Ancient African DNA survives up to 50,000 years, reshaping paleogenomics
DNA extracted from a 50,000-year-old mountain reedbuck tooth in South Africa is the oldest sub-Saharan African DNA recovered to date, with additional Late Pleistocene specimens (including a 42,000-year-old wildebeest genome from Ethiopia) showing usable genetic material despite contamination and uneven preservation; the findings suggest Africa's climate can preserve DNA much longer than previously thought and expand windows for studying both animal and human evolution, though older hominin DNA remains elusive.
