The results have confirmed some expectations, overturned others, and generated entirely new questions that nobody was asking before the genomic evidence arrived.

The most fundamental finding — the one that established the basic framework within which all subsequent debates have taken place — is this: the ancient people of South America, including the ancient people of Lagoa Santa, were genetically Native American.

They were not Australians.

They were not Africans.

They were not a separate founding population that arrived by a different route from a different part of the world.

They were members of the same broad ancestral group that populated all of the Americas — a group that originated in Asia, crossed into the Americas through Beringia (the land bridge between Siberia and Alaska that existed when sea levels were lower), and then spread rapidly across both continents.