Flashback: DNA Analysis Shows Polar Bears Have Adapted Quickly in the Past | Wired Science | Wired.com

In 2007, University of Iceland geologist Ólafur Ingólfsson, co-author on the new study, found a fossilized polar bear jawbone on the Arctic Ocean island of Svalbard. He estimated its age at between 110,000 and 130,000 years. Until then, the species was thought to be about 90,000 years old. The new estimate meant they’d survived the Eemian, a period of globally high temperatures that started 130,000 years ago, ending the next-to-last Ice Age, and lasted for 15,000 years until the last Ice Age began. Earth scientists consider the Eemian a preview of climate changes expected in the next few centuries.