Proper authentication of ancient DNA is essential, yes; but so are undogmatic approaches

Our paper on the microbiota of Andean mummies gut contents (Santiago-Rodriguez et al., 2016) has recently raised some questions detailed by Eisenhofer et al. (see reference), where the authors boldly claim an “unacceptable standard for future work”. This is not the first time our work has come under criticism by the same group of colleagues, and although we work in an area that is always open to questions, we can only publish data we are certain are not artifacts brought about by extant contamination