Ancient DNA sheds light on the biography of a shipwreck in east China
SHANGHAI, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- Via the sediment of a single ancient vase, a 150-year-old Chinese ship has again found its voice.
It looks like nothing more than a jar of mud. But thanks to these sediments retrieved from a blue-and-white porcelain vase aboard the No. 2 ancient shipwreck in the Yangtze River estuary, scientists have unlocked something extraordinary: the vessel's complete "life story," written not in ink, but in DNA.
The Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) merchant ship lay silent below the estuary surface in east China for 150 years. Now, an interdisciplinary team from Fudan University, East China Normal University (ECNU) and the municipal cultural heritage conservation and research center of Shanghai, has unlocked details concerning its final voyage, cargo packaging, and even the season in which the ship sank -- using sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) and environmental factor analysis.
This study was recently published in a leading archaeology journal titled Antiquity.
Sedimentary ancient DNA refers to genetic material preserved in sediments for centuries or millennia. Unlike fossil bones or teeth, sedaDNA captures entire biological communities, such as plants, insects and even microbes, that once interacted with an artifact, offering a "molecular fossil" of human activity.
The team discovered a clear 30-centimeter stratigraphic boundary inside the vase. Below it, the "primary layer" was rich in terrestrial DNA signals, including rice husks and remnants of packaging materials used to cushion porcelain cargo.
Above it, the "disturbed layer" contained fine-grained sediments and marine invertebrates, documenting the slow colonization that happened on the estuary floor after the ship sank.
"This finding confirms that the vase preserved an undisturbed 'primary sealed environment,' thus providing a reliable biological archive for reconstructing human activities," said Ma Xiaolin, the paper's first author and associate research fellow at ECNU's State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research.
By cross-referencing sedaDNA with historical phenology records, which document rice harvests in summer to early autumn, the team inferred that the ship's last voyage likely occurred during summer or early autumn, supporting the hypothesis that a typhoon may have caused its sinking.
The study also detected bamboo DNA in the primary layer, corroborating historical records of Qing Dynasty porcelain packaging techniques, which featured bamboo strips horizontally wrapped around the exterior.
Meanwhile, rice DNA closely matched the native Indica varieties found in what is today Jiangxi Province, east China. Since packaging materials were typically sourced locally at the point of cargo loading, this suggests that Jiangxi was not only the porcelain's production center, but also its packaging hub.
"This research moves us from 'artifact-centric archaeology' to 'life-history narrative'," said Wen Shaoqing, corresponding author and associate professor at Fudan's Institute of Archaeological Science.
"The shipwreck is no longer a silent relic, but is now a time capsule that speaks through molecules," said Wen. "This approach opens a new frontier for underwater archaeology and offers a scientific framework to reinterpret modern maritime trade networks." ■