BERLIN (Dispatches)-A team of scientists have found that ancient Egyptians and their modern counterparts share less in common than you might think. That is, at least genetically.
Researchers from the University of Tuebingen and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, both in Germany, have decoded the genome of ancient Egyptians for the first time.
The findings have turned years of theory on its head, causing Egyptologists to re-evaluate the region's history while unlocking new tools for scientists working in the field.
Scientists took 166 bone samples from 151 mummies, dating from approximately 1400 B.C. to A.D. 400, extracting DNA from 90 individuals and mapping the full genome in three cases.
The study concluded that preserved remains found in Abusir-el Meleq, Middle Egypt, were closest genetic relatives of Neolithic and Bronze Age populations from the Near East, Anatolia and Eastern Mediterranean Europeans.
Analyzing samples spanning over a millennium, researchers looked for genetic differences compared with Egyptians today. They found that the sample set showed a strong connection with a cluster of ancient non-African populations based east of the Mediterranean Sea.
Modern Egyptians, by comparison, share much more DNA with sub-Saharan populations.