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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/04/no-bones-no-problem-dna-left-cave-soils-can-reveal-ancient-human-occupants [sciencemag.org]

Fifty thousand years ago, a Neandertal relieved himself in a cave in present-day Belgium, depositing, among other things, a sample of his DNA. The urine clung to minerals in the soil and the faeces eventually decomposed. But traces of the DNA remained, embedded in the cave floor, where earth falling from the cave’s ceiling and blowing in from outside eventually entombed it. Now, researchers have shown they can find and identify such genetic traces of both Neandertals and Denisovans, another type of archaic human, enabling them to test for the presence of ancient humans even in sites where no bones have been found.

Original Submission