Ancient Egyptian DNA - new results

[athanaric]

(Not sure if this should move to the Athenaeum or stay here. Technically, it is about recorded history, not pre-history)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...heir-ancestry/
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/...hey-were-wrong
Original study:
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15694

Basically, scientists have managed to extract DNA samples from a decent number of Egyptian mummies from Central Egypt. Their results confirm what historians and archaeologists have known for decades. I'm hopeful they'll be able to recover more samples from other places in order to get a more complete picture, but IMHO the recent results are unlikely to be a fluke.


Now here is where it gets interesting for our American friends (quotes from the first and second links):

Johannes Krause, a University of Tubingen 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.”

Krause’s team compared the mummies’ mitochondrial and nuclear DNA to ancient and modern populations in the Near East and Africa. They discovered that ancient Egyptians closely resembled ancient and modern Near Eastern populations, especially those in the Levant. What’s more, the genetics of the mummies remained remarkably consistent even as different powers conquered the empire. It’s possible that the mitochondrial genomes simply don’t record the genetic contributions of foreign fathers, says Yehia Gad, a molecular geneticist at the National Research Centre in Cairo and a founder of the Egyptian Museum’s ancient DNA lab who worked with Zink on past mummy studies. But the three mummies with nuclear genome data also show striking genetic continuity, Krause points out.

Later, however, something did alter the genomes of Egyptians. Although the mummies contain almost no DNA from sub-Saharan Africa, some 15% to 20% of modern Egyptians’ mitochondrial DNA reflects sub-Saharan ancestry. “It’s really unexpected that we see this very late shift,” Krause says. He suspects increased trade along the Nile—including the slave trade—or the spread of Islam in the Middle Ages may have intensified contact between Northern and sub-Saharan Africa.

Suck on that, Afrocentrists.

[sumskilz]

Suck on that, Afrocentrists.

I was thinking this part won't go over well:

We find that ancient Egyptians are most closely related to Neolithic and Bronze Age samples in the Levant, as well as to Neolithic Anatolian and European populations (Fig. 5a,b). When comparing this pattern with modern Egyptians, we find that the ancient Egyptians are more closely related to all modern and ancient European populations that we tested (Fig. 5b)...

I haven't looked through the data yet, but they might have had darker skin than one would expect based on general genetic affinities, because we're only talking about a few alleles that have evidently been under a lot of selection over the last few thousand years. Bronze Age Canaanites in a recent study were closest to modern Levantine religious minorities, which is as expected, but they had somewhat darker skin. So much for those silly arguments about the skin tone of ancient depictions.

Anyway, here are the admixture results:

[athanaric]

Bronze Age Canaanites in a recent study were closest to modern Levantine religious minorities, which is as expected, but they had somewhat darker skin. So much for those silly arguments about the skin tone of ancient depictions.

That's entirely legit - skin colour may change over time. My point is that at no point in recorded history, ancient Egyptians (or Hebrews or Europeans for that matter) were genetically sub-Saharan African, i.e. "black" in the colloquial, modern-day sense of the word, and that Afrocentrist theories about civilizations in the Mediterranean region are just as ludicrous and far-fetched as the hypotheses we've seen from National Socialists and pan-Turkists.

[Cyclops]

Interesting post thanks for the links. The sample is reasonably large, ninety mummies (of I guess more or less elite strata) gives a nice snapshot. It'd be good to get DNA from Tut- or Akhenaten, as there has been speculation there was a Nubian or Ethiopian ancestor in the mix.

...
Suck on that, Afrocentrists.

No need to be cheeky naughty fellow, I find being right is its own reward, and you've got to give people time to admit they were wrong.

[Lugotorix]

My side of the argument wins. For all time. Now that it's settled, we can move on.

[sumskilz]

My point is that at no point in recorded history, ancient Egyptians (or Hebrews or Europeans for that matter) were genetically sub-Saharan African, i.e. "black" in the colloquial, modern-day sense of the word, and that Afrocentrist theories about civilizations in the Mediterranean region are just as ludicrous and far-fetched as the hypotheses we've seen from National Socialists and pan-Turkists.

