Not directly — the specific journey from the Mal’ta region to the Americas, if it happened at all as a direct movement, took many generations and involved multiple intermediate populations.

But the genetic heritage of the Mal’ta community was part of the genetic heritage that eventually arrived in the Americas, mixed with East Asian ancestry, carried by the founding populations that became the ancestors of all the continent’s Indigenous peoples.

The child under the stone, and the ancestors and descendants of the child, were part of the population that eventually gave rise to the people who discovered America from the west — the people who first saw the landscape that Europeans would not reach for another 23,000 years.

After The Ice: What Happened To The Ancient North Eurasians