The genomic data needed to answer this question — ancient DNA from pre-Clovis contexts — is largely unavailable, because finding intact ancient human remains in contexts that old is extraordinarily difficult.

The White Sands footprints are impressions, not bones.

They cannot be sequenced.

These open questions are not failures of the Anzick research.

They are the natural consequence of discovering something genuinely new and complex: the more precisely we understand one piece of the puzzle, the more clearly we can see the shapes of the pieces that are still missing.

A Second Opening: What One Child’s DNA Can And Cannot Mean For An Entire Continent

Somewhere around this point in the story — after the discovery, the technology, the findings, the controversy, and the reburial — a different kind of question begins to demand attention.