Geographic location of the Nuwayrat cemetery (red dot), and the previously sequenced Third Intermediate period individuals from Abusir-el Meleq (purple diamond).
Credit: Adeline Morez Jacobs.
According to the biblical narrative, the entire human population of Earth was reduced to just eight related individuals around 4,000 years ago, following a global, genocidal flood — a flood which, curiously, left no trace.
Now, as is almost invariably the case, new scientific evidence is entirely inconsistent with that narrative. The genetic analysis of an individual who lived and died in Egypt between 4,500 and 4,800 years ago shows that he was approximately 80% North African, with the remaining 20% of his DNA tracing to the vicinity of Mesopotamia.
Historical evidence also shows that, long before the supposed global flood, agriculture-based civilisations had been established in both Egypt and Mesopotamia. These societies had already formed trading networks and cultural connections, and left behind artefacts — including stone structures and buried remains — which would have been completely obliterated by the kind of flood described in the Bible.
Pottery vessel in which the Nuwayrat individual was discovered.
Image: Garstang Museum of Archaeology, University of Liverpool.
The analysis of this individual’s genome — the oldest Egyptian DNA recovered to date — was carried out by researchers from the Francis Crick Institute and Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), UK. They have just published their findings, open access, in Nature.
What information is there on the history of civilisations in Egypt and Mesopotamia? The history of civilisation in Egypt and Mesopotamia is among the oldest and best documented in the world. Both regions were cradles of early complex societies, developing independently but sometimes interacting. Here’s a concise overview of the civilisational history in each:Their work is also described in detail in a press release from the Francis Crick Institute.
Egypt
Predynastic Period (~6000–3100 BCE)
- Early Neolithic farming communities developed along the Nile.
- Gradual social stratification, development of trade, religious practices, and rudimentary kingship.
- By 3100 BCE, Upper and Lower Egypt were unified under the first pharaoh, traditionally Narmer (also known as Menes).
Early Dynastic Period (c. 3100–2686 BCE)
- Development of writing (hieroglyphs), administration, and state infrastructure.
- Establishment of Memphis as the capital.
- Emergence of monumental tombs and religious symbolism.
Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BCE)
- Age of pyramid building, including the Great Pyramid of Giza (c. 2560 BCE).
- Strong central government and a flourishing economy.
- Collapse due to internal instability, droughts, and weakened central power.
Middle Kingdom (c. 2055–1650 BCE)
- Reunification and resurgence in arts, trade, and administration.
- Expansion into Nubia for resources like gold.
- More literature, irrigation projects, and temples.
New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BCE)
- Egypt’s imperial phase: conquests in the Near East and Nubia.
- Famous pharaohs: Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun, and Ramses II.
- Construction of grand temples (e.g. Karnak, Abu Simbel).
Mesopotamia (Modern-day Iraq, parts of Syria, Türkiye, Iran)
Ubaid and Uruk Periods (c. 6000–3100 BCE)
- The Ubaid culture laid foundations of Mesopotamian urbanism.
- The Uruk period (c. 4000–3100 BCE) saw the rise of the first true cities, like Uruk.
- Development of cuneiform writing (by ~3200 BCE), monumental architecture (ziggurats), and early state institutions.
Sumerian Civilisation (c. 3100–2000 BCE)
- Independent city-states: Ur, Uruk, Lagash, Eridu.
- Advanced agriculture, written law codes (e.g. Code of Ur-Nammu), literature (Epic of Gilgamesh).
- Invention of the wheel, plough, and sailboats.
- Sargon of Akkad (c. 2334 BCE) established the Akkadian Empire, the world’s first multiethnic empire.
Babylonian and Assyrian Empires (c. 1900–600 BCE)
- Babylon, under Hammurabi (c. 1792–1750 BCE), became a major cultural and legal centre (Hammurabi’s Code).
- Assyrians later dominated Mesopotamia, known for military prowess and engineering (e.g. Nineveh, Ashurbanipal's library).
- Neo-Babylonian Empire (612–539 BCE) under Nebuchadnezzar II rebuilt Babylon and conquered Jerusalem.
Key Comparisons and Interactions
- Writing: Both civilisations developed writing early — cuneiform in Mesopotamia, hieroglyphs in Egypt — for administration, religion, and record-keeping.
- Religion: Polytheistic belief systems with temple-centred worship.
- Trade: Evidence of long-distance trade between Egypt and Mesopotamia by at least the late 4th millennium BCE — including exchange of goods, technologies, and possibly ideas.
- Resilience: Both regions faced cycles of centralisation and collapse but left enduring cultural legacies.
