this is insane:

they were scouting for a spot that could have been a watering hole during Hannibal’s era. they found a layer of “churned” soil they call the MAD, for “mass animal deposition”—a euphemism for dung. they discovered genetic material from several types of bacteria, including a high concentration of DNA fragments from Clostridia, which is frequently found in feces. Clostridia are pervasive in soil as well, but the team also detected fatty compounds that come from the gut. That combination is what they would expect to see in a place where a great number—100s if not 1000s—of mammals had defecated.

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