What is Ancient DNA?
Ancient DNA refers to preserved DNA from subfossilized (not fully fossilized) remains of ancient animals or humans. For instance, ancient DNA has been successfully extracted from the bones of Neanderthals, extinct human relatives; mammoths, large elephant-like beasts that roamed the Earth throughout the last Ice Age, and Egyptian priests that lived 4000 years ago. Fossil evidence offers comparatively little information relative to what can be learned from sequencing ancient DNA, so it is much in demand and there are many geneticists who specialize in ancient DNA. The concept of ancient DNA was popularized by the Steven Spielberg film Jurassic Park, one of the most popular movies of the 1990s. In Jurassic Park, dinosaurs are revived by extracting their DNA from mosquitoes preserved in amber that bit these dinosaurs shortly before becoming trapped in tree resin. Indeed, at one point it was thought that dinosaur DNA has been recovered, but subsequent analyses have shown that this is not t
Ancient DNA is the DNA recovered from the remains of an organism that has been dead for tens, hundreds or thousands of years. Ancient DNA has been found in the remains of extinct plants and animals, Egyptian mummies and even fossilised dung. Museums, with their vast collections of animal skins and mounted specimens dating from the early 1800’s, are huge warehouses of ancient DNA just waiting to be studied.
