Mammoth molars yield the oldest DNA ever sequenced

A genetic analysis of long-extinct Siberian mammoths has nearly doubled the record for the oldest DNA yet sequenced. The genetic material, from a creature that roamed frozen lands some 1.2 million years ago, pushes the study of ancient DNA closer to its theoretical limit—and reveals a new lineage of mammoth.

“I love this paper,” says Ludovic Orlando, a paleogeneticist at Paul Sabatier University whose team previously held the record for oldest DNA sequenced, from a 750,000-year-old horse. “I have been waiting since 2013 [for] our world record for the oldest genome to be broken.”

Genetic material breaks down relatively quickly in most environments. The oldest DNA sequenced from humans in Africa dates to about 15,000 years ago; in Europe, scientists have sequenced DNA from a Neanderthal that lived some 120,000 years ago. But the DNA of living things buried in permafrost can persist for much, much longer, as the deep freeze slows chemical degradation. Read the free article.