The idea of recovering ancient DNA has been around for a long time – and of course, the original Jurassic Park brought it into the forefront of public imagination and it hasn’t let go.

DNA is the hereditary material contained in almost all organisms on Earth – the material that codes for development, functioning, growth, and reproduction of its organism.

Even though DNA molecules are fragile and do degrade over time, we have uncovered several bits of ancient DNA.

But how old is the oldest one?

Currently, it’s a bit of DNA that’s 2 million years old.

Discovered in 2022, it comes from Ice Age sediment in northern Greenland. The DNA molecules come from plants and animals that have been locked in the permafrost since the Pliocene.

The DNA comes from reindeer, geese, hares, rodents, crabs, and even mastodon. Also poplar, birch, thuja trees, and a variety of Arctic and boreal shrubs and herbs.

The oldest DNA molecules prior to this were 1.2 million-year-old mammoth teeth unearthed in the Siberian permafrost. It remains the oldest DNA to be recovered from biological material.

The oldest human DNA comes from a 430,000-year-old genome found in Spain, in an underground pit filled with the remains of 28 hominins.

They were early remains of Neanderthal lineage, and the reason we might never find any older human DNA is because it degrades faster in hotter climates – and the earliest humans evolved in Africa.

There you have it.

I have a feeling that one day, we’ll find something even older.

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