Paleogenomics: Genome-Scale Analysis of Ancient DNA and Population and Evolutionary Genomic Inferences

Abstract

Ancient DNA analysis has in the last 30 years grown into a compelling research tool that has radically transformed many scientific fields. In particular, methods of extracting ancient DNA that is often highly degraded and advances in genome sequencing technologies within the last decade have revolutionized genetic research of extinct and ancient lineages. Insights into ancient genomes, and their links to modern ones, hold unparalleled promise to capture the numerous processes of organismal evolution and their responses to a changing world. Hence, genomic-scale sequencing of up to several-thousand-year-old remains has contributed substantially to our understanding of the impacts of Pleistocene glaciations in shaping the Earth’s biodiversity and organismal distributions, the process of domestication, the history of diseases, and our own history as humans. In this chapter, we review some of the advances in ancient DNA sequencing and give examples of recent case studies in paleogenomic research.