Her genome showed a pattern of relationship to ancestral Native Americans that was closer than anything previously documented in Siberian or Asian ancient DNA.

As Sikora explained in the study’s press coverage: “It is an important piece in the puzzle of understanding the ancestry of Native Americans as you can see the Kolyma signature in the Native Americans and Paleo-Siberians.

This individual is the missing link of Native American ancestry.”

The chain of connection was now visible, if complex: from the Ancient North Siberians at Yana, through the admixed Kolyma population, and forward into the ancestral population that would eventually cross into the Americas.

How A Lost Population Helps Explain A Continent