Mal'ta Boy

A four-year-old boy buried with Venus figurines near Lake Baikal 24,000 years ago produced one of the most consequential genomes ever sequenced. His people — the Ancient North Eurasians — turned out to be hidden ancestors of both Native Americans and Europeans, revealing an unknown Ice Age population whose genetic legacy spans half the planet.

The genome-wide data behind this entry was published in Upper Palaeolithic Siberian genome reveals dual ancestry of Native Americans.

Every Ancestrify Global25 report includes the free Notable Matches lens: your coordinates are compared to every sequenced member of every catalog entry, and the distance to the closest member is reported — a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional space the Distance lens uses. Because this is a single real individual, not a population average, distances naturally run larger than population distances — that is expected, not a poor result. And one thing is never claimed: a small distance means similar ancestry composition, not that Mal'ta Boy is your ancestor. See how it looks in the live demo or read about the full G25 analysis.

• 01

  Who was Mal'ta Boy?

  Mal'ta Boy (c. 22,500 BCE, Mal'ta, Siberia, Russia) is one of the Deep time entries in our Notable Matches catalog, represented by one sequenced ancient genome published in the study "Upper Palaeolithic Siberian genome reveals dual ancestry of Native Americans".

• 02

  What does "matching" Mal'ta Boy mean?

  Your Global25 coordinates are compared to the entry's sequenced members and the distance to the closest one is reported — a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional reference space the Distance lens uses. A notable entry is one person or one small burial group, not a population average, so distances naturally run larger than population distances.

• 03

  Is Mal'ta Boy my ancestor?

  No — and no DNA test can show that. A small distance means your genome sits near this individual's in a shared reference space: similar ancestry composition, not descent. Ancestrify never claims a notable individual is your ancestor or relative.

• 04

  How do I see my own distance to Mal'ta Boy?

  Notable Matches is a free lens on every Ancestrify Global25 report — never sold separately. Order the G25 analysis (29.99 EUR), and your report ranks your coordinates against the full catalog, with a portrait, dossier and map for every entry. The public demo shows the lens with example data.

The catalog holds every published entry across three tiers — browse the full Notable Matches directory. Nearby entries:

• The Dolní Věstonice Triple Burialc. 29,000 BCE

• The Salkhit Womanc. 32,000 BCE

• The Sunghir Burialc. 32,000 BCE

• The Taforalt Iberomaurusiansc. 13,000 BCE

• The Peștera Muierii Womanc. 33,000 BCE

• Goyet Q116-1c. 33,000 BCE

• Kostenki Manc. 36,000 BCE

• Tianyuan Manc. 38,000 BCE

• Oase 1c. 38,000 BCE

• La Braña Manc. 5900 BCE

• Ust'-Ishim Manc. 43,000 BCE

• The Bacho Kiro Pioneersc. 43,000 BCE