Dr. David Gwynn

Did descendants of theirs survive to the present? Or did they disappear? I can't do that. I can't do that with rocks. I can't do that with bones. But with ancient DNA, I can. And since 2014, I've been fortunate to be involved in quite a number of the papers that that have explored human population history. That's really what we're talking about here.

Did descendants of theirs survive to the present? Or did they disappear? I can't do that. I can't do that with rocks. I can't do that with bones. But with ancient DNA, I can. And since 2014, I've been fortunate to be involved in quite a number of the papers that that have explored human population history. That's really what we're talking about here.

Did descendants of theirs survive to the present? Or did they disappear? I can't do that. I can't do that with rocks. I can't do that with bones. But with ancient DNA, I can. And since 2014, I've been fortunate to be involved in quite a number of the papers that that have explored human population history. That's really what we're talking about here.

Ancestry, relatedness, admixture among different population groups. With ancient genomic evidence, we can do that. And so this is answering questions that I as an archaeologist have had for many years. about, again, who they were, where they came from, who they're related to, what are the ancestral populations that contributed to the group that would ultimately make their way into the Americas.

Ancestry, relatedness, admixture among different population groups. With ancient genomic evidence, we can do that. And so this is answering questions that I as an archaeologist have had for many years. about, again, who they were, where they came from, who they're related to, what are the ancestral populations that contributed to the group that would ultimately make their way into the Americas.

Ancestry, relatedness, admixture among different population groups. With ancient genomic evidence, we can do that. And so this is answering questions that I as an archaeologist have had for many years. about, again, who they were, where they came from, who they're related to, what are the ancestral populations that contributed to the group that would ultimately make their way into the Americas.

It's been a game changer.

It's been a game changer.

It's been a game changer.

Well, absolutely right. Not only can you, of course, extract DNA from animal bones, you can extract DNA from sediment. A gram of sediment, and this is just mind-blowing stuff, a gram of sediment contains literally billions, that's billions with a B, DNA fragments in just a gram of sediment. And in those fragments, you've got the ecosystem.

Well, absolutely right. Not only can you, of course, extract DNA from animal bones, you can extract DNA from sediment. A gram of sediment, and this is just mind-blowing stuff, a gram of sediment contains literally billions, that's billions with a B, DNA fragments in just a gram of sediment. And in those fragments, you've got the ecosystem.

Well, absolutely right. Not only can you, of course, extract DNA from animal bones, you can extract DNA from sediment. A gram of sediment, and this is just mind-blowing stuff, a gram of sediment contains literally billions, that's billions with a B, DNA fragments in just a gram of sediment. And in those fragments, you've got the ecosystem.

So you can trace what plants are growing on the landscape at that instant, what animals are passing over and shedding skin or doing their business, right? Every time a mammoth would drop one of those, well, gigantic mammoth poops, that DNA gets worked into the sediment.

So you can trace what plants are growing on the landscape at that instant, what animals are passing over and shedding skin or doing their business, right? Every time a mammoth would drop one of those, well, gigantic mammoth poops, that DNA gets worked into the sediment.

So you can trace what plants are growing on the landscape at that instant, what animals are passing over and shedding skin or doing their business, right? Every time a mammoth would drop one of those, well, gigantic mammoth poops, that DNA gets worked into the sediment.

And so there have been some really phenomenal studies, and this is even more recent than a lot of the human DNA, in which, well, in one particular study, for example, we were able to track the last 50,000 years of Arctic vegetation and animal communities. And among the things that came out of that work

And so there have been some really phenomenal studies, and this is even more recent than a lot of the human DNA, in which, well, in one particular study, for example, we were able to track the last 50,000 years of Arctic vegetation and animal communities. And among the things that came out of that work

And so there have been some really phenomenal studies, and this is even more recent than a lot of the human DNA, in which, well, in one particular study, for example, we were able to track the last 50,000 years of Arctic vegetation and animal communities. And among the things that came out of that work

And this is work that was done in concert with and under the direction of my collaborator at the University of Copenhagen, Eski Willerslev. We were able to show, for example, that mammoth, woolly mammoth, right, survived up until... around 10 or 11,000 years ago across most of the Arctic region, right? We had samples that were literally, you know, sort of circle the Northern hemisphere.

And this is work that was done in concert with and under the direction of my collaborator at the University of Copenhagen, Eski Willerslev. We were able to show, for example, that mammoth, woolly mammoth, right, survived up until... around 10 or 11,000 years ago across most of the Arctic region, right? We had samples that were literally, you know, sort of circle the Northern hemisphere.