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The Molecule Hunt:
Archaeology and the Search for Ancient DNA
A book by Martin Jones
What was life really like for our ancestors? What did the Iceman,
the 5,000-year-old hunter found in the Alps several years ago,
eat before his last journey? What did pharaohs beer taste like ?
Who first domesticated horses and ancient grasses? And also: how
different are we from the Neanderthals?
The answers to all these questions are coming from the new science
of bio-archaeology, whose discoveries and analyses have already
helped revise the human genealogical tree.
A revolution is underway in archeology. For the first time, the
building blocks of ancient life (DNA, proteins, and fats that have
long been trapped in fossils and earth and rock) have become widely
accessible to science and can be used to asnwer such questions.
Working at the cutting edge of genetic and other molecular technologies,
researchers have been probing the remains of these ancient bio-molecules
in human skeletons, sediments and fossilized plants, dinosaur bones,
and insects trapped in amber. Their amazing discoveries have influenced
the archeological debate at almost every level and continue to reshape
our understanding of the past.
Using these methods, scientist have already:
- devised a molecular clock from a certain area of DNA,
determining that all humans descend from one common female ancestor,
dubbed “The Mitochondrial Eve,” who lived around 150,000
years ago.
- extracted DNA from Neanderthal bones, used with the same clock
to measure how closely we are related to the Neanderthals.
- reconstructed ancient diets and posited when such practices
as dairying and boiling water for cooking began.
- from the traces of blood proteins on an arrowhead, they have
been able to identify its animal source and the prey of the long-dead
hunter.
- not only revised the date for when the first humans
crossed the Aleutian land-bridge to America but also have determined
what fellow creatures, both domesticated and bacterial, must have
accompanied them.
All this has been done using what in the past archeologists used
to discard: organic materials attached to the tools, contained in
corpses, and so on.
In The Molecule Hunt, a leading expert at the forefront of
bio-archeology (the discipline that gave Michael Crichton the premise
for Jurassic Park) explains how this pioneering science is rewriting
human history and unlocking stories of the past that could never
have been told before. Martin Jones has been a leader in bio-archaeological
research for 25 years. He is the George Pitt-Rivers Professor of
Archaeological Science at Cambridge University and was chairman
of the five-year International Ancient Bio-molecule Initiative.
He lives in Cambridge, England.
Told from the vantage of a pioneer in the field, this book presents
the
first comprehensive account of the major breakthroughs in bio-archeology
for the last quarter century. Conveying both the excitement of innovative
research and the sometimes bruising rough-and-tumble of scientific
debate, Martin Jones has written a work of profound importance.
The Molecule Hunt is science at its most engaging.
 The
Molecule Hunt: Archaeology and the Search for Ancient
DNA
by Martin Jones
Bio-archaeology, the science that finds and studies ancient
DNA, has inspired its share of science fiction, but as
Jones shows, the work of bio-archaeologists like him sheds
light on what the distant past was like in ways never
before thought possible. Those who recall high-school
or college biology...
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