Archaeologists Use Ancient Droppings to Date the Presence of Humans in North America

Recent evidence suggests people settled North America at least 14,000 years ago. The evidence? None other than human coprolites -- a fancy scientific term for fossilized feces -- discovered in an Oregon cave.
The photograph above is none other than a healthy helping of number two deposited over 12,300 years ago, containing 14,000 year old human DNA and protein. (Not sure why a person's doo-doo contains human DNA and protein -- the New York Times article, unfortunately, doesn't address this issue).

This is certainly not the first time I've heard of scientists using scat for evidence. Wildlife enthusiasts often use dookie to track and locate animals. Because of my field trip to Taconic three years ago, I can now discern deer defecation from other animal leavings (they are small round balls often in neat little piles). And one of my coolest professors from Swarthmore College was an ethnobotanist who analyzed the chemistry of elephant droppings to determine the nutrients elephants consumed when they became ill -- information that could potentially be used to synthesize new medicines for humans. Pretty neat (though mildly nauseating) stuff.

So the next time you take time to vacate your bowels, ponder this: What are you leaving behind for the rest of the world to discover, and what is it saying about you?

:-/