Until now, very few DNA samples have surpassed the 100,000-year threshold due to preservation challenges. By recovering DNA from mammoth specimens spanning over more than a million years, this study showcases the importance of temporal sampling to characterize the evolutionary history of species.
By analyzing these new mitogenomes alongside over 200 previously published mammoth mitogenomes, the researchers were able to find that diversification events across mammoth lineages seem to coincide with well-described demographic changes during the Early and Middle Pleistocene.
Their findings support an ancient Siberian origin for major mammoth lineages and reveal how shifts in population dynamics might have contributed to the expansion and contraction of distinct genetic clades.
Their results confirm previous research, showing that mammoths from around a million years ago do not closely resemble later mammoths.