Future work — more ancient specimens from Alaska and neighboring regions, larger modern-genome datasets from living communities, more sophisticated analytical methods — will progressively fill in the gaps in this picture.

Each new well-dated specimen with recoverable genomic data is a piece of evidence that constrains the range of possible population-history models.

Each new finding either confirms existing models or forces their revision.

The Trail Creek tooth was not the last word on Ancient Beringian population history.

It was a contribution to an ongoing investigation whose ultimate conclusions remain in the future.

What One Tooth Cannot Tell Us