They had left no clearly identified modern descendants.

They had left remarkably rich archaeological remains, but those remains did not announce who their makers were in biological terms.

The teeth, and the DNA within them, did what the artifacts alone could never do: they said, in molecular language, here is who we were.

Here is where we fit in the human story.

Here is what we contributed.

The contribution was substantial.

It changed how researchers understand the population history of northeastern Siberia.