Egypt Was Gateway to Europe and Asia for Early Humans

Settling a major debate, researchers have shown that ancient humans ventured through Egypt and Sinai on their way out of Africa.

Before the current study, two probable migration routes for Eurasians, ancestors of modern-day Asians and Europeans, were proposed. One is the southern route through Ethiopia, the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Arabian Peninsula while the second is northern route through Egypt.

By analyzing genome of six modern Northeast African populations, researchers found greater similarities between Eurasians and Egyptians concluding that Eurasians took the northern route some 60,000 years ago.

"In our research, we generated the first comprehensive set of unbiased genomic data from Northeast Africans and observed, after controlling for recent migrations, a higher genetic similarity between Egyptians and Eurasians than between Ethiopians and Eurasians," said Dr. Luca Pagani, of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the University of Cambridge.

Besides establishing migration route, the study has also provided insights to the genomic diversity of Ethiopian and Egyptian populations.

"This information will be of great value as a freely available reference panel for future medical and anthropological studies in these areas," Dr. Pagani said.