As waterlogged archaeological wood consists of polymers such as cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, it is a good habitat for microorganisms. To understand the degradation of wooden archaeological artefacts, it is necessary to map the microbial diversity and life within the archaeological samples. Many studies on waterlogged archaeological wood samples have been done using classical microbiological methods. Despite several attempts, culture-based identification of wood-degrading bacteria has not been possible. Culture-independent 16S rDNA sequence analyses open the way for study of bacterial communities in environmental samples without prior cultivation and reveal a significantly broader diversity of 16S rDNA sequence types than can be obtained from cultivated bacteria.
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