Exploring the potential of dental calculus to shed light on past human migrations in Oceania

Irina M. Velsko; Zandra Fagernäs; Monica Tromp; Stuart Bedford; Hallie R. Buckley; Geoffrey Clark; John Dudgeon; James Flexner; Jean-Christophe Galipaud; Rebecca Kinaston; Cecil M. Lewis; Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith; Kathrin Nägele; Andrew T. Ozga; Cosimo Posth; Adam B. Rohrlach; Richard Shing; Truman Simanjuntak; Matthew Spriggs; Anatauarii Tamarii; Frédérique Valentin; Edson Willie; Christina Warinner

doi:10.1038/s41467-024-53920-z

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Exploring the potential of dental calculus to shed light on past human migrations in Oceania

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Exploring the potential of dental calculus to shed light on past human migrations in Oceania

Irina M. Velsko, Zandra Fagernäs, Monica Tromp, Stuart Bedford, Hallie R. Buckley, Geoffrey Clark, John Dudgeon, James Flexner, Jean-Christophe Galipaud, Rebecca Kinaston, …

Nature communications, Vol.15(1), 10191 (2024)

24/11/2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-53920-z

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https://hdl.handle.net/10523/43783

Abstract

Archaeology

microbial ecology

The Pacific islands and Island Southeast Asia have experienced multiple waves of human migrations, providing a case study for exploring the potential of ancient microbiomes to study human migration. We perform a metagenomic study of archaeological dental calculus from 102 individuals, originating from 10 Pacific islands and 1 island in Island Southeast Asia spanning ~3000 years. Oral microbiome DNA preservation in calculus is far higher than that of human DNA in archaeological bone, and comparable to that of calculus from temperate regions. Oral microbial community composition is minimally driven by time period and geography in Pacific and Island Southeast Asia calculus, but is found to be distinctive compared to calculus from Europe, Africa, and Asia. Phylogenies of individual bacterial species in Pacific and Island Southeast Asia calculus reflect geography. Archaeological dental calculus shows good preservation in tropical regions and the potential to yield information about past human migrations, complementing studies of the human genome. Preservation of oral microbiome ancient DNA from Oceania is much better than human ancient DNA. The authors leverage this to demonstrate that oral microbial community composition in Oceania is not only distinct from the rest of the world, but it may also be associated with patterns of ancient human migration in the region.

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Record Identifier: 9926653702601891
Title: Exploring the potential of dental calculus to shed light on past human migrations in Oceania
Creators: Irina M. Velsko
Zandra Fagernäs
Monica Tromp
Stuart Bedford
Hallie R. Buckley
Geoffrey Clark
John Dudgeon
James Flexner
Jean-Christophe Galipaud
Rebecca Kinaston
Cecil M. Lewis
Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith
Kathrin Nägele
Andrew T. Ozga
Cosimo Posth
Adam B. Rohrlach
Richard Shing
Truman Simanjuntak
Matthew Spriggs
Anatauarii Tamarii
Frédérique Valentin
Edson Willie
Christina Warinner
Publication Details: Nature communications, Vol.15(1), 10191 (2024)
Academic Unit: Archaeology; Office of the Head of Faculty (BMS); Anatomy
Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
Grant note: Funding for the project was provided by the Australian Research Council (DP 0556874 to S.B. and M.S.), the National Geographic Society (SRC 8038–06 to M.S.), the Pacific Biological Foundation (to M.S.), the Department of Archaeology and Natural History and School of Archaeology and Anthropology at the ANU (S.B. and M.S.), the Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation Foundation (S.B. and M.S.) and Brian Powell (to S.B. and M.S.). The laboratory research and travel for excavation of the skeletal remains were funded by The Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund (UOO0407 and 09-UOO-106 to H.R.B.) and a University of Otago Research Grant (to H.R.B). The Vanuatu studies (S.B., H.R.B., J.F., R.S., M.S., E.W., and F.V.) were supported by the Australian Research Council DP160103578 (to J.F., S.B., and F.V.). The excavation of the Pain Haka site in 2012 was funded by a grant from the Research Institute for Development (UMR Paloc to G.C.) and by additional funding from the French Embassy in Indonesia (to G.C. and T.S.), as well as a University of Otago Research Grant awarded to H.R.B. for the excavation and analysis of the human skeletal remains. Additional funding was provided by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (DP170100732 and DP200102872 to G.C.). Genetic data generation and analysis was supported by the Werner Siemens Stiftung (“Paleobiotechnology” to C.W.) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy (EXC 2051, Project-ID 390713860 to C.W.). The Otago research presented here was funded by a University of Otago Doctoral Scholarship (to M.T.), a Royal Society of New Zealand Skinner Fund grant (to M.T.) and an Otago Centre for Electron Microscopy Student Research Award (to M.T.).
Date published ; e-published: 24/11/2024
Copyright: Copyright © The Author(s) 2024. This work was first published in Nature Communications (Nature Publishing Group). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided that the original work is properly attributed to the creator(s) and the source, a link to the Creative Commons license is provided, and any changes made are indicated.
Language: English
Resource Type ; Subtype: Journal article