Mummy DNA shows that the ancients don’t have much in common with modern Egyptians
Scientists have extracted and analyzed DNA from mummies that are thousands of years old, and they have found that the ancient Egyptians are actually more genetically similar to people living today in the Near East — countries like Israel, Lebanon, and Syria — than modern-day Egyptians.
For a long time, we thought that mummies preserved no DNA. In 2010, a team analyzed ancient DNA from 16 royal mummies, but the method they used wasn’t very good at distinguishing actual mummy DNA from modern DNA that might have contaminated it over the years. In a study published today in the journal Nature Communications , scientists used a new, more precise method of DNA sequencing to analyze genome data from several mummies spanning different time periods in ancient Egyptian history.
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The findings are interesting, but even more promising is the fact that the method could pave the way for even more genetic studies of mummies so we can understand more details about these ancient people.
Dear Friend Larry Hampton: Interesting indeed.
Also very consistent with historical documents.
Ancient Egyptians and modern not the same people.
E.
Many Egyptians, particularly those in Upper Egypt (Southern Egypt) have a lot of Sub-SDaharan ancestry--they are not Caucasian or predominantly Caucasian. While those in Lower Egypt, particularly along the Meditteranean mostly have predominantly Caucasian ancestry (many look just like other meditteranean peoples-- for example Southern Italians.
Throughout history, peoples living on the coast (both in Southern Europe and Northern Africa and the Levant)experienced a lot of inter-racial mating, as there has been so much movement along the coast, and so much conquest by various Empires.
( LINK to animated map)
Thanks for the map link, thats a nice, concise illustration.
We easily forget in modern times just how very important coastal regions were to human colonization.