The origin of this signal — whether it reflects a separate founding migration that predated the main Beringian migration, or a later contact between Pacific peoples and South American populations, or something else entirely — has not been resolved.

But its existence suggests that the founding of the Americas may have been even more complex than the relatively clean two-population model that the Anzick-1 findings initially suggested.

The relationship between the Clovis technological tradition and the people who preceded Clovis also remains unclear.

The people who made the White Sands footprints lived approximately 10,000 years before the Anzick child.

Were they the same population, or a related one, or an entirely separate founding group?