More than 4,000 years ago, Egypt and Mesopotamia stood as two of the most complex societies on the planet. But the new DNA sequencing reveals how these two populations also intermingled.

Ancient DNA has revealed links between the cultures of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Researchers sequenced whole genomes from the teeth of a well-preserved skeleton found in a sealed funeral pot in an Egyptian tomb site dating to between 4,

But while experts now know a fair amount about ancient Egyptian life, they still understand very little about the population’s genetic makeup. Researchers have genomically analyzed three specimens to date,