The DNA of 10 families exposed to the ’80s violence and 22 families to the 2011 conflict was compared to the genetic material of 16 families who left Syria before 1980, avoiding decades of unrest.

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.

Fu and her colleagues attempted to retrieve ancient DNA from six samples taken from Dragon Man’s surviving tooth and the cranium’s petrous bone, a dense piece at the base of the skull that’s ...