(CNN) Ancient Egyptians and their modern counterparts share less in common than you might think. Correcting past errorsDepending on which way you see it, ancient Egyptians have the privilege or ignominy of being one of the most investigated peoples of antiquity. "When you touch a bone, you probably leave more DNA on the bone than is inside (it)," he argued. ... Only in the last five or six years has it become possible to actually study DNA from ancient humans, because we can now show whether DNA is ancient or not by (its) chemical properties." Strict social structures and legal incentives to marry along ethnic lines within these communities may have played a part in the Egyptians' genetic stasis, the paper speculates.

Source: CNN June 22, 2017 23:03 UTC