The prevailing model at the time of the Mal’ta discovery — and a model that was already being complicated by various lines of evidence — held that the ancestors of Native Americans were essentially a single founding population that had crossed from Siberia to North America via the Bering land bridge during the last glacial period, when low sea levels exposed a broad landmass connecting the two continents.

This population, the model assumed, was derived primarily from East Asian populations — people whose genetic profile resembled modern East Asians more than any other contemporary population group.

The East Asian genetic connection was real.

It is still recognized.

Native American populations do share substantial genetic ancestry with East Asian populations, reflecting the shared origins of those populations in the ancient populations of East and Central Asia.

But the Mal’ta genome revealed that the story was not complete.