A number of questions concerning the origin and production of the Dead Sea Scrolls may be addressed using DNA analysis. These documents were for the most part written on what is thought to be goat- or sheepskin parchment. Based on radiocarbon and other analyses, these manuscripts date between the mid–second century b.c.e. and the first century c.e.1 Under most conditions it would be remarkable that organic material, like parchment, would survive intact after such a long period of time. However, some of the material is remarkably well preserved because of the unique climate and storage conditions at Qumran. Because these parchments were produced from animal skins, they may contain remnant DNA molecules. Within the last decade, new techniques in molecular biology have been developed that have made it possible to recover DNA from ancient sources. The molecular analysis of ancient DNA (aDNA) from the Judean desert parchment fragments would enable us to establish a genetic signature unique for each manuscript. The precision of the DNA analysis will allow us to identify the species, population, and individual animal from which the parchment was produced.

The ability to recover biomolecules, most importantly DNA, from ancient remains has opened new research that has many implications.2 Access to aDNA provides the opportunity to study the genetic material of past organisms and identify individual and population histories. Unfortunately, the DNA recovered from archaeological specimens is of such a degraded nature that the usual techniques associated with DNA fingerprinting cannot be used. However, modifications of the traditional procedures that involve using something called polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and short segments of unique DNA from the mitochondria and flanking short simple repeats from nuclear DNA can be used to identify the origin and identity of biological materials such as preserved skins or parchments.3

In 1984 the first reports on the retrieval of informative DNA sequences from an extinct animal appeared,4 followed by the cloning of DNA from the skin of an ancient Egyptian mummy dated 2400 b.p. (before present).5 The rapid degradation of biomolecules begins immediately following death. Except in unusual circumstances, this process continues unabated until the molecules return to a native state. DNA, found in large quantities in living tissue, degrades rapidly after death, and in most instances only small amounts of short DNA molecules can be recovered from dead tissue. This normally prevents recovery and analysis of DNA sequences from ancient tissue. However, the advent of PCR6 in 1985 further opened the possibility of isolating DNA sequences in extracts in which the majority of the molecules are damaged and degraded. Theoretically, a single intact copy of a target DNA sequence, which only needs to be on the order of one hundred to two hundred base pairs in length, is sufficient for PCR, making it an ideal tool for aDNA studies. PCR products can be sequenced directly from a sample (this is preferable), or after cloning, making DNA sequence comparisons an extremely useful tool for the study of kinship relationships between individuals and populations. The amplification of mitochrondrial DNA (mtDNA) from ancient bones and teeth dated from 750 to 5450 years b.p. has been accomplished recently by a number of investigators.7 aDNA has also been used in sex identification of skeletal remains.8 PCR has been successfully applied to the analysis of ancient mtDNA from a variety of soft tissue remains, including a seven-thousand-year-old human brain,9 an extinct marsupial wolf,10 and—particularly relevant to this study—the preserved museum skins of over thirty kangaroo rats.11 Numerous reports document the successful extraction and amplification of aDNA from museum skins and field-collected specimens,12 including both naturally preserved (mummified) and actively treated skins from a wide variety of organisms, especially birds and mammals.13 Some of these skins have been subjected to the same conditions that we expect to exist in the scroll parchments, and the extraction procedures for such specimens are not substantially different from those we have used in previous studies of aDNA.

Introduction | Section 1 | Section 2 | Results and Notes