The Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) is a distinctive ancestral component that emerged during the Upper Paleolithic Age. It is represented by a boy known as MA-1, associated with the Mal’ta-Buret’ Culture (24,000 BP) in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, and individuals from Afontova Gora (18,000 BP) situated on the left bank of the Yenisei River in Krasnoyarsk, Russia. The ANE population is considered intermediate between West and East Eurasians and can be modeled as a combination of 50% Sunghir/Kostenki14 and 50% Tianyuan-like ancestry (Posth et al., 2023). This population played a pivotal role in shaping later ancient populations in Europe, the Middle East, and Siberia.

The ANE is believed to have descended either from Ancient North Siberians (ANS), represented by individuals associated with the preceding Yana Culture (32,000 BP) in Sakha, Russia, or from a common older population that is ancestral to both ANE and ANS. Yana individuals, much like those of the ANE, can be modeled as either 78% Sunghir and 22% Tianyuan or as a 50% Sunghir/Kostenki14 and 50% Tianyuan-like combination. 

The ANE population’s one of the most significant roles was forming up the Eastern European Hunter Gatherers (EHG) by mixing partially with the WHG and Upper Paleolithic Caucasus Hunter Gatherer-related source  in Eastern Europe, some time around the Mesolithic Age. The ANE ancestry was later exclusively carried by Western Siberian Hunter Gatherers (WSHG) primarly represented by an individual called Tyumen_HG, Botai Culture and Bronze Age Tarim populations (Tarim_EMBA) from Tarim Basin, China.