About 6,000 years ago, a young woman in what is now southern Denmark tossed a lump of chewing gum made from birch tar into a shallow lagoon. Today, some researchers who found the gum during an excavation have used it to reassemble the woman’s entire genetic code. Hannes Schroeder, a molecular anthropologist and associate professor at the University of Copenhagen, speaks with Marco Werman about the discovery.
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