Verena Schuenemann and the authors of this study suggest a high level of genetic interaction with the Near East since ancient times, probably going back to Prehistoric Egypt although the oldest mummies at the site were from the New Kingdom: "Our data seem to indicate close admixture and affinity at a much earlier date, which is unsurprising given the long and complex connections between Egypt and the Middle East. The study's authors cautioned that the mummies may be unrepresentative of the Ancient Egyptian population as a whole, since they were recovered from the northern part of Egypt. Įstimations of the sub-Saharan African ancestry reveal that modern Egyptians inherit 8% more ancestry from sub-Saharan African ancestors than the three ancient Egyptians do. "Genetic continuity between ancient and modern Egyptians cannot be ruled out despite this more recent sub-Saharan African influx, while continuity with modern Ethiopians is not supported". Modern Egyptians in comparison are more shifted toward sub-Saharan African populations. The analyses revealed a high affinity to near eastern populations. Īutosomal DNA analyses of these ancient Egyptian mummies did not find significant differences between the three ancient samples, supporting continuity across time. The researchers cautioned that the affinities of the examined ancient Egyptian specimens may not be representative of those of all ancient Egyptians since they were from a single archaeological site. However, comparative data from a contemporary population under Roman rule in Asia Minor, did not reveal a closer relationship to the ancient Egyptians from the Roman period.Īdditionally, three of the ancient Egyptian mummified individuals were analysed for Y-DNA, two were assigned to West Asian J and one to haplogroup E1b1b1 both common in modern day Egyptians. The mtDNA analyses revealed higher affinities with modern populations from the Near East compared to modern Egyptians, possibly due to the increase in African lineages. A wide range of mtDNA haplogroups were found including clades of J,U,H,HV,M,R0,R2,K,T,L,I,N,X,W. Modern Egyptians generally shared this maternal haplogroup pattern, but also carried more African clades than Ancient Egypyians. The scientists found that the ancient Egyptian individuals in their own dataset possessed highly similar mitochondrial profiles throughout the examined period (pre Ptolemaic, Ptolemaic and Roman) and cluster close to each other in their analyses, supporting genetic continuity across the 1,300-year transect. Complete mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences were obtained for 90 of the mummies and were compared with each other and with several other ancient and modern datasets. The specimens were living in a period stretching from the late New Kingdom to the Roman era (1388 BCE–426 CE). Obtaining well-preserved, uncontaminated DNA from mummies has been a problem for the field of archaeogenetics and these samples provided "the first reliable data set obtained from ancient Egyptians using high-throughput DNA sequencing methods". Ī study published in 2017 by an international team of scientists led by researchers from the University of Tuebingen and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena described the extraction and analysis of DNA from 151 mummified ancient Egyptian individuals, whose remains were recovered from Abusir el-Meleq in Middle Egypt. PCA and Admixture analysis of Ancient Egyptian samples and other modern and ancient populations.
0 kommentar(er)
