It showed that this population’s genetic legacy extends, through several intervening steps, into the ancestry of the peoples of the Americas.

And it demonstrated that the demographic history of the region that would eventually produce the first Americans was complex, dynamic, and far more interesting than simple models had suggested.

The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the living legacy of this complexity.

Their ancestors were a mosaic of populations — the Yana children among the contributors, however indirectly — who converged in the far northeast of Asia and eventually entered a new world.

The specifics of that ancestry, the relative contributions of different ancient populations, the timing and route of the crossing, the demographic structure of the founding population — all of these are questions that ancient DNA research is actively pursuing.