History Rewritten! DNA Analysis Reveals the Real Race of Ancient Egyptians...

Ancient Egypt, this glorious legacy of civilization, hides a century-old mystery. What is the real race of the ancient Egyptians? In a 2017 paper, scientists concluded that the ancient Egyptians were most closely related to the Levantines of the Bronze Age. But now, new discoveries are challenging all of this, and we have discovered that the ancient Egyptians were actually a nation that developed independently for a long time. Let's solve this ancient Egyptian mystery together. The race of the ancient Egyptians has always been a complex and controversial topic. There have been many speculations in history, including the Semitic Theory, the White Theory, the Black Theory, etc. Anyway, every race that can be thought of has been doubted. In the academia, some scholars emphasize the view that the Egyptians are black, believing that the Egyptians are descendants of African aborigines, while other scholars believe that the Egyptians are closer to white people. However, some scholars have pointed out that the portraits and sculptures of the ancient Egyptians show the characteristics of the yellow race, implying that there may be yellow blood. Scholars from various countries debated endlessly, but no conclusion was reached until 2017, when the publication of this paper in the journal Nature Communications put the academic world on pause. This paper focuses on the important Egyptian site Abusa el-Melek, which is located in the Nile Valley in central Egypt, close to the Fayyum oasis. Its history can be traced back to the Middle Kingdom period of ancient Egypt, and it was an important religious center in ancient Egypt. The article uses the ancient DNA of multiple mummies in this site and the whole genome data of three ancient Egyptian individuals as samples to discuss racial issues in multiple dimensions. First of all, we know that in the PCA graph, the closer the distance between samples, the closer the blood relationship between them. The information in the figure shows that the ancient DNA samples of the three ancient Egyptians marked by black and gray circles are obviously closer to the Neolithic Levantines represented by white circles and the Bronze Age Levantines represented by black crosses. At the same time, after comparing the Near Eastern populations such as Lebanon and Palestine represented by yellow and the African populations such as Yoruba and Sahara represented by dark blue, it can be clearly seen that the ancient Egyptians are close to the Neolithic and Bronze Age Levantine, modern Palestine, Lebanon, and other Near Eastern populations, but are far away from the Sub-Saharan African populations. Because the previous debate was really fierce, but no one had been able to come up with a completely convincing conclusion. So, the emergence of this result under the deadlock surprised everyone who paid attention to ancient Egypt. Next, let's look at the ancestry composition of the samples represented by the admixture graph. Each column in the graph represents a person's ancestry composition. It can be seen that the ancestry composition of these three ancient Egyptians is very similar, mainly composed of three components, Anatolian ancestry located in today's Turkey, ancient Iranian farmer ancestry, and Natufian ancestry. These three are typical Middle Eastern ancestry, and the Yoruba ancestry, which is a reference ancestry in Sub-Saharan Africa, is very small in these three ancient Egyptian samples. This conclusion coincides with the conclusion drawn from the PCA graph just now. The third aspect is the paternal analysis of the samples. The Y-DNA of these three ancient Egyptians are 2J and 1E1B1B1a. These two paternal types happen to be the mainstream paternal types of modern Egyptians. Among them, haplotype J is widely distributed in Western Europe and Asia, with the highest proportion in the Middle East. The paternal results also support the conclusion that the ancient Egyptians originated in the Middle East. Finally, regarding the analysis of maternal ancient DNA samples, among the haplotype types H, T, J, etc. from the Middle East account for more than 90%, and from the New Dynasty to the later Arabization, the maternal inheritance of the ancient Egyptians has remained relatively stable. Therefore, judging from the maternal analysis, the ancient Egyptians most likely came from the Middle East. In summary, based on the analysis of these four aspects, the article basically concludes that the ancient Egyptians were very similar to the people in the Middle East. Although the paper presents important insights, it does not explore this idea further. The lack of information in the article will lead to a phenomenon where one problem is solved and more problems are raised. Inevitably, a lot of questions will follow after the publication. Next, some people will ask, with so many close connections between the two groups, are the ancient Egyptians and the people in the Levant just similar? Are the ancient Egyptians Levantines? At the same time, there are endless doubts about the samples. The number of samples is too small. The time of the samples is already in the late New Dynasty and cannot represent the 7,000 years of ancient Egypt. Moreover, the southern part of Egypt, which is Upper Egypt, is very different from the northern part, which is Lower Egypt. So, the conclusion drawn based on the genetic data of only one site in Lower Egypt is too one-sided. Do you feel that the problem is getting more and more complicated after seeing this? Scientists have also discovered these flaws. Daniel Candelora, a well-known archaeologist, suggested that the researchers ignored the small number of samples. Another scholar, Christopher Eret, believes that the sample size is too small and the author's interpretation of the genetic data is biased. In addition, some people have suggested that from the perspective of physical anthropology, the ancient Egyptians had different physical appearances. So, the results of a small number of samples are not credible. In 2023, Stiebeling and Helft also pointed out that this study could not represent early populations or Upper Egyptians who were geographically closer to sub-Saharan Africa. These debates have once again brought the issue of the race of the ancient Egyptians to the center of heated debate. But then came a turning point. At two international biomolecular archaeology conferences in 2022 and 2023, researchers added two pieces of evidence to support their previous views. They collected 18 high-quality maternal gene results from six different sites