Scientists have sequenced ancient DNA from soil for the first time and the advance will transform what is known about everything from evolution to climate change.
The findings have been described as the ‘moon landings’ of genomics because researchers will no longer have to rely on finding and testing fossils to determine genetic ancestry, links and discoveries – and it is thanks to Stone Age black bears who defecated in a remote cave in Mexico 16,000 years ago.
A team of scientists from The Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, University of Copenhagen, led by Professor Eske Willerslev, director of the foundation and a Fellow of St John’s College, University of Cambridge, recreated the genomes of animals, plants and bacteria of microscopic fragments of DNA found in Chiquihuite Cave.
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