I’ve written a lot about human history based upon mtDNA, supplemented with some archeological and anecdotal evidence. I put this together into a fairly comprehensive yet approachable presentation here. The Ancient Egyptian portion of the presentation focuses on what is commonly referred to as the “Old Kingdom”, when Egyptians plainly looked Asian, and as it turns out, the Old Kingdom mtDNA genome in the dataset is a 99% match to many modern South East Asians. The other more recent genome is instead dated to 129 to 138 AD, during the Roman Period of Ancient Egypt. They are definitely different genomes, and what’s interesting, is that this later genome basically fills the gap of the European population, with a large number of people in Europe, Northern Europe in particular, being either a 99% match to the Old Kingdom genome or a roughly 87% match to the Roman Period genome. This is not terribly controversial, since it claims that many Europeans are of either Ancient Egyptian or Roman Egyptian descent, both being major Mediterranean powers.

However, the truth is much more complicated than that, and the data suggests both groups, the Old Kingdom Egyptians, and Roman Egyptians, came from Asia. That is, Europeans are probably not Ancient Egyptians, but instead, Northern Europeans descend from the same group of people in Asia, some of whom went North, becoming Scandinavians and Germans, and some of whom went South, becoming Ancient Egyptians and Tanzanians. In particular, the Old Kingdom Ancient Egyptians seem to be related to the South East Asians, both physically and in terms of their mtDNA, whereas the later Egyptians seem to be related to Middle Eastern and Indian people, again both physically and in terms of their mtDNA. Below on the left is King and Queen Menkaure (c. 2,500 BC), both seemingly of Asian origin, and on the right is Cleopatra (c. 50 BC), plainly European, and known to be Macedonian.

The thesis here is that both people come from Asia, and that the Old Kingdom Ancient Egyptians are more closely related to the modern South East Asians, whereas the Roman Period Egyptians were possibly of Indian origin, in particular the Munda people, which is consistent with their appearance, in particular their noses. Further, the Roman Period Egyptians are an 87% match to the Swedes, Icelanders, and Dubliners, plainly suggesting the Vikings were also Indo-Aryan people. None of this is that novel, it’s just interesting that mtDNA is consistent with the notion of Indo-Aryan languages, plainly suggesting that a lot of Europeans really are of Indian origin. The novel piece is that the Ancient Egyptians are another group of Asians that came earlier, and look more South East Asian than Indian. Both bloodlines are present in modern day Europeans, in particular Northern Europeans.