In the Americas, ancient genomes have documented the peopling of the hemisphere from Siberia and the subsequent divergence of Indigenous American populations.

In Africa, ancient genomes from sites across the continent are beginning to reveal the complex deep population history of the continent of modern human origins.

Against this global backdrop, ancient Egypt has until now been a notable gap.

A civilization of extraordinary historical importance, the subject of centuries of archaeological and historical study, had no ancient genomic data from its formative period.

The global picture of ancient population history had a hole where Egypt should have been.