Ancient DNA suggests woolly mammoths roamed the Earth more recently than previously thought

Genetic material found in permafrost sediments from the Yukon contains rich information about ancient ecosystems. (Julius Csotonyi/Government of Yukon), Author provided

In 2010, small cores of permafrost sediments were collected by a team at the University of Alberta from gold mines in the Klondike region of central Yukon. They had remained in cold storage until paleogeneticists at the McMaster Ancient DNA Centre applied new genomics techniques to better understand the global extinction of megafauna that had culminated in North America some 12,700 years ago.