MA-1 sits at the beginning of this investigation as the reference genome that defined the Ancient North Eurasian signal.

Every subsequent study of Native American ancestry genetics engages, in some way, with the finding that the 2014 paper established using the genome of a child who died near Lake Baikal 24,000 years ago.

A Second Opening: The Bigger Question

Here is what the MA-1 discovery forced scientists to confront.

For decades, the question of where Native Americans came from had been framed as a question about the relationship between the Americas and East Asia.

The genetic, skeletal, and linguistic evidence all pointed in broadly the same direction: the founding populations of the Americas were related to populations that had lived in East and northeastern Asia.