If humans were above the Arctic Circle 31,000 years ago, they had been in northeast Siberia for long enough to develop the cold-adaptation skills necessary for survival there.

They were in the broad region of far northeastern Asia — the part of the continent most relevant to any scenario involving the eventual peopling of the Americas — well before the last glacial maximum.

The westernmost edge of Beringia, the land mass that connected Eurasia to North America, was in the same general geographic region.

Yana demonstrated that the human presence in the gateway to the Americas was deep — far deeper than previously recognized.

These were not recently arrived wanderers who had just found their way north.