LONDON (Reuters) -
Up to 70 percent of British men and half of all Western European men are related to the Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun, geneticists in Switzerland said.
Scientists at Zurich-based DNA genealogy centre, showed that King Tut belonged to a genetic profile group, known as haplogroup R1b1a2, to which more than 50 percent of all men in Western Europe belong, indicating that they share a common ancestor.
It was very interesting to discover that KING TUT belonged to a genetic group in Europe.
We think the common ancestor lived in the Caucasus about 9,500 years ago," Scholz told Reuters.
It is estimated that the earliest migration of haplogroup R1b1a2 into Europe began with the spread of agriculture in 7,000 BC, according to iGENEA.
However, the geneticists were not sure how Tutankhamun's paternal lineage came to Egypt from its region of origin.
The centre is now using DNA testing to search for the closest living relatives of "King Tut.
http://af.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idAFTRE7704OR20110801?sp=true
