Topic: Results of Mummy Remains That May Be Around 2,300 Years Old [July 4, 2024]
Tazarah
Why are you stalking my social media?
Member # 23365
posted 09 July, 2024 11:11 AM
Don't know if this has been posted already but if it has then my apologies.
As I've said before, I personally don't put all my faith into population genetics for XYZ reasons but I saw this and found it interesting. Thought I would contribute to the forum and share it since I can see that it's relevant to things being discussed on here recently.
I have nothing motivating me to attack or defend any of this so I probably won't be commenting much on it. You guys can have at it if interested
From the Abstract:
"Numerous studies have shown that metagenomics has opened up a new dimension in reading the contents of archaeological remains as time capsules. Corn mummies are ritual objects made in ancient Egypt by forming human-shaped figures made of cereal grains grown in a mixture of water and earth. We performed metagenomic analyses on samples from a corn mummy dated to the second half of the 3rd century BC. Alongside a number of clearly modern contaminants, we identified organisms that cannot be excluded as being of historical origin. Besides considerable amounts of bacterial sequences belonging to the genera Bacillus, Coprococcus, Metabacillus, Niallia and Roseburia, we also found traces of plants, animals, and humans. Sequences assigned to the genus Triticum showed the highest similarity to ancient T. turgidum ssp. dicoccum specimens from Egypt and the southern Levant. Sequences classified in the genus Populus showed the highest identity with the genome of P. nigra. The fragments that were identified as being of Lepidopteran origin showed the greatest similarity to the genomes of the Sphingidae. Haplotype analysis of H. sapiens sequences suggests haplogroups L3 and E, based on the mitogenome and Y chromosome, respectively, which are the two common lineages in sub-Saharan Africa today. "
Looks like the 1st sample had some recent contamination. Regarding the 2nd sample, the marker on the paternal side is E-M96 and L3 on the maternal side.
"...From the ratio of reads matching the X and Y chromosomes, an XY karyotype was obtained (R, = 0.085, 95% CI: 0.082-0.089). However, the karyotype could not be predicted with the default minimum mapping quality of 30 but only with a threshold of 10. A coverage of 6.50% and an average depth of 0.45 was obtained by aligning the reads to the Y chromosome (GRCH38.p12). The best path elements identified by pathPhynder are Alb, BT, C1a2, CT, E2, E2blal~, yHaplo predicts haplogroup E-M96. The relative frequencies of haplogroups L3 and E within Africa are shown in Figure S1. H. sapiens received the maximum bitscore of 550 (total length: 237,647 bp, longest contig: 3,715 bp) contigs generated by de novo assembly.
posted 09 July, 2024 12:41 PM
^ Interesting, though both E-M96 and L3 are rather broad clades that encompass many subclades and sub-branches within them including populations in both Sub-Sahara and North Africa as well as some in West Eurasia.. It would be great if they could refine them to more exact lineages.
Posts: 26762 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted 13 July, 2024 01:17 AM
Also, I forgot to mention that the time period of the human genes dates to the 3rd Century BC which is the time of the Ptolemaic Kingdom. You should know that Batrawi and other anthropologists have noted that since the Late Period, that is after the end of the New Kingdom, there is evidence of Sub-Saharan influence especially in southern Upper Egypt and Lower Nubia. This is not to say the person was not a native Egyptian but who knows.
Posts: 26762 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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