There may have been one founding event or multiple waves of migration.

The route may have been coastal, following the Pacific shoreline, or interior, through an ice-free corridor that opened between the retreating Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets, or both.

Where the Yana discovery fits into this picture requires understanding the genetics of Native American ancestry before the 2019 study.

Genetic analysis of modern Native American populations and of ancient individuals from early American sites had established that the ancestral Native American founding population had two distinct ancestral components.

One, the dominant component in most Native American groups, was related to East Asian populations — the broad family of peoples whose genetic heritage traces to the ancient populations of central and eastern Asia.