https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1dnnyz0z6do
An Egyptian skeleton from "between 4,500 and 4,800 years ago" - so maybe Old Kingdom - had "about a fifth of his DNA" from Mesopotamia, the first biological evidence of links between the two regions at that early date.
Well spotted. I am not surprised that there were links between the two regions, being accessible by boat. 20% DNA suggests a couple generations had passed since the contact.
My wife says I'm 5% Germanic and 95% Urrrrrrr.
The source Nature article is worth a read:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09195-5
Two interesting items are what they did not find: no strong correlation with the Levantine genomes of the period, suggesting the "Mesopotamian" element may not have come that way overland; and no east African element, suggesting that even if the Mesopotamian element came via the Red Sea, Ethiopian DNA does not seem to have been acquired en route. Of course, only a single sample, but a remarkable first.
Quote from: stevenneate on Jul 03, 2025, 06:28 AMMy wife says I'm 5% Germanic and 95% Urrrrrrr.
So Chaldean then, are you claiming decent from Abraham as well? ;D
He's my daddy!
My only niggle is the authors including Mesopotamia in "The Fertile Crescent"; a common mistake, but from a pedantic position, the Fertile Crescent really only embraces, in Iraq, the northern stretches of the Euphrates and Tigris that lie within the 200mm isohyet. Thus agriculture could develop in the adequately rainy areas of northern Iraq and Syria, and up the Levantine coast, but could only really flourish along the more southerly stretches once irrigation had been mastered. Of course, this is hypothesised to be a driver for the development of the cities, as irrigation needed a concentration of cooperative human enterprise.