I agree, of course.

I guess more or less elite strata

That's what I initially expected, and then you'd have to consider royal marriages to Mesopotamian princesses, but that seems not to be the case:

Although we only analysed mummified remains, there is little reason to believe that the burials Rubensohn excavated belonged exclusively to a group of prosperous inhabitants on the basis of the far published references to excavation diaries and Rubensohn’s preliminary reports that permit a basic reconstruction. Rather it seems arguable that the complete spectrum of society is represented, ranging from Late Period priests’ burials that stand out by virtue of their size and contents to simple inhumations that are buried with little to no grave goods

[Roma_Victrix]

Athanaric, I'm surprised that you failed to mention that science itself is racist, so these findings cannot be trusted, especially over an Afrocentrist magazine, blog, or Youtube commentary.

Checkmate, geneticists!

That being said, the Washington Post article did explain the limitations of the findings here:

In their paper, the researchers acknowledged that “all our genetic data were obtained from a single site in Middle Egypt and may not be representative for all of ancient Egypt.” In the south of Egypt, the authors wrote, sub-Saharan influences may have been stronger.

If ancient southern Egypt during the same time frame had a small but significantly higher sub-Saharan African component that should probably come as a surprise to nobody considering the constant interaction with Nubia. Long before the foundation of the Kingdom of Kush around 1070 BC, the Nubians had already been serving in the Egyptian army, were taken as prisoners of war/slaves, and no doubt came to Egypt for regular trade. Of course that says nothing about the vast majority of ancient Egyptians and their core demographic (which these studies have shown is strongly linked to Levantine/Middle Eastern populations), but I'm sure, at the very least in southern Egypt, plenty of people of sub-Saharan descent were considered Egyptian subjects proper. Perhaps a sizable minority in the south, but we'd need data to confirm that.

As a supplement to the genetic data, I honestly think the Fayum Mummy Portraits of the Roman period provide a fairly decent view of how average Egyptians would have looked. And they look unsurprisingly "Middle Eastern" for lack of a better term. The Romans also rarely made depictions of black sub-Saharan Africans, which should be telling enough.

[hellheaven1987]

Interesting, it seems the most closely related group with ancient Egyptians now is Yemenite Jew...

[Darios]

I feel that if an ancient Greek, Roman, Egyptian, etc would time travel from antiquity onto our present day, they would undoubtedly get a huge shock over how contemporary people obsess over the concept of race and skin color and associate it with identity. Sure, it comes from living in a more globalized society and the ancients did often make references to skin tone (I think Plato once said smth to the tune of Greeks being superior to pale Germans or dark Ethiopians due to their medium skin tone) but I doubt if the ancients literally divided society into artificial social constructs such as "white" and "black" like we do today.

Since the 18th century, we have seen both "whites" (almost always NW Europeans (most particularly Germans)) and more recently, "blacks" (usually black Americans) argue and try to claim that everything from Rome, India, and Egypt were somehow attributed to them. That's why linguistic/pseudo-racist crap like Indo-European studies became so deeply studied - the hope to "confirm" that most ancient civilizations were created or at least led by "Nordic" Europeans (which the Kurgan Hypothesis thankfully killed). Ultimately, it all points back to a strong inferiority complex felt by many modern peoples in regards to their history - and ultimately place in the world. Black Americans, having gone through a humiliating history of kidnap/slavery/segregation, often promote ancient Egypt as their own for similar reasons - the desire to feel somewhat connected to a more glorious past.

Egyptians are simply Egyptians - a Mediterranean people with various degrees of African blood. The reported African DNA should come as no surprise - the Nile being an effective conduit from Nubia, Ethiopia, and more southern regions.

[Prodromos]

Do you know what the difference between BedouinA and BedouinB is? The Supplementary Information PDF says only this:

We performed principal component analysis on the joined data set using the“smartpca” software from the Eigensoft package (63). For the plot shown inSupplementary Fig. 3, we used a selected set of European populations:Abkhasian, Adygei, Albanian, Armenian, Balkar, Basque, BedouinA, BedouinB...

But it doesn't explain what the difference between the two groups is.

