They did not disappear when the lake shrank.

They adapted.

What The Study Of 2018 Revealed About Population Movement

The 2018 Science paper that published the Spirit Cave Man’s genomic analysis was not just about him.

It was part of a systematic effort to reconstruct the genetic history of the Americas using a much larger sample of ancient genomes — fifteen individuals from sites as far apart as Alaska and Patagonia, spanning time ranges from the earliest well-preserved American genomes to more recent periods.

This broader dataset allowed researchers to address questions about population movement, genetic differentiation, and the timing of major demographic events in the pre-contact Americas with a resolution that no previous study had achieved.