Scientists have found the owner of a 20,000-year-old pendant from the Denisova cave in Altai

An elk tooth pendant discovered in Siberia is the first prehistoric artifact to be linked to a specific person through genetic investigation.

Scientists have used a new method to extract ancient DNA to identify the owner of a 20,000-year-old pendant made from an elk tooth.

With this method, it is possible to isolate DNA that was present in skin cells, sweat, or other bodily fluids and was absorbed by certain types of porous material, including bones, teeth, and tusks, even after thousands of years.

Items used as tools or for personal adornment—pendants, necklaces, bracelets, rings, and the like—can provide insight into past behavior and culture.

“I find these objects made in the deep past extremely interesting because they allow us to open a small window to travel into the past and look into the lives of these people,” molecular biologist Elena Essel from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany told reporters. lead author of a study published in the journal Nature.

The researchers who found the 19,000-25,000-year-old pendant used gloves and face masks when excavating, avoiding modern-day DNA contamination.

It was the first prehistoric artifact to be genetically linked to a specific person: a Stone Age woman closely related to a hunter-gatherer population known to have lived in the part of Siberia east of the cave in the foothills of the Altai Mountains.

It is unknown if the woman made the pendant or simply wore it.