Researchers sequence first genome from ancient Egypt
Researchers from the Francis Crick Institute and Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) have extracted and sequenced the oldest Egyptian DNA to date from an individual who lived around 4,500 to 4,800 years ago, the age of the first pyramids, in research published today in Nature.1.1
Forty years after Nobel Prize winner Svante Pääbo’s pioneering attempts to extract ancient DNA from individuals from ancient Egypt, improvements in technology have now paved the way for the breakthrough today, which is also the first whole genome (the entire set of DNA in an individual) from ancient Egypt.2.1
During this period of ancient Egyptian history, archaeological evidence has suggested trade and cultural connections existed with the Fertile Crescent – an area of West Asia encompassing modern-day Iraq, Iran and Jordan, among other countries.
Researchers believed that objects and imagery, like writing systems or pottery, were exchanged, but genetic evidence has been limited due to warm temperatures preventing DNA preservation.
In this study, the research team extracted DNA from the tooth of an individual buried in Nuwayrat, a village 265km south of Cairo, using this to sequence his genome.
The burial had been donated by the Egyptian Antiquities Service, while under British rule, to the excavation committee set up by John Garstang. It was initially housed at the Liverpool Institute of Archaeology (which later became part of the University of Liverpool) and then transferred to World Museum Liverpool.2.1
The individual died at some point in the overlap between two periods in Egyptian history, the Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom periods, and had been buried in a ceramic pot in a tomb cut into the hillside. His burial took place before artificial mummification was standard practice, which may have helped to preserve his DNA.
By analysing his genetic code, the researchers showed that most of his ancestry mapped to ancient individuals who lived in North Africa. The remaining 20% of his ancestry could be traced to ancient individuals who lived in the Fertile Crescent, particularly an area called Mesopotamia (roughly modern-day Iraq).
This finding is genetic evidence that people moved into Egypt and mixed with local populations at this time, which was previously only visible in archaeological artefacts. However, the researchers caution that many more individual genome sequences would be needed to fully understand variation in ancestry in Egypt at the time.
By investigating chemical signals in his teeth relating to diet and environment, the researchers showed that the individual had likely grown up in Egypt.
They then used evidence from his skeleton to estimate sex, age, height, and information on ancestry and lifestyle. These signs suggested he could have worked as a potter or in a trade requiring comparable movements, as his bones had muscle markings from sitting for long periods with outstretched limbs.
Piecing together all the clues from this individual’s DNA, bones and teeth have allowed us to build a comprehensive picture. We hope that future DNA samples from ancient Egypt can expand on when precisely this movement from West Asia started.
Dr. Adeline Morez Jacobs, first author
School of Biological and Environmental Sciences
Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK
Formerly, Ancient Genomics Laboratory
The Francis Crick Institute, London, UK.
This individual has been on an extraordinary journey. He lived and died during a critical period of change in ancient Egypt, and his skeleton was excavated in 1902 and donated to World Museum Liverpool, where it then survived bombings during the Blitz that destroyed most of the human remains in their collection. We’ve now been able to tell part of the individual’s story, finding that some of his ancestry came from the Fertile Crescent, highlighting mixture between groups at this time.
Linus Girdland Flink, co-senior author
Visiting Researcher at LJMU.
Rock-cut tombs at Nuwayrat enclosing the pottery vessel containing the pottery coffin burial.Image: Garstang Museum of Archaeology, University of Liverpool.Forty years have passed since the early pioneering attempts to retrieve DNA from mummies without successful sequencing of an ancient Egyptian genome. Ancient Egypt is a place of extraordinary written history and archaeology, but challenging DNA preservation has meant that no genomic record of ancestry in early Egypt has been available for comparison. Building on this past research, new and powerful genetic techniques have allowed us to cross these technical boundaries and rule out contaminating DNA, providing the first genetic evidence for potential movements of people in Egypt at this time.
Pontus Skoglund, co-senior author
Ancient Genomics Laboratory
Francis Crick Institute.
The markings on the skeleton are clues to the individual’s life and lifestyle – his seat bones are expanded in size, his arms showed evidence of extensive movement back and forth, and there’s substantial arthritis in just the right foot. Though circumstantial these clues point towards pottery, including use of a pottery wheel, which arrived in Egypt around the same time. That said, his higher-class burial is not expected for a potter, who would not normally receive such treatment. Perhaps he was exceptionally skilled or successful to advance his social status.
Professor Joel Irish, second author
Liverpool John Moores University.
In future work, the research team hopes to build a bigger picture of migration and ancestry in collaboration with Egyptian researchers.
Pottery coffin and archaeological remains of the Nuwayrat individual, as discovered in 1902.Image: Garstang Museum of Archaeology,
University of Liverpool.
