Anna Källén. 2025. The trouble with ancient DNA: telling stories of the past with genomic science. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press; 978-0-226-83557-0 paperback $20.

Sweden, states in The trouble with ancient DNA, is "to a great extent a storytelling practice" (p.28), with carefully crafted tales used to enliven our understanding of past lives.The ways in which the results of ancient DNA (aDNA) studies are used to develop these stories is a perennial topic of debate in the field.Klln's engaging new book adds nuance to this discourse by providing a critical assessment of the so-called 'ancient DNA revolution' on its own terms.Klln's novella-length book contains five readable and wellthought-out chapters, predominately focused on human aDNA research.Chapter 1, provides background information for the non-specialist reader, in a clear-eyed discussion of what DNA can and cannot tell us about our past; and it would provide an engaging primer to the field for an archaeology or genetics undergraduate student.The next three chapters expand Klln's thesis through a discussion of high-profile aDNA studies.It is argued that, given the totemic nature of DNA in the public imagination, the results of these studies do not live in splendid academic isolation but affect how the past is perceived by society at large.Klln persuasively reasons that this complexity requires those who engage in aDNA storytelling to consider the political ramifications of their work and to clearly document its limitations.The final chapter provides a defence of the DNA molecule and a guide addressing some of the perceived shortcomings outlined in the preceding chapters.Chapters 3 and 4 are the strongest in the book and live up to Klln's aim not to "issue weary warnings" (p.31) but to advocate the "need to sit with, and dig deeper into, interdisciplinary conflict, rather than attempt to disguise or overrule it" (p.32).Chapter 3 begins with a discussion of how aDNA studies-for good or ill-now form part of a larger 'ancestry economy' that crucially includes the rise of commercial genetic ancestry testing services widely used by the general public.Klln carefully outlines the limits of resolution provided by genetic data to tell these complex tales of ancestry and advocates for greater transparency in the presentation of results.This call to arms is one that will likely resonate with many readers, particularly members of the cross-disciplinary early career research communities that have recently developed in the field of archaeogenetics (e.g.HAAM Community 2025).In Chapter 4, Klln provides case studies of how past lives can become "props" (p.107) in modern-day ethical and cultural debates.This chapter also tackles the thorny issue of how the results of an aDNA analysismore often than not carefully caveated in research papers-can sometimes be presented