The name was chosen to reflect both the geographic context (Beringia, the region connecting Asia and North America during the Ice Age) and the temporal position (ancient, in the sense of belonging to the deepest sampled stratum of Native American ancestry).

The term Ancient Beringian is a scientific label, not a cultural designation.

It describes a specific genetic lineage inferred from population genetic analysis.

It does not refer to a named historical people, a documented cultural tradition, or a community that identified itself by any particular name.

It is the name that science gave to a statistical relationship — the relationship between USR1 and the populations that descended from the same founding stock but through a different branch.

Understanding what Ancient Beringian means — and what it does not mean — is essential to understanding what the USR1 genome actually revealed.