Ancient DNA data from non-frozen archeological and lake sediments from Alaska, 2019-2023

Dataset purpose: Sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) has huge potential to expand our knowledge of past human resource use and exploitation from open and near-surface archaeological sites. However, sediment from such sites is often not water-logged or frozen, and so the vertical movement of free water through the sediment, coupled with root penetration of overlaying vegetation, has the potential to blur and mix sedaDNA signals from different stratigraphic horizons. Here, we generated shotgun metagenomics, together with plant and animal metabarcoding, data from archaeological sites and the nearby Chisholm lake from interior Alaska to test this hypothesis.
Specific contents: Datasets that were generated over the course of the project:
- Plant sedimentary ancient DNA metabarcoding data from Chisholm Lake (archived at ENA SRA BioProject PRJEB74037)
- Plant and animal sedimentary ancient DNA metabarcoding data from the archeological sites (archived at ENA SRA BioProject PRJEB74079)
- Sedimentary ancient DNA shotgun metagenomics data from the archeological sites and five samples from Chisholm Lake (archived at NCBI SRA BioProject PRJNA1089555)
Data access is embargoed at alternate identifier links until April 16th, 2025.