section_path: Population/Archaeogenetics
section_name: Archaeogenetics
paragraph_text: Archaeogenetics
  
  According to historian William Stiebling and archaeologist Susan N. Helft, conflicting DNA analysis on recent genetic samples such as the Amarna royal mummies has led to a lack of consensus on the genetic makeup of the ancient Egyptians and their geographic origins.
  
  The genetic history of Ancient Egypt remains a developing field, and is relevant for the understanding of population demographic events connecting Africa and Eurasia. To date, the amount of genome-wide aDNA analyses on ancient specimens from Egypt and Sudan remain scarce, although studies on uniparental haplogroups in ancient individuals have been carried out several times, pointing broadly to affinities with other African and Eurasian groups.
  
  The currently most advanced full genome analyses was made on three ancient specimens recovered from the Nile River Valley, Abusir el-Meleq, Egypt. Two of the individuals were dated to the Pre-Ptolemaic Period (New Kingdom to Late Period), and one individual to the Ptolemaic Period, spanning around 1300 years of Egyptian history. These results point to a genetic continuity of Ancient Egyptians with modern Egyptians. The results further point to a close genetic affinity between ancient Egyptians and Middle Eastern populations, especially ancient groups from the Levant (Natufian culture).
  
  Ancient Egyptians also displayed affinities to Nubians to the south of Egypt, in modern-day Sudan. Archaeological and historical evidence support interactions between Egyptian and Nubian populations more than 5000 years ago, with socio-political dynamics between Egyptians and Nubians ranging from peaceful coexistence to variably successful attempts of conquest. A study on sixty-six ancient Nubian individuals revealed significant contact with ancient Egyptians, characterized by the presence of c. 57 % Neolithic/Bronze Age Levantine ancestry in these individuals. Such geneflow of Levantine-like ancestry corresponds with archaeological and botanic evidence, pointing to a Neolithic movement around 7,000 years ago.
  
  Genetic data on other Northern African specimens, such as the c. 15,000 year old Iberomaurusian Taforalt man, but also specimens from the "last Green Sahara" and the Savanna Pastoral Neolithic, point to the widespread presence of an (Western) Eurasian ancestry component distributed throughout Northern Africa, the Sahara, and the Horn of Africa, having arrived via back migration(s) from the Middle East starting as early as c. 23,000 years ago.
  
  Modern Egyptians, like modern Nubians, underwent subsequent admixture events, contributing both "Sub-Saharan" African-like and West Asian-like ancestries, since the Roman period, with significance on the African Slave Trade and the Spread of Islam.
  
  Some scholars, such as Christopher Ehret, caution that a wider sampling area is needed and argue that the current data is inconclusive on the origin of ancient Egyptians. They also point out issues with the previously used methodology such as the sampling size, comparative approach and a "biased interpretation" of the genetic data. They argue in favor for a link between Ancient Egypt and the northern Horn of Africa. This latter view has been attributed to the corresponding archaeological, genetic, linguistic and biological anthropological sources of evidence which broadly indicate that the earliest Egyptians and Nubians were the descendants of populations in northeast Africa.