Scientists have extracted DNA from the teeth of mammoths 1.2 million years old

The authors of the work extracted mitochondrial DNA from the teeth of three ancient mammoths, which were found in the Siberian

permafrost. Named after the places where they were found, they have the following ages: Krestovka - approximately 1.65 million years, Adycha - about 1.34 million years, and Chukochia - 0.87 million years.

This DNA is incredibly ancient. The specimens are a thousand times older than the Viking remains and even predate the existence of humans and Neanderthals.

Love Dahlen, leader of the study and professor of evolutionary genetics 

Extracting DNA was challenging, the scientists said - only a tiny amount of DNA remained in the samples, and it disintegrated into very small fragments.

Scientists previously believed that Krestovka and Adycha weresteppe mammoths (Mammuthus trogontherii) and, presumably, the ancestors of Siberian mammoths. However, the analysis showed that Krestovka belonged to another species of proboscis, unknown to science.

His closest relatives did not live in Chukotka orYakutia, and in the north-west of the modern USA, where the so-called Columbian mammoths lived. As a result, scientists found that in the early Pleistocene, two independent lines of mammoths lived in Eastern Siberia.

One of them separated from the genome of other mammoths approximately 2.66–1.78 million years ago and gave rise to the first North American mammoths.

Read more:

The first accurate map of the world was created. What's wrong with everyone else?

What drones are there and when will passenger air taxis appear?

Check out the most beautiful pictures of Hubble. What has the telescope seen in 30 years?