Ancient hairs: need for morphological analysis of prehistoric and extant Mammals
2016
Gharu,Jitendra | Trevedi,Seema
Hair keratin can stand vagaries of nature and may be well preserved in fossilized hairs found in ice, amber, mummies, scats (or coprolites) of carnivores, bird pellets etc. Ancient hairs are also found in archeological investigations in form of artifacts made by animal hairs like paint brushes, apparel, cordages etc. Analysis of ancient hairs can be useful for study of cuticle patterns, medulla, pigments, isotope ratios etc. Mitochondrial DNA or hair keratin protein or amino acids can be extracted for studying phylogenetic relationship between extinct and extant members. This mini-review presents some examples of fossil hairs found and analyzed so far and points towards the importance of study of ancient hairs. Study of hair morphology and or molecular analysis can help in identification of mammals that lived at the time when the artifacts from hairs were made and used by the prehistoric man. Comparisons of fossil hairs with the present populations may help us understand the biodiversity that prevailed in the regions in the past. Further, such comparisons may possibly throw some light on molecular and or morphological modifications due to the environmental or geographical change that lead to adaptations or alterations in demography or extinction of the species. To the best of our knowledge, morphological analysis has not been done in many samples of fossil hairs and hairs from paint brushes, apparel etc. that were used by ancient civilizations.
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