Ancient DNA studies

About three decades of scientific research confirmed ancient DNA as a powerful tool for anthropology, paleontology, molecular evolution, conservation genetics and forensics. A rapid evolution of the methodological approaches in the last ten years led to an important increase of data related both to the number of samples and to the informative genetic markers. Paleogenetics analysis has been applied to a wide spectrum of samples, answering to different kind of scientific and cultural questions. In this review, ancient DNA characteristics and methodological approaches are presented as well as recent results obtained from samples of bacteria, plants, animals, with a particular focus on the newest discoveries about the Homo genus.