Medieval Manuscripts Are a DNA Smorgasbord
Researchers are finding animal DNA in the parchment pages as well as genetic
fingerprints from humans (like kissing priests)
Read more:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/medieval-manuscripts-are-dna-smorgasbord-180964252/#FFp0DPWU3TmjCKuQ.99
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter
By
Jason Daley
smithsonian.com
July 31, 2017
In 2010, bioarchaeologist Matthew Collins of the University of Copenhagen and
his colleagues realized that the
parchment used in medieval manuscripts,
which is made of scraped and stretched animal skins, was actually a repository
of information about the history of domestic animals in Europe.
Chris Baraniuk at New Scientist reports
that Collins and his team have since begun collecting the dry eraser waste of
skins left when conservators gently cleaned the manuscripts. Using these
scraps, they've been able to draw out the DNA and proteins of the animal that
sourced the parchment as well as that of any bookworms and humans that had come
in contact with the page since.
At a recent symposium on bioarchaeology at Oxford’s Bodleian Library, the
researchers presented an
unpublished paper where they applied DNA techniques as well as
traditional techniques to the 1,000-year-old
York Gospels, an Anglo-Saxon
manuscript, which is one of the few manuscripts to survive the Norman Conquest
and the Protestant Reformation.
Ann Gibbons at Science reports
that analysis of the parchment led to several surprises. For instance, the 167
folio pages of the York Gospels were made mainly from female calves,
which is unusual since it’s believed they would normally be allowed to grow up
and reproduce. But documents report that a cattle disease struck the region
around the time the manuscript was produced, meaning there may have been many
stillborn or sick calves around to provide the material.
Gibbons also reports that 20 percent of the DNA extracted from the York
Gospels was human— most of it from the bacteria that lived on the skin and
noses of priests who took an oath by kissing certain pages. That and other
bacteria could give some insight into the health of people in Middle Ages York.
A similar analysis of a Gospel of Luke manuscript by Collins and his
colleagues revealed the book was made from the skins of eight-and-a-half calves,
ten-and-a-half sheep, and half a goat, as well as a cover from roe deer and a
strap from fallow or red deer. Such mixed parchment suggests that scribes had to
carefully manage their resources since their favored skin was not always
available.
There are so many possibilities raised by the developing techniques that Gibbons
reports researchers don’t even know what questions to ask. Bookworm DNA could
help determine what region a book was produced or traveled to; parchment DNA
could help trace the changes in livestock types and breeds over time; it’s even
possible to find the DNA of specific historical individuals who handled a book
during their lifetime.
While scholars have long mined medieval manuscripts to learn about the
development of language and writing styles from the texts and glean information
about daily life from the illustrations (and
paw prints), this new lens into the manuscripts offers a whole new
way to mine information from manuscripts and bring lost chapters of history to
life.
Read more:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/medieval-manuscripts-are-dna-smorgasbord-180964252/#FFp0DPWU3TmjCKuQ.99
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter