“... I see no point in the research other than curiosity.”
Exactly. Much government-funded research is playground stuff. Scientists having fun with other people’s money, but realizing no tangible benefit to society.
People said the same thing when a few people started playing with radium containing rocks in the 1800’s
Well, this research was not done here, it was Denmark. This type of research is not necessarily “playground” stuff either. This could lead to extraction and characterization of extremely ancient human DNA as well. Being able to track, characterize and understand changes and mutations in a species genome across the span of history can lead to insights that could identify reasons for certain diseases and lethal mutations in humans today and possibly provide a path for correcting those problems and/or curing some diseases. Basic research is the groundwork for more specific and useful research and breakthroughs.