throughout the Nile River Basin, and their haplotypes were consistent with the results of the paper. Secondly, the haplotypes of another 25 ancient Egyptians ranging from the Predynastic Period to the Ptolemaic Period also matched the content of the 2017 paper. The large number and wide geographic range of samples this time make the paper's views seem more convincing. Have you changed your mind about the thesis after learning this? Now, we have more comprehensive data to probe the reliability of the conclusion. Should we believe it? Then, are the doubts mentioned at the beginning of this video out of the question? Of course not. I found that, if the real history is as described in the thesis, it will be very unreasonable and it is hard to explain it. This makes me have to believe that the conclusion of the thesis is incorrect. To explain these irrationalities, let's look at the wide DNA statistics of modern Egyptians first. According to the genetic composition of ancient Egyptians, haplotype J accounts for about 20%. This haplotype is mainly prevalent in the Middle East and later mixed into Egypt. There is also a branch E1b1b1a, also known as EM78, which is a subtype of the Y-chromosome group E1b1b, mainly distributed in North Africa, East Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. It originated in Northeast Africa around 18,000 BC and may have first appeared in the Nile River Basin or nearby areas. EM78 is widely distributed in Egypt, Libya, and Ethiopia, especially in the where it accounts for a high proportion. And the problem lies precisely in this haplotype. To understand it, we must broaden our horizons first. Let's first look at E1b1b1b, the brother branch of Egyptian E1b1b1a, which diverged 23,000 years ago. This branch is mainly distributed in the Maghreb region of North Africa today. However, E1b1b1b has also been found in the Natufian people of the Levant between 15,000 and 11,000 years ago, and the ancient DNA of these Natufian people showed that the main composition of their autosomal ancestry came from the Middle East. Oh, yes, just like you thought. After a large amount of ancient DNA verification, the ancestry of the people in the Maghreb today that is similar to the Middle East is not actually derived from the Arab Empire in the 7th century, as traditionally believed, but mostly from the Middle Eastern immigrants in the Paleolithic and Neolithic, and after a long period of independent evolution, it has produced considerable uniqueness. In the future, we will have the opportunity to expand on the legendary story of the people in the Maghreb, but it shows that at least 20,000 years ago, E1b1b1b had Middle Eastern ancestry. They originated in the Near East, but migrated back to North Africa. At this time, North Africa had just ended a relatively strong drought. The climate was more humid than before, and the forest area was large, providing a suitable living environment. Therefore, they successfully entered North Africa 20,000 years ago and gradually developed. So, what about E1b1b1b's brother branch, E1b1b1a? Was it already in the Levant of the Near East 20,000 years ago and carried ancient Middle Eastern ancestry? First, from the Y-tree, E1b1b1-EM35. The common ancestor of E1b1b1a and E1b1b1b is only about 400 years apart from E1b1b1b. It can be considered that they are almost contemporaries, that is, E1b1b1 is most likely of Middle Eastern descent. In addition, the Tafralt caveman in northern Morocco 15,100 to 13,900 years ago. Ancient DNA sequencing shows that their paternal lineage is EM78, E1b1b1a. The autosomes are about 60% of the ancient Middle Eastern descent, mixed with 40% of the ancient North African descent, similar to the Hadza people in Tanzania today. Here is a reminder that the EM78 marked in my Y-tree is E1b1b1a1. In fact, this is the test result of the latest EM78, which is the E1b1b1a I mentioned. Judging from the autosomes, the Tafralt caveman have little influence on today's population and may not have direct descendants. However, it can still be seen from the figure that E1b1b1a had already arrived in North Africa in the Paleolithic age and was also of Middle Eastern descent. Judging from today's distribution, E1b1b1a and E1b1b1b represent two populations that have developed independently for a long time. This also proves that ancient Egypt has always been an independently developed nation. E1b1b1a may have appeared and expanded in today's Egypt and was distributed in the Horn of Africa and Central Africa. E1b1b1b is mainly distributed among the people in the Maghreb. Their common ancestor came from the Near East. However, this population migration picture, analysed from the paternal perspective, contradicts the existing conclusions. The mainstream consensus in the academic community now, as shown in the figure, is that the origin of today's North African and Egyptian populations mainly comes from three major migration events from the Near East. Namely, the migration of the Levantines back to North Africa after the end of the Last Ice Age, the expansion of the Levantines in the Neolithic Age, and the expansion of the Arab Empire. However, we already know that this migration in the Paleolithic Age created today's Maghreb population, whose paternal lineage is mainly E1b1b1b. The expansion of the Levantines in the Neolithic Age 7,500-5,000 years ago, and the expansion of the Arab Empire in the 7th-11th centuries mainly contributed to the J paternal lineage to the Egyptians. So, the main paternal line of the Egyptians, E1b1b1a, is also a group of ancient Middle Eastern descent. This group is very different from the Maghreb people. How did they come to Egypt? The devil is in the details. This seriously unreasonable place hides the great secret of the true origin of the Egyptians. The Egyptians are a very unique nation. So, how did the Egyptians originate and develop? I will introduce this question in detail in the next video, combining more paternal genetic data, ancient DNA, climate cycle changes, history and archaeology, social changes, etc. I believe the results will definitely break your cognition and bring you closer to ancient Egypt. At this point, we already know that the ancient Egyptians were a group of people similar to the Levantines in the Near East, but they were different. Times have changed and the world has changed. What are the secrets of ancient Egypt waiting to be discovered? All the answers will be revealed in the next video. If you have any questions about the content of this video, please leave a message in the comment area. 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