[Roma_Victrix]

Since the 18th century, we have seen both "whites" (almost always NW Europeans (most particularly Germans)) and more recently, "blacks" (usually black Americans) argue and try to claim that everything from Rome, India, and Egypt were somehow attributed to them. That's why linguistic/pseudo-racist crap like Indo-European studies became so deeply studied - the hope to "confirm" that most ancient civilizations were created or at least led by "Nordic" Europeans (which the Kurgan Hypothesis thankfully killed). Ultimately, it all points back to a strong inferiority complex felt by many modern peoples in regards to their history - and ultimately place in the world. Black Americans, having gone through a humiliating history of kidnap/slavery/segregation, often promote ancient Egypt as their own for similar reasons - the desire to feel somewhat connected to a more glorious past.

The early Indo-European civilizations, such as the Hittites, are something that Nordicists have certainly latched onto in the past, and was even funded by Nazi Germany in ventures such as the 1938-1939 expedition into Tibet. Yet it seems the Afrocentrists go so far beyond the obvious examples of civilizations in North Africa, such as ancient Egypt and Carthage. For instance, I've seen and read of how Afrocentrists claim even the Shang Dynasty of ancient China and the Olmecs of Central America. The more concerning part is the size of the audience that seems to support them, or perhaps my view is skewed from reading one too many stupid Youtube comments.

[hellheaven1987]

I've seen and read of how Afrocentrists claim even the Shang Dynasty of ancient China and the Olmecs of Central America.

Did they claim Neanderthals too?

[sumskilz]

If ancient southern Egypt during the same time frame had a small but significantly higher sub-Saharan African component that should probably come as a surprise to nobody considering the constant interaction with Nubia.

I agree, and I suspect that earlier back in time, the Natufian or Natufian-like genetic component might have been more predominant. Whether its predominance in these samples is due to direct Natufian ancestry or due to common ancestry with Natufians has implications regarding the urheimat of the Afroasiatic languages. All Afroasiatic speakers have significant Out-of-Africa ancestry, even those in sub-Saharan Africa. Their domestic animals descend from Middle-Eastern precursors. If the Natufian genetic component in Egypt is due to ancestry from the Levant, then the Afroasiatic urheimat is likely in the Levant. The degree of Anatolian Neolithic in ancient Egyptians may support this, but if the Nile Valley population was just initially very similar to the Natufians, then the Afroasiatic urheimat was probably in Egypt and the proto-Semitic urheimat was in the Levant. The Horn of Africa appears to be no longer supportable when linguistic, genetic, and archaeological data are taken together. The reason it initially appeared to be a candidate was because of the diversity of family languages present, but it seems this was actually due to different branches having converged there from different directions and due to large empires in the Middle East and North Africa having blurred out the linguistic diversity.

Long before the foundation of the Kingdom of Kush around 1070 BC, the Nubians had already been serving in the Egyptian army, were taken as prisoners of war/slaves, and no doubt came to Egypt for regular trade.

Kushites, I was rightly corrected here recently for being loose with the terminology in the same way.

Interesting, it seems the most closely related group with ancient Egyptians now is Yemenite Jew...

Probably most similar due to having similar proportions of particular ancestries in common, rather than similar by direct descent. The reason is the resolution of that admixture run takes us back to the population isolates as they existed at the beginning of the Holocene.

The reported African DNA should come as no surprise - the Nile being an effective conduit from Nubia, Ethiopia, and more southern regions.

Based on the date and sex-biased markers, it's mostly due to the sex slave trade. Quite a bit of the ancestry is West African.

Do you know what the difference between BedouinA and BedouinB is?

Both BedouinA and BedouinB samples were collected in Israel. BedouinA are those who appear to show longterm intermarriage with nearby settled Muslim populations, and BedouinB are those believed to have been isolated and/or arrived relatively recently from Arabia. BedouinA clearly have Palestinian, Jordanian, and Muslim Egyptian affinities.

