Even after 10,000 years... Scientists are shocked by what they found in chewing gum!

A chewing gum chewed by an ancient human about 10,000 years ago has provided DNA evidence of the first ever humans who inhabited Scandinavia, according to a new study conducted at Stockholm University, reports Times Now.

The chewing gum was discovered in an early Mesolithic hunter-fisher site called Huseby-Klev in the 1990s. The chewing gum is a lump made of birch bark.

Bones of humans that settled in the Scandinavian region were found during early excavation. However, the bones had degraded in quality and thus, they could not help much in the archaeogenetic studies. However, the chewed gum can be used to study the genetic footprints of our ancestors as it retained their saliva. When the pieces of gum were found in the 1990s, there was no technology to study the DNA in the chewing gum.

Researchers found the DNA of one male and two females. They also discovered markings of milk teeth on the remains indicating the involvement of children. Another important fact was pointed out that both Scandinavian humans and hunter-gatherer human populations in Sweden show similar DNA.

"When Per Persson and Mikael Maininen proposed to look for hunter-gatherer DNA in these chewing gums from Huseby Klev we were hesitant, but really impressed that archaeologists took care during the excavations and preserved such fragile material," Natalija Kashuba of the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo told phys.org.