DNA species identification of archaeological salmon bone from the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America

This paper reports on the development and application of methods for using DNA analysis for species identification of archaeological salmon bone. Short fragments (less than 300 bp) of mitochondrial DNA from the control region (D-loop) and cytochrome B (CytB) gene were targeted for amplification using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique. The method was used on more than 20 salmon bone samples (dated 7000 to 2000 BP) from the site of Namu on the central coast of British Columbia. Four species: coho, sockeye, pink and chum salmon were identified from the samples. The results are considered valid since systematic contaminations were not detected, multiple species and multiple DNA haplotypes of the same species were identified from the same set of bone samples, and the identified species are consistent with those inferred from other lines of evidence. The results demonstrate the applicability of the ancient DNA technique to species identification of even single salmon vertebrae from archaeological sites in the Pacific Northwest of North America. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.