were cross-bred. The results we present show a pilot application of the continually improving paleogenetic methods and open the potential for further archaeologically- and contextually-informed analysis of textile fibers.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 54011