/sci/ - Soyence and Technology

In 2017, For the first time in history, scientists were able to extract full DNA from Egyptian mummies that dates to between 1300 BC to 400 CE in a study published in Nature communication

It concluded that ancient Egyptians were actually closer to ancient and modern day west asians and south europeans than they are to modern day Egyptians because modern Egyptians have significantly higher sub-saharan ancestry than ancient Egyptians, making Bedouins, Palestinians, greeks and Lebanese sharing more ancestry and DNA with ancient Egyptians than modern Egyptians do, the study is famously known by “Abusir el-Meleq study”

A follow-up study by Scheunemann et al.(2022) was carried out collecting samples from six excavation sites along the entire length of the Nile vally spanning 4000 years of Egyptian history. Samples from 17 mummies and 14 skeletal remains were collected, and high quality mitochondrial genomes were reconstructed from 10 individuals. The analyzed mitochondrial genomes matched the results from the earlier study at Abusir el-Meleq.

Does this means that modern Egyptians can’t be considered the descendants of ancient Egyptians? Also This makes me wonder how does geneticists know if population X descended from population Y ?

Edit: The PCA chart in the study clearly indicate that Bedouins, palestinians and other levantine ethnic groups are closer to ancient Egyptians samples more than modern Egyptians themselves