Human DNA found in ancient excrement

EUGENE, Ore., April 3 (UPI) -- Researchers recovered human DNA dating back 14,300 years from dried excrement found in Oregon's Paisley Caves.

Anthropologist Dennis Jenkins of the University of Oregon said the DNA is the oldest ever found in the New World, the university said Thursday in a release. Jenkins and an international team of scientists said the DNA has apparent genetic ties to Siberia or Asia.

The findings are published online in Science Express.

"The Paisley Cave material represents, to the best of my knowledge, the oldest human DNA obtained from the Americas," Eske Willerslev, director of the Centre for Ancient Genetics at Denmark's University of Copenhagen, said in a statement. "Other pre-Clovis sites have been claimed, but no human DNA has been obtained, mostly because no human organic material had been recovered."

The DNA testing indicated that the feces belonged to humans in haplogroups A2 and B2, haplogroups common in Siberia and east Asia.