Late Pleistocene DNA Extraction and Analysis

The study of DNA from ancient material adds molecular data from fossils to evolutionary biological research. Examples of successful retrieval and characterization of Pleistocene DNA include mammoths [ 1 - 8 ], mastodon [ 4 ], ground sloths [ 9 - 11 ], a sabre-tooth tiger [ 12 ], a cave bear [ 13 ], the Neanderthal type specimen [ 14 ], and modern human remains [ 15 ]. Although the fossils studied were from various locations, a few conditions are generally shared. Most samples are derived from permafrost, i. e., the mammoth samples, or cold caves, i. e., an extinct mylodontid ground sloth. Based on these studies and the fact that the only reproducible results date to the late Pleistocene, success is predicted to be confined to samples no older than 50,000 years of age These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.