Facial reconstruction of the individual from Nuwayrat using 3D scan data of the skull and analysis of the bones
Credit: Caroline Wilkinson, Liverpool John Moores University.
Publication:
AbstractThe genetic analysis of an Egyptian individual who lived between 4,500 and 4,800 years ago presents a direct challenge to the young-Earth creationist belief that all humans are descended from a single family that survived a global flood around 4,000 years ago, as described in the book of Genesis. According to that narrative, the entire human population was reduced to Noah, his wife, their three sons, and their sons’ wives — a severe genetic bottleneck that should, if true, have left a clear and uniform genetic signature across all postdiluvian human populations.
Ancient Egyptian society flourished for millennia, reaching its peak during the Dynastic Period (approximately 3150–30 bce). However, owing to poor DNA preservation, questions about regional interconnectivity over time have not been addressed because whole-genome sequencing has not yet been possible. Here we sequenced a 2× coverage whole genome from an adult male Egyptian excavated at Nuwayrat (Nuerat, نويرات). Radiocarbon dated to 2855–2570 cal. bce, he lived a few centuries after Egyptian unification, bridging the Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom periods. The body was interred in a ceramic pot within a rock-cut tomb1, potentially contributing to the DNA preservation. Most of his genome is best represented by North African Neolithic ancestry, among available sources at present. Yet approximately 20% of his genetic ancestry can be traced to genomes representing the eastern Fertile Crescent, including Mesopotamia and surrounding regions. This genetic affinity is similar to the ancestry appearing in Anatolia and the Levant during the Neolithic and Bronze Age2,3,4,5. Although more genomes are needed to fully understand the genomic diversity of early Egyptians, our results indicate that contacts between Egypt and the eastern Fertile Crescent were not limited to objects and imagery (such as domesticated animals and plants, as well as writing systems)6,7,8,9 but also encompassed human migration.
Main
For thousands of years, the Egyptian Dynastic civilization (approximately 3150–30 bce) developed monumental architecture, sophisticated technology and relatively stable belief systems, becoming the longest-lasting civilization known. Following the political unification of the northern and southern regions of Egypt (Lower and Upper Egypt) at the end of the fourth millennium bce, the Old Kingdom (2686–2125 bce) witnessed considerable advances, including the construction of the first step pyramid complex of King Djoser and the ‘Great Pyramid of Giza’ built by King Khufu. The population has been considered to be of local origin, with limited input from neighbouring regions8,10. Yet, more recent archaeological evidence shows that trade connections existed across the Fertile Crescent since at least the sixth millennium bce7, if not earlier, with the advent of the Neolithic package (such as domesticated animals and plants)6,7. Cultural exchange continued to develop through the late fourth millennium bce with the growing Sumerian civilization of Mesopotamia7,8,9. This period overlaps with the appearance of additional innovations in Egypt (such as the pottery wheel)11 and the earliest evidence of hieroglyphic writing in the form of ivory tags in Tomb U-j at Abydos, dated 3320–3150 bce7.
Our knowledge of ancient Egyptians has increased through decades of bioarchaeological analyses12,13,14,15, including dental morphological studies on their relatedness to other populations in North Africa and West Asia16,17,18. However, the lack of ancient genomes, particularly for the early periods of Egyptian Dynastic history, remains a barrier to our understanding of population continuity and gene flow in the region. Although individuals from ancient Egypt were subjected to the first effort to isolate ancient DNA19, direct genome sequencing has remained elusive because of the challenging regional DNA preservation conditions. So far, only three individuals from Abusir el-Meleq (Fig. 1a) have yielded nuclear DNA, all post-dating the emergence of Dynastic Egypt by thousands of years (from 787 cal. bce to 23 cal. ce)20. Moreover, these are not complete genome sequences but are limited to approximately 90,000–400,000 target-enriched genotypes. Over the millennia spanning the Dynastic Period, Egypt witnessed several wide-ranging wars, occupation by foreign rulers and dramatic episodes of internal political collapse (First, Second and Third Intermediate periods)21. Together, these processes may have substantially altered or reshaped the overall genetic structure and ancestry of the Egyptian population. Here we present a whole-genome sequence of an ancient Egyptian individual (2.02× coverage; Supplementary Table 1), recovered from a necropolis at Nuwayrat (نويرات, Nuerat; Fig. 1a).Fig. 1: Geographic location and date of the Nuwayrat individual in context.
a, Geographic location of the Nuwayrat cemetery (red dot) and the previously sequenced Third Intermediate Period individuals from Abusir el-Meleq20 (purple diamond). b, Pottery vessel in which the Nuwayrat individual was discovered. c, Cervical vertebrae belonging to the Nuwayrat individual with evidence of extreme osteoarthritis (arrows). d, Summary of genomic and radiocarbon data. See the detailed breakdown of the quality indicators and calibration results for the three replicates and the combined date in Supplementary Table 2. e, Egyptian civilization timeline and radiocarbon date of the Nuwayrat and Third Intermediate Period individuals. mtDNA, mitochondrial DNA. Photo in b reproduced courtesy of the Garstang Museum of Archaeology, University of Liverpool.
