The Mal’ta boy did not stand alone in the ancient genomic record for long.

In the years following the 2013 publication, researchers analyzed additional ancient individuals from Siberia and adjacent regions, building up a picture of the genetic landscape of Ice Age Siberia that provided context for the Mal’ta findings.

A genome from the Afontova Gora site in Siberia — dated to roughly 17,000 years ago, somewhat younger than Mal’ta — showed a genetic profile closely related to the Mal’ta boy’s, confirming that the Ancient North Eurasian population was not a local anomaly but a substantial and persistent presence in Siberian genetic history.

The Afontova Gora individual helped establish that the Mal’ta genome was representative of a real population that persisted through the Last Glacial Maximum and into the post-glacial period.