In 2018, a major study by João Arroyo-Kalin and colleagues, and separately a study by Cosimo Posth, Johannes Krause, and a large international team, published ancient genomes from Lagoa Santa individuals.

The Lagoa Santa genomes showed the expected Native American ancestry — these were unambiguously genetically Native American individuals, consistent with descent from the Beringian founding population.

They were not genetically Australian or Melanesian.

They did not show evidence of direct ancestry from populations outside of the broader Native American founding group.

But when the statistical tests for excess allele sharing were applied to the Lagoa Santa ancient genomes, the results were complex.

Some analyses found signals consistent with Population Y in the Lagoa Santa material.