Ancient Oral Pathogens Identified in Viking Teeth. Ancient Oral Pathogens Identified in Viking Teeth

In a Swedish Viking age population from the 10th–12th century AD, 11 dentine samples from 8 individuals with carious lesions were collected using a sterile excavator. KrakenUniq was used for metagenomics analysis. After rigorous authentication, ancient DNA (aDNA) was identified from 19 species, of which most were associated with the oral cavity. The most common species found were Pseudopropionibacterium propionicum (4 samples), Porphyromonas gingivalis (3 samples), Lactobacillus paracasei (2 samples), and Streptococcus mutans (2 samples). This study not only highlights applications of new techniques for aDNA analysis, but also identifies the limitations of such studies since the analysis of the results are restricted to the databases used for comparisons. This study concludes that dentine tissue could be used as a source of aDNA and therefore be used to increase the knowledge of oral pathology in the deeper portion of carious lesions in samples recovered from archeological human remains.