Much of the published work on the site appeared in Russian-language scientific journals, and the international exchange of specimens and data was constrained by Cold War conditions.

The full significance of Mal’ta in the broader context of Upper Paleolithic archaeology was slower to be recognized internationally than it might otherwise have been.

By the time the ancient DNA research community began to consider what ancient specimens from the Soviet and post-Soviet collections might be amenable to analysis, the Mal’ta remains had been in Russian museum collections for decades and had been studied extensively from an archaeological and physical anthropological perspective.

The question of whether the DNA had been preserved in these bones — whether the cold Siberian burial had maintained sufficient molecular integrity over 24,000 years — was an empirical one that could only be answered by attempting the analysis.