Please accept my critique to Smithsonian Mag made in good faith: never use the word 'mysterious' [a nod to the magical thinking] in a science context. Really looks like CNN-ish dark pattern. The URL slug has a better word choice:
7000-year-old-skeletons-from-the-green-sahara-reveal-a-previously-unknown-human-lineage-
mysterious: adj. difficult or impossible to understand, explain, or identify.
While magic requires mystery, mystery does not require magic and they are not synonyms. It is perfectly valid to state something is a scientific mystery without implying magic is involved in some way.
Would you be able to explain the mystery = magic thinking connection? I've not heard it before. I've obviously heard magic being described as mysterious, but not that mysterious stuff implies magic.
I don't see the connection between mysterious and magical thinking. It just means it is a mystery and I don't see anything that implies magic about a mystery.
The skeletons are mysterious and important.