Moroccan Roots Emerge in Ancient Egyptian DNA Study

Morocco World

08-07-2025

A newly sequenced genome from a 4,600-year-old Egyptian man has revealed that nearly 80% of his ancestry traces back to Neolithic Morocco, shedding new light on early population movements across North Africa.
The discovery, published on July 2 in the scientific journal Nature, challenges long-standing assumptions about Egypt's ancient genetic history and places Morocco at the hub of a much older and far larger Mediterranean history.
The remains, which were kept for many years at the World Museum in Liverpool, were those of a man who was buried near Nuwayrat, about 265 kilometers south of Cairo.
Though archaeologists exhumed the body in 1902, only now have researchers managed to decode his full genome, an exceptional feat in Egypt, where high temperatures typically destroy genetic material.
His burial in a sealed funerary jar within a rock-cut tomb created rare conditions for preservation, enabling this unprecedented genetic analysis.
What the genome reveals is a dominant Moroccan ancestry in a man who lived during a critical transitional period in Egypt, between the end of the Predynastic era and the beginning of the Old Kingdom.
While this find may appear surprising, it is in line with recent archaeological and bio-anthropological evidence pointing to north-west Africa as the pre-eminent force shaping the broader region some millennia ago.
Studies based on recent discoveries suggest that the Maghreb, far from being isolated, sustained a sophisticated Neolithic society with strong cultural and possibly demographic influence across the western Mediterranean.
Read also: Archaeologists Discover 4,000-Year-Old Burial Sites in Tangier Peninsula
Scholars now consider the possibility that a previously unknown civilization once thrived in Morocco, an agrarian society as significant as Troy in scale, dating back to the late prehistory of North Africa.
The Egyptian man's DNA also shares markers with early Mesopotamian populations, suggesting a network of contact that extended beyond trade, involving deeper human movement across vast distances.
But the Moroccan origin of most of his ancestry lends fresh weight to the idea that North Africa's internal dynamics, especially from the far west, played a more central role in Egypt's formation than previously believed.
Anthropological analysis estimates the man died between the ages of 44 and 64. He stood around 1.60 meters tall and bore signs of a sedentary lifestyle and joint deterioration, indicators of specialized manual labor. His burial, however, raises questions.
Reserved for elites, such a tomb suggests he held a status uncommon for an artisan; perhaps he was a master in his craft or achieved social ascent.
This research forces a reassessment of early North African interconnectedness and Egypt's deep genetic ties with regions far beyond the Nile. Tags: ancient egyptanthropologyMorocconeolithic morocco