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?

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bee_rider a day ago | parent | next [-]

Actually, I think it’s wrong to say that this paper proves Egyptians moved from somewhere else. As with any research paper, it is part of a conversation and moving consensus. It is a journey.

> Our knowledge of ancient Egyptians has increased through decades of bioarchaeological analyses including dental morphological studies on their relatedness to other populations in North Africa and West Asia

There are other footsteps. The DNA is just a notable rock they’ve clambered over.

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clw8 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I believe they are basing that on the spread of genes from the Natufian culture that built the earliest settlements corresponding to the spread of Afroasiatic languages. Similar to how Turkish people have low levels of Turkic ancestry.

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cma 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Kind of like checking one British royalty corpse for Danish ancestry.

	▲	bee_rider a day ago \| parent [-]
		They actually studied the skeleton as well. > The body was placed in a large pottery vessel inside a rock-cut tomb (Fig. 1b and Extended Data Fig. 1). This treatment would have ordinarily been reserved for individuals of a higher social class relative to others at the site But, > This and various activity-induced musculoskeletal indicators of stress revealed that he experienced an extended period of physical labour, seemingly in contrast to his high-status tomb burial. > In this case, although circumstantial, they are not inconsistent with those of a potter, as depicted in ancient Egyptian imagery. Checking the corpses of nobility would be a bad idea because they are shipped around for diplomatic reasons. I guess a potter moves around less (though, as a skilled worker, probably moved around a bit?).