Microbial DNA from Pleistocene Fossil Sediments in India's Narmada Valley

Hathnora in India's central Narmada Valley is the country's sole archaic hominin site. This dataset documents the optimized extraction and characterization of microbial sedaDNA from vertebrate fossil-bearing Pleistocene sediments at this location. The research, authored by Kruti Mistry and last updated in April 2026, compares eight DNA extraction methods to overcome high humic acid content, yielding DNA suitable for V3-V4 amplicon sequencing.

Use Cases

• Compare DNA extraction method efficacy based on the described eight alternative protocols.
• Profile microbial community evolution in tropical sediment environments based on the V3-V4 amplicon sequencing results.
• Reconstruct paleoenvironments based on taxonomic profiles derived from the sedaDNA analysis.
• Study methodological adaptations for high-humic-acid sediment samples based on the described optimization process.

Strengths

• DNA quality is quantified with a reported 260/280 ratio of 1.9.
• Methodological details are provided for eight compared extraction protocols.
• Dataset is openly licensed under CC-BY-4.0.

Limitations

• The dataset is very small at 185.5 KB, indicating limited scope.
• Row count and column-level documentation are absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The primary files are PDF and DOCX formats, which may require manual data extraction.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Kruti Mistry.

Collection Method

DNA extracted from sediment samples collected during paleontological salvage excavations, with an optimized protocol for high-humic-acid content.

Time Range

Pleistocene epoch.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-19 18:40:05.

Geography

Hathnora, central Narmada Valley, India.