Ancient DNA

Common card · No. 317783

Ancient DNA (aDNA) is DNA isolated from ancient sources (typically specimens, but also environmental DNA). Due to degradation processes (including cross-linking, deamination and fragmentation) ancient DNA is more degraded in comparison with present-day genetic material. Genetic material has been recovered from paleo/archaeological and historical skeletal material, mummified tissues, archival collections of non-frozen medical specimens, preserved plant remains, ice and from permafrost cores, marine and lake sediments and excavation dirt. Even under the best preservation conditions, there is an upper boundary of 0.4–1.5 million years for a sample to contain sufficient DNA for sequencing technologies. The oldest DNA sequenced from physical specimens are from mammoth molars in Siberia over 1 million years old. In 2022, two-million-year-old genetic material was recovered from sediments in Greenland, and is currently considered the oldest DNA discovered so far.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Svante Pääbo, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, CC BY 2.5