The onetime fragment of DNA ever discovered have been found in the permafrost of northerly Greenland , enable scientists to paint a video of a verdant landscape painting teeming with life in the distant past times . Dated to at least 2 million years ago , the genetic material belonged to more than 100 different plant species and the animals that feed on them , includingmastodonsandreindeer .

Prior to this incredible discovery , the most ancient DNA ever sequenced belong to a. describe their staggering find in a subject , the researchers explain that the environmental DNA recovered from Greenland plausibly exist for so long by binding to mineral in clay .

The genetical stuff was found at the Kap København Formation , which seat in a part of Northern Greenland that the researchers describe as a “ polar desert ” . However , during the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene , the region experienced temperatures that were between 11 and 19 ° hundred ( 51.8 to 66.2 ° F ) higher than they are today .

Describing the plant mintage identified in the ancient DNA , the study authors excuse that Kap København was once “ an undetermined boreal forest ecosystem with mixed botany of poplar , birch rod and genus Thuja trees , as well as a variety of Arctic and boreal shrubs and herbaceous plant . ”

“ The DNA record confirms the presence of rabbit and mitochondrial DNA from animals including mastodons , reindeer , rodents and geese , all patrimonial to their present - day and belated Pleistocene congeneric , ” stay on the researchers .

Interestingly , reindeer and mastodont are absent from the local fogey record book , so the detection of their DNA fills in some of the disruption in our knowledge of the Arctic ecosystem at this primordial juncture . what is more , the mastodon DNA at Kap København was distinct from that of otherPleistocene mastodons , suggesting that the Greenland proboscidian may have been an old , unnamed species .

Meanwhile , the presence of horseshoe crab and green algae DNA indicate that the waters surround northern Greenland were much affectionate than they are today , and could host organisms that are no longer able to populate so far northerly .

While the team could n’t definitively decide the geezerhood of the genetic material , mineral found in the same layer of deposit contain signaling reflect change in the Earth ’s magnetic field . This enabled the researchers to conclude that the environmental DNA was at least 2 million year sure-enough .

“ The ancient DNA sample were found sink late in sediment that had built - up over 20,000 yr . The sediment was eventually preserved in ice or permafrost and , crucially , not touch by mankind for 2 million years , ” explained study author Kurt Kjær in astatement .

Having teased out the secrets curb in this desoxyribonucleic acid , the research worker have at long last add to living the ancient ecosystem of Kap København . Unlike the frozen barren of today , this prehistoric landscape was home to a “ unique , ancient open boreal forest residential area blend with Arctic metal money , a community musical composition that has no New analogues . ”

The study is published inNature .