The 9,000-Year-Old Child’s Tooth Found In An Alaska Cave — And The DNA Test That Revealed A Lost Population Of The First Americans

Into this context, the Trail Creek child entered the scientific record.

What the Trail Creek Genome Actually Said

The genomic analysis of the Trail Creek tooth revealed that the child’s ancestry was consistent with placement in the Ancient Beringian population — the same population branch that had been identified in USR1 from Upward Sun River.

This was not a trivial result, even though it might initially seem like simply a confirmation of something already known.

The significance lay in the specific combination of the Trail Creek child’s age and ancestry.