Parchment as a reservoir of ancient DNA for next generation sequencing. Parchment as a reservoir of ancient DNA for next generation sequencing

Parchment represent an invaluable cultural reservoir. Here we apply next generation sequencing to two parchments of 17th and 18th century northern English provenance. Over 45% of reads aligned uniquely to the sheep genome and we conclude that parchment represents an excellent substrate for genomic analyses of historical livestock.