In archaeogenetics, the term Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) is the name given to an ancestral component that represents the lineage of the people of the Mal'ta–Buret' culture (c. 24,000 BP) and populations closely related to them, such as the Upper Paleolithic individuals from Afontova Gora in Siberia.

[6][7] Genetic studies also revealed that the ANE are closely related to the remains of the preceding Yana culture (c. 32,000 BP), which were named Ancient North Siberians (ANS).

[20] ANE ancestry has spread throughout Eurasia and the Americas in various migrations since the Upper Paleolithic, and more than half of the world's population today derives between 5 and 42% of their genomes from the Ancient North Eurasians.

It has been suggested that their mythology may have featured narratives shared by both Indo-European and some Native American cultures, such as the existence of a metaphysical world tree and a dog which guards the path to the afterlife.

[22] The ANE lineage, also known as Paleolithic Siberians, is defined by association with the "Mal'ta boy" (MA-1), the remains of an individual who lived during the Last Glacial Maximum, 24,000 years ago in central Siberia, discovered in the 1920s.

[23][24][17] The Ancient North Eurasians represent a Paleolithic Siberian cluster, more closely related to European hunter-gatherers than to East and Southeast Asian populations.

The West Eurasian source was distantly related to the Upper Paleolithic remains in Europe, such as the Goyet specimen, as well as the Kostenki-14 and Sungir individuals, and ultimately expanded from a population hub in the Iranian Plateau.

[18] Grebenyuk et al. argues that 'Ancient North Eurasians' were "Early Upper Paleolithic tribes of hunters" and linked to similar groups associated with Southern Siberian sites.

These communities of Southern Siberian and Central Asian hunters belonged to one of the earliest migration waves of anatomically modern humans into Siberia.

The authors summarized that "the initial peopling of Northeastern Asia by the anatomically modern humans could have happened both from West to East and from South to North".

[45] Sikora et al. 2019 analyzed the genetic remains of the Yana Rhinoceros Horn Site and found them to be closely related to the Ancient North Eurasians.

[46] This scenario is questioned by Maier et al. 2023, who state that this conclusion is contradicted by other published articles, and that the direction of gene flow as well as observed affinity between ANE and CHG populations cannot be demonstrated by analysis of admixture graphs, but need further investigation.

They may have expanded as far as Alaska and the Yukon, but were forced to abandon high latitude regions following the onset of harsher climatic conditions that came with the Last Glacial Maximum.

[56] Estimates for ANE ancestry among first wave Native Americans show higher percentages,[57] such as 41% (36-45%) for those belonging to the Andean region in South America.

[58] Gene sequencing of another south-central Siberian people (Afontova Gora-2) dating to approximately 17,000 years ago, revealed similar autosomal genetic signatures to that of Mal'ta boy-1, suggesting that the region was continuously occupied by humans throughout the Last Glacial Maximum.

[58] Genomic studies also indicate that the ANE component was brought to Western Europe by people related to the Yamnaya culture, long after the Paleolithic.

"[15] A deer tooth pendant impregnated with the genetic material of an ANE woman was found in the Denisova Cave, and dated to circa 24,700 years before present.

[19] Vallini et al. 2024 notes that the "position of Native Americans suggests a primarily East Asian ancestry, with a smaller contribution from palaeolithic West Eurasian populations".

[61] However, a third theory, the "Beringian standstill hypothesis", suggests that East Asians instead migrated north to Northeastern Siberia, where they mixed with ANE, and later diverged in Beringia, where distinct Native American lineages formed.

[90] Mathieson, et al. (2018) could not determine if Mal'ta 1 boy had the derived allele associated with blond hair in ANE descendants, as they could obtain no coverage for this SNP.

[91] Han Kangxin (1994) Described the mummies found in the cemetery of Gumugou as possessing "clear western racial characteristics" approximating those of a so-called "proto-European type".

[94] Previous craniometric analyses on the early Tarim mummies found that they formed their own cluster, and clustered with neither European-related Steppe pastoralists of the Andronovo and Afanasievo cultures, nor with inhabitants of the Western Asian BMAC culture, nor with East Asian populations further east, but displayed an affinity for two specimens from the Harappan site of the Indus Valley Civilisation.

[102] Hanel and Carlberg (2020) likewise report that populations derived Ancient North Eurasian ancestry, specifically the Eastern Hunter-Gatherers and the Yamnayas, were responsible for transmitting this gene to Europeans.

[103] Since the term 'Ancient North Eurasian' refers to a genetic bridge of connected mating networks, scholars of comparative mythology have argued that they probably shared myths and beliefs that could be reconstructed via the comparison of stories attested within cultures that were not in contact for millennia and stretched from the Pontic–Caspian steppe to the American continent.

[22] The mytheme of the dog guarding the Otherworld possibly stems from an older Ancient North Eurasian belief, as suggested by similar motifs found in Indo-European, Native American and Siberian mythology.

In Siouan, Algonquian, Iroquoian, and in Central and South American beliefs, a fierce guard dog was located in the Milky Way, perceived as the path of souls in the afterlife, and getting past it was a test.

A similar myth-pattern is assumed for the Eneolithic site of Botai in Kazakhstan, dated to 3500 BC, which might represent the dog as absorber of illness and guardian of the household against disease and evil.