For the ancient people of Lagoa Santa, the Population Y debate is a footnote to a much larger story.

They were people who lived successfully in a challenging environment for thousands of years, who developed rich cultural traditions that are partially visible in the archaeological record, and whose descendants continue to live in the Americas today.

The statistical signal in their DNA is one small piece of evidence about their origins — evidence that points to the complexity of the ancestral populations from which they descended, and that connects them, across the vast distances of the deep human past, to people on the other side of the planet who shared ancient ancestors with them.

That connection is real, in the sense that the genetic signal reflects genuine shared ancestry from the deep past.