Mummy Mystery Solved
Mummy Mystery Solved – The Trending News of the Week
The biggest history news stories of the last seven days, including how innovative DNA analysis has solved a 4,000-year-old mummy mystery, a shocking insight into the extent of deforestation in Europe since the Neolithic, and new evidence that glass was being made in Sub-Saharan Africa long before the arrival of Europeans.
Mystery of Mummified Brothers solved
Modern DNA techniques have solved a 4,000-year-old mummy mystery.
For years, two mummies at the Manchester Museum were thought to be brothers, but a new study by scientists from the University of Manchester has revealed they are in fact half-brothers with a different father.
The mummies are of two ancient Egyptian elites, Khnum-nakht and Nakht-ankh – dating to around 1800 BCE. Despite popularly being dubbed ‘The Two Brothers’, ever since their discovery in 1907 there has been debate over whether they were really related.
Hieroglyphic inscriptions on their coffins had suggested the two men were siblings. However, when pioneering Egyptologist Dr. Margaret Murray unwrapped the two mummies in 1908, she argued that differences in skeletal morphologies suggested they weren’t actually related and one had been adopted.
In 2015, DNA was extracted from the teeth and sequenced using a next generation technique to determine the relationship – if any – of the two men. The results have now been published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, revealing that they were half-brothers.
Dr Konstantina Drosou, of the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Manchester, who conducted the DNA sequencing, said: “It was a long and exhausting journey to the results but we are finally here. I am very grateful we were able to add a small but very important piece to the big history puzzle and I am sure the brothers would be very proud of us. These moments are what make us believe in ancient DNA. ”
The study is the first to successfully use the typing of both mitochondrial and Y chromosomal DNA in Egyptian mummies.
Europe’s Forests Halved over last 6,000 years
More than 50% of Europe’s forests have disappeared in the last 6,000 years, new research claims. Authors of the new study identify the need for agricultural land and wood as a source of fuel as causing the massive deforestation.
The shocking findings were made through pollen analysis at over 1,000 different sites on the continent. They reveal that at one point more than two thirds of northern and central Europe were covered by trees. By contrast, now only a third of the region is covered with forest. In the UK, Ireland and other coastal areas, the amount has plummeted to less than 10%.
Published in the journal Scientific Reports, the study points out that this trend of massive deforestation is now starting to reverse due to new types of fuel and building techniques, and ecological initiatives.
good info
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