[Copperknickers II]

I feel that if an ancient Greek, Roman, Egyptian, etc would time travel from antiquity onto our present day, they would undoubtedly get a huge shock over how contemporary people obsess over the concept of race and skin color and associate it with identity. Sure, it comes from living in a more globalized society and the ancients did often make references to skin tone (I think Plato once said smth to the tune of Greeks being superior to pale Germans or dark Ethiopians due to their medium skin tone) but I doubt if the ancients literally divided society into artificial social constructs such as "white" and "black" like we do today.

Indeed. The main distinction was of 'barbarians' vs themselves (be they Greeks or Romans). Then the various different peoples such as Gauls, Germans, Britons, Egyptians, Jews, Syrians, and so on. Then, in the Roman period, Romans and non-Romans (a vague distinction, partly based on citizenship). Although the Germans and their relations such as the Slavs were often marked out as being particularly bizarre looking, since they were very tall, had particularly pale skin, and sometimes had red hair.

That's why linguistic/pseudo-racist crap like Indo-European studies became so deeply studied

Indo-European studies may have historically included pseudo-scientific crap but as I'm sure you know it's a perfectly legitimate field of lingusitics and anthropology these days.

- the hope to "confirm" that most ancient civilizations were created or at least led by "Nordic" Europeans (which the Kurgan Hypothesis thankfully killed). Ultimately, it all points back to a strong inferiority complex felt by many modern peoples in regards to their history - and ultimately place in the world. Black Americans, having gone through a humiliating history of kidnap/slavery/segregation, often promote ancient Egypt as their own for similar reasons - the desire to feel somewhat connected to a more glorious past.

Quite so. And hopefully it's less needed now that the greatest country on earth has had a black president. I say that - I hope one day America has an actual black president, i.e. not a mixed race president. Even from my British perspective, the American perception of the one-drop rule is rather odd, Obama could easily be considered white except for racial prejudices in the USA linking him to the historical African American community. In real terms Barack Obama is no more similar to an African American of West African slave origin than I am myself, since as we know African genetic and cultural diversity is pretty huge so being of Kenyan origin does not make you in any way similar to someone of Ghanaian or Sierra Leonian origin, especially not the Luo ethnicity who aren't even one of Kenya's Bantu groups.

[Roma_Victrix]

I agree, and I suspect that earlier back in time, the Natufian or Natufian-like genetic component might have been more predominant. Whether its predominance in these samples is due to direct Natufian ancestry or due to common ancestry with Natufians has implications regarding the urheimat of the Afroasiatic languages. All Afroasiatic speakers have significant Out-of-Africa ancestry, even those in sub-Saharan Africa. Their domestic animals descend from Middle-Eastern precursors. If the Natufian genetic component in Egypt is due to ancestry from the Levant, then the Afroasiatic urheimat is likely in the Levant. The degree of Anatolian Neolithic in ancient Egyptians may support this, but if the Nile Valley population was just initially very similar to the Natufians, then the Afroasiatic urheimat was probably in Egypt and the proto-Semitic urheimat was in the Levant. The Horn of Africa appears to be no longer supportable when linguistic, genetic, and archaeological data are taken together. The reason it initially appeared to be a candidate was because of the diversity of family languages present, but it seems this was actually due to different branches having converged there from different directions and due to large empires in the Middle East and North Africa having blurred out the linguistic diversity.

Kushites, I was rightly corrected here recently for being loose with the terminology in the same way.

Thanks for the explanation, and the correction. So we should call the people of Nubia "Kushites" even if they lived before the official establishment of the Kingdom of Kush? I say that because that kingdom was established fairly late in Egyptian history, during the first half of the 11th century BC and hence coinciding with the Bronze Age Collapse and the chaotic end of the New Kingdom era. New Kingdom Egypt controlled the lands of Nubia for centuries, yet before 1500 BC the Kerma culture reigned in the region and outside of Egyptian control. Do we call the people of the previous Kerma culture as Kushites too? Seems anachronistic to me.

Indeed. The main distinction was of 'barbarians' vs themselves (be they Greeks or Romans). Then the various different peoples such as Gauls, Germans, Britons, Egyptians, Jews, Syrians, and so on. Then, in the Roman period, Romans and non-Romans (a vague distinction, partly based on citizenship). Although the Germans and their relations such as the Slavs were often marked out as being particularly bizarre looking, since they were very tall, had particularly pale skin, and sometimes had red hair.

