The first published paper claiming success came in 1984, when Allan Wilson and colleagues at the University of California Berkeley reported extracting DNA from museum specimens of the quagga, a recently extinct relative of the zebra.

In 1985, they reported obtaining DNA from ancient Egyptian mummies — a result that was later shown to be modern contamination rather than genuine ancient material, but which captured the scientific imagination and launched a field.

Svante Pääbo, a Swedish researcher who was then a graduate student, published a landmark paper in 1985 describing the recovery of DNA from ancient Egyptian mummies.

Like the quagga work, these early results were enthusiastically received but subsequently questioned on contamination grounds.