"DNA analysis reveals owner of 20,000-year-old pendant"

Scientists have extracted ancient DNA from a 20,000-year-old elk tooth pendant found in the Denisova Cave in Siberia, identifying the object's owner as a Stone Age woman closely related to a population of hunter-gatherers known to have lived in a part of Siberia east of the cave site. The new nondestructive research technique could shed light on prehistoric social roles and division of labor between the sexes or clarify whether or not an object was even made by our species.