A rock shelter near Wilsall, Montana, yielded the ocher-covered remains of an infant later labeled Anzick-1, found with a large set of Clovis stone and bone tools. The find became the only widely accepted Clovis-period human burial in North America, making it a key reference point for testing ideas about who made Clovis technology.
Radiocarbon dating of Anzick-1’s bones shows the child lived in the late Ice Age, roughly 12,707–12,556 calendar years before present. This anchored the burial in time and tied it directly to the period when Clovis technology was widespread across North America.
A separate ancient-DNA milestone came from sequencing the ~24,000-year-old Mal’ta (MA-1) individual from Siberia. The results showed that Native American ancestry includes an “Ancient North Eurasian” component, helping explain why Native American genomes are not simply a subset of East Asian variation.
Researchers sequenced the genome of Anzick-1, providing the first high-impact genetic test of Clovis-era ancestry. The study found Anzick-1 is closer to Indigenous peoples of the Americas than to any non-American groups, supporting an Asian source for founding ancestry and not a European source.
Because Anzick-1’s DNA clusters with Native American lineages and not with ancient or modern Europeans, the results undercut claims that Clovis people came from Ice Age western Europe. This shifted debate toward models in which the Clovis tradition developed within the Americas from earlier ancestral populations.
Genome sequencing of the ~8,500-year-old “Kennewick Man” (the Ancient One) showed he is genetically closer to Native Americans than to any other world population. This demonstrated that skull shape alone can be misleading for ancestry, and it strengthened the case for deep continuity of Native American lineages in parts of North America after the initial peopling.
Genome-wide comparisons across many living Native American groups found evidence that some Amazonian populations carry ancestry linked (at a deep level) to present-day Australasians. Importantly for interpreting Anzick-1, the study reported that this signal was not seen to the same extent in the ~12,600-year-old Anzick-1 genome, suggesting early population structure and/or multiple contributions to later populations.
Ancient genomes from the Pacific Northwest Coast, including the ~10,300-year-old individual known as Shuká Káa, revealed long-term genetic continuity in that region. The study also supported the idea that multiple Native American lineages were already present early on, fitting with Anzick-1 as one branch among several in early North America.
An ~11,500-year-old infant genome from the Upward Sun River site in Alaska was found to be closely related to Native Americans but positioned as an early-splitting branch. Researchers interpreted this as evidence for a distinct “Ancient Beringian” population, helping clarify how the founding population diversified near or in Beringia before widespread movement south.
A broad study of ancient genomes (spanning Alaska to Patagonia) found that early individuals across the continents were most closely related to Native Americans, including individuals with different skeletal forms. The results pointed to rapid dispersal and early diversification after people entered the Americas, providing a larger context for where Anzick-1 fits within early New World ancestry.
A large ancient-DNA study of Central and South America reported that some later groups were replaced or reshaped by subsequent movements, rather than simply descending unchanged from the earliest settlers. This helped explain why Anzick-1 can be closely related to many Indigenous groups while later regional histories still include substantial change through time.
Genomic data from ancient individuals across the Arctic and neighboring regions found that Palaeo-Eskimo-related ancestry is widespread among speakers of Na-Dene and Eskimo-Aleut languages. This added a clear example of later, Holocene-era migrations and mixtures in North America, showing that the ancestry picture after Anzick-1 includes additional layers beyond the initial founding populations.
Ancient genomes and the Anzick-1 child: implications for early New World ancestry (c. 13,000 BP and subsequent studies)