Scientists have sequenced the world's oldest DNA recovered from the remains of mammoths that are up to 1.2 million years old, an advance which sheds light on how the extinct giant mammal adapted to cold weather. Until this discovery, the oldest genomic data recovered so far was from a horse specimen dated to 780560 thousand years ago, the study, published in the journal Nature, noted. According to the scientists, including those from the Swedish Museum of Natural History, this is the first time that DNA has been sequenced and authenticated from million-year-old specimens. "This DNA is incredibly old. The samples are a thousand times older than Viking remains, and even pre-date the existence of humans and Neanderthals," said study senior author Love Dalen, a Professor of evolutionary genetics at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm, Sweden.