The identification of a founding lineage distinct from the Northern and Southern Native American branches had not been predicted by earlier genetic models, and it required a revision of those models to accommodate the new evidence.

The revision was not difficult to make — the Ancient Beringian finding fit naturally into a more complex model of founding-population diversity than had previously been recognized — but it was significant, because it revealed an aspect of the early human history of the Americas that had not been previously documented.

The separate publication of the dental morphology analysis in the journal of dental anthropology ensured that the physical characterization of the tooth reached specialists in dental morphology and dental anthropology who might not follow the ancient-DNA literature as closely.

This cross-disciplinary dissemination of findings — publishing in journals serving different specialist audiences — is an important aspect of how archaeological research on a specimen like the Trail Creek tooth reaches its full potential audience.