Beneath a Spanish cave, in a layer of earth that holds no bones at all, the faint traces of people who sheltered there some 22,000 years ago have been coaxed back into view. Their DNA, recovered by a team led from the University of Vienna, carries only western ancestry, unlike some earlier inhabitants of Europe who bore eastern threads in their lineage. The find hints at a quieter story than dramatic upheaval: that the peoples of southwest Europe may have held their ground through the bitter cold of the last ice age. It is a reminder that the past leaves its fingerprints in unexpected places,
Ancient Human DNA Recovered From Cave Sediment Alone, With No Bones Found
No bones, no teeth, no fossils, and still, several people's DNA
Mark
Start with the basics. How do you get a human genome signal out of a layer with no human bones?
Mimi
By treating the dirt as the archive. People shed skin, hair, and blood, and some of that DNA stuck in the sediment. The team sequenced a few-grain-sized sample 100 times and sifted over a billion fragments to find the human traces.
Luke
Worth saying how little that is. They describe it as a small amount of genetic information, and they had to correct for modern contamination. So this isn't a full portrait of a population.
Mark
Fair. What did it tell them, then?
Mimi
That the people were probably of a western ancestry group, with dark skin, hair, and eyes, and that the DNA came from several individuals, more males than females.
Luke
I'd flag the appearance claim. It's described as probable, an inference from limited data, not something read off a body.
Mark
And why does the ancestry matter?
Mimi
Earlier individuals from France, about 31,000 years ago, and northern Spain, about 25,000 years ago, show some eastern ancestry. El Mirón at 22,000 years shows only western. That points to continuity in southwest Europe, not a big replacement.
Luke
Though the authors' wording is that the data argue against a major replacement. That's an argument from a thin set of samples, not a settled result, and they say more genomes are needed.
Mark
So the real shift is the method?
Mimi
Yes. Sediment from Georgia, a cave wall in Argentina, and now El Mirón. It may let researchers study people without waiting for rare bones.
Luke
The predictions about revolutionizing archaeology come from a review's forecast. The challenges are still being worked out.
El Pulso
- A scoop of sediment no bigger than a few grains of rice holds the only record of human presence in a layer otherwise empty of bones.
- Researchers sequenced the sample a hundred times and sifted more than a billion fragments, racing to separate ancient human signals from modern contamination.
- The genetic picture shows only western ancestry, quietly challenging the idea that European populations were constantly reshuffled during the ice age.
- Method is spreading fast, with similar traces now recovered from a Georgian cave floor and Argentine rock art, though scientists caution that more samples are urgently needed.
Beneath a Spanish cave, in a layer of earth that holds no bones at all, the faint traces of people who sheltered there some 22,000 years ago have been coaxed back into view. Their DNA, recovered by a team led from the University of Vienna, carries only western ancestry, unlike some earlier inhabitants of Europe who bore eastern threads in their lineage. The find hints at a quieter story than dramatic upheaval: that the peoples of southwest Europe may have held their ground through the bitter cold of the last ice age. It is a reminder that the past leaves its fingerprints in unexpected places, and that patient hands can read them.
The sample that began this study was tiny, a scoop of sediment from El Mirón Cave in Spain, no more than a few grains of rice. The layer holds no bones, no teeth, no fossils. Yet a team led from the University of Vienna has drawn out ancient nuclear DNA from several people who lived in the cave around 22,000 years ago.
The work was slow. The sediment was sequenced a hundred times, and researchers sorted through more than a billion DNA fragments to find the human traces, carefully setting aside modern contamination. What remained was likely shed long ago, perhaps from skin, hair, or blood of people sheltering through the coldest stretch of Europe's last ice age.
That era is thinly documented, and the new genetic evidence suggests the cave's occupants belonged to a western ancestry group. Because nuclear DNA carries information from both parents, it allowed the team to ask a larger question: did western and eastern populations in Europe mix, or remain apart? Earlier individuals from France and northern Spain carried some eastern ancestry, but the El Mirón DNA shows only western roots. The authors argue this points toward continuity rather than replacement in southwest Europe.
The approach is spreading, from a Georgian cave floor to Argentine rock art. Scientists expect it to grow, but they stress that more skeletal genomes and sediment datasets will be needed before the full shape of Upper Paleolithic Europe comes into focus.
The sample that started this study was tiny: a scoop of sediment from El Mirón Cave in Spain, weighing no more than a few grains of rice. The layer it came from holds no bones, no teeth, no fossils of any human being. Yet researchers led by a team at the University of Vienna have pulled ancient nuclear DNA out of it, from several people who lived in the cave roughly 22,000 years ago. Their results appear in Science Advances.
Getting there was slow work. The sediment had to be sequenced 100 times to produce enough usable data, and the team sorted through more than a billion DNA fragments to find the human traces among them. They also had to account for modern contamination. What survived was probably shed long ago, possibly from the skin, hair, or blood of people sheltering in the cave during the coldest stretch of Europe's last ice age.
That period is thinly documented. Few human remains are known from this time and culture, and two of those are of very poor quality. The El Mirón DNA suggests the cave's occupants belonged to a western ancestry group with dark skin, hair, and eyes. The genetic material seems to come from a mix of individuals, with more males than females represented.
The cave had already yielded genetic material before. In 2025, researchers found both animal and human mitochondrial DNA in dirt samples dated between 46,000 and 21,000 years ago, and the animals and humans appeared to have used the cave at different times. The new work goes further by recovering nuclear DNA. Mitochondrial DNA passes only through maternal lines, while nuclear DNA comes from both parents and carries more information about an individual's lineage.
That extra detail let lead author Pere Gelabert and colleagues ask a bigger question: did western and eastern populations in Europe mix during the last ice age, or stay in their own corners of the continent? They compared the El Mirón data with a woman from France who lived about 31,000 years ago and a tooth from northern Spain dated to around 25,000 years ago. Both showed some eastern ancestry, which suggests populations at both ends of Europe were interbreeding before the last glacial maximum.
The El Mirón DNA, by contrast, shows only western ancestry. Perhaps the mixing did not last. But the authors write that their genomic data argue against a major population replacement or discontinuity at this point, and that the population of southwest Europe between 30,000 and 20,000 years ago appears to have remained relatively continuous. By their account, sedaDNA has practically doubled the evidence available for this time and place, though samples remain scarce.
The approach is spreading. In 2021, researchers recovered mitochondrial DNA from the mud floor of a cave in Georgia, belonging to a woman who lived 25,000 years ago. This year, human DNA was found preserved on the wall of a rock-art cave in Argentina. Alba Bossoms Mesa, an evolutionary anthropologist at the Max Planck Institute, cautioned that the team cannot directly link the DNA to the making of the art, but called it the first evidence of human DNA surviving on cave walls for thousands of years.
A 2025 review argues that, once its technical challenges are ironed out, sedaDNA could deepen understanding of human dispersal, hunter-gatherer interactions, early agriculture, domestication, and disease, and it predicts rapid growth in applications over the next few years. For now, Gelabert and colleagues say that adding more skeletal genomes and sedaDNA datasets will be essential to resolve what shaped the genetic landscape of Upper Paleolithic Europe.
Citas Notables
The genomic data argue against a major population replacement or discontinuity at this juncture.— Pere Gelabert and colleagues, Science Advances study
This is the first evidence for human DNA preservation on cave walls for thousands of years.— Alba Bossoms Mesa, Max Planck Institute
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