By 2019, when the Sikora et al. study was published, the scientific community had a substantially clearer picture of the population history of northeastern Siberia than it had had before.

The Ancient North Siberians were identified.

The Kolyma1 individual and the Ancient Paleo-Siberians were characterized.

The relationship between these populations and Native American ancestry was described.

But the story was not complete — and it is not complete now.

The ancient DNA database for northeastern Siberia remains sparse relative to the region’s geographic extent and temporal depth.

The Yana children are the only ancient humans genetically characterized from the period 31,000 to approximately 11,000 years ago in the northeastern region.

There are no other ancient genomes from this period and region that would allow researchers to assess how genetically diverse the ancient Arctic population was, how it changed over time, or what other population dynamics were playing out in the region during the critical period before and after the Last Glacial Maximum.