About the Authors

Morten E. Allentoft

morten.allentoft@gmail.com (MEA); m.bunce@murdoch.edu.au (MB)

Affiliations Ancient DNA Laboratory, School of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia, School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

Charlotte Oskam

Affiliation Ancient DNA Laboratory, School of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Jayne Houston

Affiliation Ancient DNA Laboratory, School of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Marie L. Hale

Affiliation School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

M. Thomas P Gilbert

Affiliation Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark

Morten Rasmussen

Affiliation Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark

Peter Spencer

Affiliation Wildlife Identification Laboratory, School of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Christopher Jacomb

Affiliation Southern Pacific Archaeological Research, Department of Anthropology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

Eske Willerslev

Affiliation Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark

Richard N. Holdaway

Affiliations School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, Palaecol Research Ltd, Christchurch, New Zealand

Michael Bunce

morten.allentoft@gmail.com (MEA); m.bunce@murdoch.edu.au (MB)

Affiliation Ancient DNA Laboratory, School of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Palaecol Research Ltd is wholly owned by Richard N Holdaway. It is a requirement of the Marsden Fund of the Royal Society of New Zealand (analogous to NSF etc) when disbursing contestible research funding, that the funds be directed to a non-personal entity. That entity in this instance is the single-person limited liability company, Palaecol Research Ltd, through which the research grant was disbursed. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. There are therefore no encumbrances on sharing data and materials, as detailed online in the guide for authors.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: MEA MB CO RNH. Performed the experiments: MEA MB CO JH MTPG MR. Analyzed the data: MEA MB. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MEA MB CO JH RNH MH MTPG MR EW PS CJ. Wrote the paper: MEA MB.