Afontova Gora (Russian: Афонтова гора, "Afont Mountain") is a Late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic Siberian complex of archaeological sites located on the left bank of the Yenisey River near the city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia.
[3] The human fossils discovered at Afontova Gora, a male and a girl dated to 17,000~15,000 years BP, were stored in the Hermitage Museum.
[2] Afontova Gora I is situated on the western bank of the Yenisey River and has yielded the remains from horse, mammoth, reindeer, steppe bison, and large canids.
[9] The fossils of two distinct individuals were discovered in the initial excavations: the upper premolar of an 11-15 year-old child and the left radius, ulna, humerus, phalanx, and frontal bone of an adult.
[11] The remains of hare, pika, cave lion, horse, reindeer, bison, and partridge were discovered at the site.
[15] Afontova Gora 2 belong to the Y-DNA haplogroup Q1a1-F746, an uniparental genetic marker that is infrequently observed in modern populations.
[18] In 2014, more human fossil remains were discovered at Afontova Gora II during salvage excavation before the construction of a new bridge over the Yenesei River.
[22] Researchers analyzing the dental morphology of Afontova Gora 3 concluded that the teeth showed distinct characteristics with most similarities to another fossil (the Listvenka child) from the Altai-Sayan region and were neither western nor eastern.
[23] Afontova Gora 3 and Listvenka showed distinct dental characteristics that were also different from other Siberian fossils, including those from Mal'ta.
[15] When compared to Mal'ta 1, the Afontova Gora 3 lineage apparently contributed more to modern humans and is genetically closer to Native Americans.
[26] The hundreds of millions of copies of this mutated alelle (a single-nucleotide polymorphism) are at the root of the classic European blond hair mutation, as massive population migrations from the Eurasian steppe, by a people who had substantial Ancient North Eurasian ancestry, entered continental Europe.