The story of Native American ancestry does not end with the founding population and the initial peopling.

The genetic history of the Americas in the millennia after the initial peopling has been the subject of ongoing research, and it is substantially more complex than the founding itself.

Ancient genomes from across the Americas — from Alaska to Patagonia, spanning time periods from roughly 12,000 years ago to the historical period — have been analyzed in increasing numbers over the past decade.

These analyses have revealed that the genetic history of the Americas involved not just the initial founding but subsequent population movements, regional diversifications, and demographic events that shaped the specific genetic profiles of the many hundreds of distinct Native American nations and communities.