By 787 BCE, Egypt had already experienced the full arc of its Dynastic history: the Old Kingdom, the First Intermediate Period, the Middle Kingdom, the Second Intermediate Period with its Hyksos rulers, the New Kingdom with its imperial expansion and famous pharaohs, the Third Intermediate Period with its Libyan and Nubian rulers, and the final Late Period with Persian and eventually Greek influence.

Each of these periods would have introduced new populations and new genetic contributions to the Egyptian mix.

An individual from 787 BCE is not an ancestor in any direct sense of individuals from 2800 BCE; they represent the accumulated result of more than two thousand years of additional population history.

The Abusir el-Meleq genomes also came from mummified remains, which — as discussed — present specific challenges for DNA preservation.

The three individuals who yielded usable data from Abusir el-Meleq were analyzed not through full genome sequencing but through targeted enrichment: a method that selects specific regions of the genome for analysis rather than reading the full sequence.