Whole-genome ancestry of an Old Kingdom Egyptian

> Egyptians don't like the notion that "they moved there from somewhere". They claim their own unique, uninterrupted, history and connection to the land as well as their civilizational independence from Mesopotamian, Asia Minor, Europe, and Africa.

Same here in India.

These ideas about civilization and racial purity/superiority are a scientific nonsense but very useful for getting people to hate each other.

The other is the seemingly strong conclusion that Ancient Egyptians did in fact move to Egypt from Mesopotamian which is pretty cool. Egyptians don't like the notion that "they moved there from somewhere".

How do you conclude that from the fact that 1 man of the era had 20% of his genetic material from Mesopotamia?

> The other is the seemingly strong conclusion that Ancient Egyptians did in fact move to Egypt from Mesopotamian which is pretty cool.

there was no such conclusion that i saw having read this.

they are talking of genetic admixture...so the person shared ancestors with someone else sequenced from the mesopotamian area...maybe they both were kids with a parent elsewhere, for example.

I think conclusion is a bit of a strong term to use here, as far as i can read its a possibility, but the only real conclusion is that there has been human movement between the regions, which might indicate mixing (that is, they didn't move there, at least, not all of them).

There are lots of replies to this already but I think it's worth simply copying out the relevant parts of the conclusion:

> Although our analyses are limited to a single Egyptian individual who ... may not be representative of the general population, our results revealed ancestry links to earlier North African groups and populations of the eastern Fertile Crescent. ... The genetic links with the eastern Fertile Crescent also mirror previously documented cultural diffusion ... opening up the possibility of some settlement of people in Egypt during one or more of these periods.

And where did the Mesopotamians move from? If you don't see the political context of the science then too bad.

Like, you know people till now take pride in the exploits and culture of their supposed ancient ancestors, never mind that for the the vast majority of people, there is no simple and direct line from some ancient illustrious people to them.

The latent political context is the assumption driving the research, that Egyptian culture had to have come from somewhere else, so let's go look for it. You see the same thing when evidence of cultural achievements elsewhere in Africa is unearthed.

Of course you will find a somewhere else, no matter how tenuous the connection, in which case my first sentence above comes into play: let's keep finding the somewhere else until we all get back to Africa, supposedly the birthplace of it all.

EDIT: Since this is being misunderstood, this what I actually mean: For some reason, this finding somewhere else is not applied consistently. Either we should keep finding the somewhere else for all cultures for as far back as we can, or else stop with this nonsensical subtext that just because a culture has some roots from elsewhere, so therefore it cannot have made innovations by itself beyond its supposed origins.

When your research has to align with a state-approved version of history, real collaboration becomes tricky

>The lack of any Egyptian archeologists on most interesting and significant findings about Ancient Egypt is one.

It seems like Egyptian archaeologists is a clique of academics that do not like to rock the apple cart and go against established ideas about Egyptian history. There is a lot of gate keeping going on, mostly in part of Zahi Hawass, a narcissist that likes to self insert into every research into the subject, and control publication of results, etc. Even worse, claim attribution for work he's not even part of. So, if you don't kiss the ring, or dare to challenge ideas without his blessing, you'll be pretty much become a pariah that will never access archaeological sites again. Because of this, research in the field seems to be stagnant.

The key isn't shifting land masses, but the fact that even with the existing terrain, people were moving, trading, and mixing across these regions

Well, I assume the lowest-budget way to deal with a corpse in ancient Egypt is to toss it into the Nile.

More generally, if what you're looking at is a cemetery for the poor, there should be a lot of remains, and there shouldn't be much in the way of decoration. If someone carved a tomb for the remains to be in ("The body was interred in a ceramic pot within a rock-cut tomb"), that already disqualifies them from being poor.