Nubia
Ancient DNA

In 2014, a male infant skeleton was recovered during an excavation in what is present-day Wadi Halfa from the Christian Period (500-1400 C.E.), located near the Second Cataract of the Nile in the Republic of the Sudan. The results from the Principal component analysis (PCA) had the individual placed between African and European clusters. Furthermore, the individual was assigned to L5a1a, a branch of the ancient L5 haplogroup with origins in East Africa.

Sirak et al. 2021 obtained and analyzed the whole genomes of 66 individuals from the site of Kulubnarti situated in northern Nubia between the 2nd and 3rd cataract, near the modern Egyptian border, and dated to the Christian period between 650 and 1000 CE. The samples were obtained from two cemeteries. The samples' genetic profile was found to be a mixture between West Eurasian and Sub Saharan Dinka -related ancestries, with ~60% West Eurasian related ancestry that likely came from ancient Egyptians but ultimately resembles that found in Bronze or Iron Age Levantines, and ~40% Dinka-related ancestry.

The two cemeteries showed minimal differences in their West Eurasian/Dinka ancestry proportions. These findings in addition to multiple cross cemetery relatives that the analyses have revealed indicate that people of both the R and S cemeteries were part of the same population despite the archaeological and anthropological differences between the two burials showing social stratification.

Modern Nubians, despite their superficial resemblance to the Kulubnarti Nubians on the PCA, were not found to be descended from Kulubnarti Nubians without additional later admixtures. Modern Nubians were found to have an increase in Sub-Saharan ancestry along with a change in their west Eurasian ancestry from that which was found in the ancient samples.

A sample from historic Lower Nubia, in the Nubian site of Sayala during the 3rd-6th Century AD, belonged to mtDNA haplogroup J1c.

In 2022, DNA was sequenced from the hair of a Kerma period individual (4000 BP), and the results revealed close genetic affinity to early pastoralists from the Rift Valley in eastern Africa during the Pastoral Neolithic.
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