DNA from ancient Egyptian mummies reveals their ancestry

By artappraiser on Wed, 05/31/2017 - 9:35am |

By Ben Guarino @ WashingtonPost.com, May 30

[....] Researchers wrung genetic material from 151 Egyptian mummies, radiocarbon dated between Egypt's New Kingdom (the oldest at 1388 B.C.) to the Roman Period (the youngest at 426 A.D.), as reported Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. [....] Johannes Krause, [....] paleogeneticist and an author of the study, said the major finding was that “for 1,300 years, we see complete genetic continuity.” Despite repeated conquests of Egypt, by Alexander the Great, Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Assyrians — the list goes on — ancient Egyptians showed little genetic change. “The other big surprise,” Krause said, “was we didn't find much sub-Saharan African ancestry.” [....]

URL:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/05/30/dna-from-ancient-egyptian-mummies-reveals-their-ancestry/?tid=pm_national_pop&utm_term=.a3ad0b257b26