The Nuwayrat individual
Nuwayrat is located near the village of Beni Hasan, 265 km south of Cairo (Fig. 1a). Radiocarbon dating of the skeletal remains showed that the Nuwayrat individual died between 2855 and 2570 cal. bce (95.4% probability; Supplementary Information section 1 and Supplementary Table 2), which overlaps with the Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom periods (Fig. 1e). This result supports the initial archaeological assessments that material culture and funerary practices at the site were consistent with those of the Third and Fourth Dynasties of the Old Kingdom1,22. 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 site23, as observed elsewhere during the Early Dynastic Period and at the Old Kingdom royal cemeteries near the city of Memphis (Supplementary Information section 1).
Although acknowledging known limitations in predicting phenotypic traits in understudied populations24, the Nuwayrat individual is predicted to have had brown eyes, brown hair and skin pigmentation ranging from dark to black skin, with a lower probability of intermediate skin colour (Methods and Supplementary Table 10). The individual was genetically male (XY sex chromosomes; Supplementary Table 1), consistent with the expression of standard skeletal features25 (Methods). Our further osteological examination revealed that he would have stood 157.4–160.5 cm tall26. He lived to an advanced age for the time (approximately 44–64 years; the upper end of this range is the most probable25,27), as evidenced by his heavily worn teeth and age-related osteoarthritis in most joints and vertebrae, in some cases severe (Fig. 1c). 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. The patterns of osteoarthritis and stress indicators further imply the form of physical activity that he routinely engaged in, which some researchers maintain can provide clues concerning occupation28,29. In this case, although circumstantial, they are not inconsistent with those of a potter, as depicted in ancient Egyptian imagery. Estimates of biological affinity based on dental morphological features and cranial measurements parallel the genomic results (below). More detailed information about the Nuwayrat individual is presented in Supplementary Information section 2, with a facial depiction in Supplementary Information section 3 (Extended Data Fig. 2).
Multi-isotope analysis (δ13C, δ15N, δ18O and 87Sr/86Sr) was conducted on dental enamel and dental collagen from the lower-left second molar to determine his childhood diet and geographic origin (Supplementary Information section 5). All results are consistent with having grown up in the hot, dry climate of the Nile Valley (δ18Ocarb VSMOW = 23.6‰, where VSMOW indicates Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water; 87Sr/86Sr = 0.707888)30,31,32 and consuming an omnivorous diet based on terrestrial animal protein and plants, such as wheat and barley (δ13CVPDB = −19.6‰, where VPDB indicates Vienna Pee Dee Belemnite; δ15NAIR = 12.3‰)33, typical for Egyptians until the Coptic period34. An elevated δ15N value, frequently observed in isotope studies of ancient Egyptians, may have been caused by the arid environment35,36,37, eating foods raised on manured fields38 and/or inclusion of Nile fish in the diet34.
Morez Jacobs, A., Irish, J.D., Cooke, A. et al.
Whole-genome ancestry of an Old Kingdom Egyptian.
Nature (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09195-5
Copyright: © 2025 The authors.
Published by Springer Nature Ltd. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)
Instead, this study reveals a complex genetic ancestry in a person who lived *before* the alleged flood — showing a mixture of North African and Mesopotamian DNA, consistent with what is known from archaeology about trade, migration, and population mixing in the ancient world. This indicates not only that substantial and genetically diverse populations existed in North Africa and the Near East prior to the supposed flood, but also that the genetic distinctions between these regions were already well established.
Furthermore, there is no evidence — genetic, geological, or archaeological — of a global extinction-level flood event that reset the human population or wiped out ancient civilisations. The continuous development of Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures, including uninterrupted records, structures, and burial sites spanning this period, contradicts the claim that all human civilisation was destroyed and restarted from a single family.
This discovery adds to the growing body of evidence showing that humanity’s story is long, complex, and regionally diverse — entirely at odds with the simplistic, literalist version presented in Genesis. It underscores how modern genetics, like geology and palaeontology, has become one of the most powerful tools for testing — and ultimately refuting — the young-Earth creationist model.
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