These were the agricultural societies of southwestern Asia, some of the world’s earliest urban civilizations, whose connections with Egypt in the early historical period are documented by archaeology and textual evidence.

The proportions of these sources in NUE001’s genome were approximately 80 percent North African Neolithic ancestry and approximately 20 percent eastern Fertile Crescent ancestry.

Two alternative three-source models were also found to be statistically consistent with the data, including an additional smaller contribution from Chalcolithic Levantine populations — the peoples of ancient Canaan and the Levant.

But the simpler two-source model was the best-fitting, and the eastern Fertile Crescent component was present in all the models that fit the data.

The mitochondrial DNA — the genetic material inherited through the maternal line — placed NUE001 in haplogroup I, more specifically N1a1b2.