Even then they were pressured into Romanization, learning Latin, etc. and were most certainly citizens after Caracalla's edict. Even before that point entire tribes of Celts and Germanic people were made citizens all at once, a practice that occurred as far back as the late Republic, before the rise of Caesar. This was the case even for the late Roman foederati who made official treaties with Rome to offer their services as border patrols/buffer peoples to shield the Roman Empire from external threats.

Quite so. And hopefully it's less needed now that the greatest country on earth has had a black president. I say that - I hope one day America has an actual black president, i.e. not a mixed race president. Even from my British perspective, the American perception of the one-drop rule is rather odd, Obama could easily be considered white except for racial prejudices in the USA linking him to the historical African American community. In real terms Barack Obama is no more similar to an African American of West African slave origin than I am myself, since as we know African genetic and cultural diversity is pretty huge so being of Kenyan origin does not make you in any way similar to someone of Ghanaian or Sierra Leonian origin, especially not the Luo ethnicity who aren't even one of Kenya's Bantu groups.

Yep, pretty much. It's the reason why a small but noticeable amount of black voters during the 2008 primaries argued that Obama wasn't "black" enough for them. A silly attitude, of course, but it was fueled by more than just his lack of West African heritage...some of them also thought he didn't cater/pander enough to their particular issues.

[sumskilz]

Thanks for the explanation, and the correction. So we should call the people of Nubia "Kushites" even if they lived before the official establishment of the Kingdom of Kush? I say that because that kingdom was established fairly late in Egyptian history, during the first half of the 11th century BC and hence coinciding with the Bronze Age Collapse and the chaotic end of the New Kingdom era. New Kingdom Egypt controlled the lands of Nubia for centuries, yet before 1500 BC the Kerma culture reigned in the region and outside of Egyptian control. Do we call the people of the previous Kerma culture as Kushites too? Seems anachronistic to me.

Good point, it's just that Nubian is even more anachronistic since it's the name of a group of people who entered the region in the 3rd century BC.

EDIT: Although the regional term Kush predates the Kingdom of Kush by a bit, since it appears in the Amarna letters.

[saxdude]

Would the Kushite based 25th dynasty of Egypt left any significant genetic markers in the Egyptian population?

[Condottiere 40K]

Genghis Khan managed it, but he appears to have had a voracious sexual appetite.

Egypt is an ancient civilization at the crossroads of trade and conquest routes, so the potential for a lot of interbreeding is there.

The real political issue is the drawing of the line of the current prevailing population, to that present at the height of Egyptian greatness, to whatever agenda a writer is trying to promote.

[Roma_Victrix]

Good point, it's just that Nubian is even more anachronistic since it's the name of a group of people who entered the region in the 3rd century BC.

EDIT: Although the regional term Kush predates the Kingdom of Kush by a bit, since it appears in the Amarna letters.

Ah. I see. Then perhaps the earlier inhabitants should be called Kerma people, then Kerma people under Egyptian dominance, then Kushites, and finally the Nubians? I wish there was one underlying (or rather overarching) category or term to group these peoples together along a continuous timeline.

Would the Kushite based 25th dynasty of Egypt left any significant genetic markers in the Egyptian population?

Perhaps no more than the Sea People, Assyrians, Persians, Macedonians/Greeks, and Romans were able to leave behind. The Arabs have controlled Egypt for much longer than any of these groups, although the percentage of people with genetic heritage tracing back to 7th-century Arabia is perhaps as negligible as them.

[sumskilz]

The Arabs have controlled Egypt for much longer than any of these groups, although the percentage of people with genetic heritage tracing back to 7th-century Arabia is perhaps as negligible as them.

Using only modern populations, ADMIXTURE separates a significant portion of Muslim Egyptian ancestry into a component in common with Arabian Arabs which is distinct from the largest component in Copts, suggesting that portion of their ancestry is mostly post-Arab conquest rather than native Egyptian. However, the new ancient genomes from this study will allow that proposition to be better tested.