When they converge on similar conclusions, the convergence provides stronger support for those conclusions than either approach could provide alone.

The morphological description also served the important function of placing the tooth on record in a form accessible to researchers who are not geneticists — providing the physical characterization that would allow the specimen to be integrated into comparative studies using dental evidence from sites where genetic analysis has not been possible or has not been conducted.

The Tooth and the Children Who Came After

It would be easy, in a story focused on one child’s tooth and the ancient population it represents, to treat the Ancient Beringians as a closed chapter — a founding lineage that appeared briefly, persisted for a few millennia, and then disappeared.