The population that the Mal’ta boy represented — the Ancient North Eurasians — did not simply vanish after the Last Glacial Maximum.

Their genetic heritage persisted, in various mixed forms, in the populations that succeeded them in Siberia and adjacent regions.

As the ice retreated after the Last Glacial Maximum — a process that began around 19,000 years ago and continued for several thousand years — the ecology of Siberia and neighboring regions changed dramatically.

The steppe-tundra of the glacial period was replaced by boreal forest (taiga) over much of Siberia, changing the landscape and the animal communities that human populations depended on.

The Pleistocene megafauna — the mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, and giant deer that had sustained the Mal’ta-Buret’ culture — declined and eventually went extinct, a process driven by the combination of climatic change and human hunting pressure.