Molecular paleontology

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Molecular paleontology refers to the recovery and analysis of DNA, proteins, carbohydrates, or lipids, and their diagenetic products from ancient human, animal, and plant remains.^[1][2] The field of molecular paleontology has yielded important insights into evolutionary events, species' diasporas, the discovery and characterization of extinct species. loo In shallow time, advancements in the field of molecular paleontology have allowed scientists to pursue evolutionary questions on a genetic level rather than relying on phenotypic variation alone. By applying molecular analytical techniques to DNA in Recent animal remains, one can quantify the level of relatedness between any two organisms for which DNA has been recovered.^[3] Using various biotechnological techniques such as DNA isolation, amplification, and sequencing^[4] scientists have been able to gain expanded new insights into the divergence and evolutionary history of countless recently extinct organisms. In February 2021, scientists reported, for the first time, the sequencing of DNA from animal remains, a mammoth in this instance, over a million years old, the oldest DNA sequenced to date.^[5][6]

In deep time, compositional heterogeneities in carbonaceous remains of a diversity of animals, ranging in age from the Neoproterozoic to the Recent, have been linked to biological signatures encoded in modern biomolecules via a cascade of oxidative fossilization reactions.^{[7][8][9][10]} The macromolecular composition of carbonaceous fossils, some Tonian in age,^[11] preserve biological signatures reflecting original biomineralization, tissue types, metabolism, and relationship affinities (phylogeny).^[9]