Abstract
Molecular analyses of mummies and skeletal remains, particularly DNA-based analyses often involve destructive sampling, which sometimes hinders research due to cultural heritage preservation concerns especially with the very precious samples. Therefore, attempts to minimize the initial sampling materials are continuously required. Here, we present three different cases where we performed unusual non-destructive sampling on ancient mummies and skeletal remains, by extending the sampling objects to the surroundings as follows: Case (i) during the thawing process of the Iceman mummy of Bolzano, Italy, we gradually collected the thawed water and swabbed the whole body surface; Case (ii) to analyze the possible case of death of the Barfüsser mummy of Basel, Switzerland, we collected maggots, textiles, and soil samples from the surroundings of the mummy as negative controls; Case (iii) we analyzed the calcite deposits found surrounding Bronze Age human skeletal remains found in the Wimsener caves, Germany. In comparison with classical bone/tissue samples from the aforementioned cases, the new samples were enough to reconstruct full mitochondrial genomes of the individuals, to molecularly identify the sex, and finally to reflect microbial profiles including both ancient and modern contaminants. In conclusion, for performing DNA analyses on mummies or skeletal remains, sampling the surrounding objects could offer new possibilities which can give comparable results to the conventional sampling, in terms of the host DNA or even the inhabiting microbes. This offers additional options for non-destructive sampling which could convince the stakeholders and open new possibilities for performing research on highly precious mummies and ancient objects.