Researchers have developed a way to study DNA preserved inside ancient parchment manuscripts without damaging the documents. The work focused on animal skins used to produce manuscripts dating from the eighth century through the early 1900s. By analyzing genetic material from those skins, the team gathered new information about livestock farming, parchment production, and trade patterns across several regions.
The study appeared in the journal Manuscript Studies. Researchers examined 91 parchment manuscripts preserved at Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. The collection included religious texts, scrolls, legal records, fragments, and manuscripts written in several languages. The documents came from England, different parts of Europe, the Middle East, and northeastern Africa.
For more than a thousand years, parchment served as the main writing material across Europe and much of the Mediterranean region. Unlike paper, parchment came from animal hides, usually sheep, goats, or cattle. Millions of parchment documents still survive in libraries and museums today. Researchers involved in the study describe those collections as a large biological archive preserved across centuries.
Scientists faced a major obstacle for years. Traditional ancient DNA studies often require researchers to cut, scrape, or drill into material samples. Archivists and conservation experts rarely allow such methods on rare manuscripts because even small damage matters when dealing with cultural heritage objects.
The team used a different technique. Researchers gently rubbed the parchment with small cytology brushes, the same type often used in medical testing. The brushes collected tiny traces of cells from the surface without leaving visible damage.
After sampling, scientists extracted DNA from the brushes and analyzed the material with next-generation sequencing technology. These sequencing methods work well with old and fragmented DNA, which often survives in poor condition inside ancient material.
Researchers processed 351 samples from the manuscripts. Around 58 percent passed strict quality tests required for species identification. Among the authenticated samples, 129 came from sheep, 42 from cattle, 32 from goats, and one from pig skin.
The results matched regional farming patterns from the medieval and early modern periods. English manuscripts relied heavily on sheepskin parchment. Sheep accounted for about 80 percent of authenticated English samples, which fits the long history of wool production in England.
A twelfth-century English manuscript received special attention during the project. Researchers sampled every bifolium, or folded sheet, in the manuscript. All tested pages came from sheep parchment. Scientists compared the manuscript with earlier studies of other medieval books where scribes appeared to mix calfskin and sheepskin in deliberate patterns.
Southern European manuscripts showed a more balanced mix of goat, sheep, and cattle parchment. Ethiopian manuscripts mainly used goatskin. Samples linked to West Asia relied entirely on sheepskin in authenticated results.
The genetic data also offered clues about relationships between animals used in manuscript production. Some samples from the same document shared similar maternal genetic markers, suggesting related animals supplied the skins. Researchers hope future studies help identify whether medieval workshops relied on local herds or larger trade networks.
The study belongs to a growing field called biocodicology, which examines manuscripts through biological traces preserved inside them. Earlier work in the field identified unusual patterns in parchment selection. One medieval manuscript, for example, included a single goatskin page placed after a biblical passage mentioning a young goat.
Researchers believe parchment preserves far more than animal DNA. The material also contains traces of bacteria, viruses, insects, rodents, and human handling collected over centuries. Future projects aim to study livestock diseases, historical breeding practices, and the spread of animal populations across regions.
Estimates suggest between one and three billion parchment fragments and documents still survive worldwide. Together, those materials preserve a long biological record linked to farming, trade, religion, and manuscript production across more than a thousand years.
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