A Surprise in the Cave

Did you know that scientists have a fancy word for fossilized poop? It's "coprolite." That sounds better than "petrified poop." (Or not)

"We found a little pit in the bottom of a cave," related Dennis Jenkins from the University of Oregon, whose team excavated the Paisley Caves in 2002 and 2003.

"It was full of camel, horse and mountain sheep bones, and in there we found a human coprolite."

'Convincing evidence'

This and 13 other coprolites - fossilised faeces - proved the star attraction, because they contained tiny quantities of human mitochondrial DNA - genetic material found outside the nuclei of cells which is passed down from each mother to her children.

Several kinds of genetic analysis performed at several different laboratories confirmed that the DNA was human, and suggested the ancient cave residents were closely related to ethnic groups indigenous to Siberia and East Asia.