The first DNA from a 2,500-year-old Phoenician at an archaelogical site in
North Africa reveals that he had European ancestry. A research team from the
University of Otago in New Zealand and the School of Medicine at the Lebanese
American University in Byblos, southern Lebanon, conducted the DNA testing
(FoxNews.com, 27 May 2016).
The 2,500-year-old Phoenician man, called ‘Young Man of Byrsa’ or ‘Ariche’
was unearthed from a sarcophagus at the archaelogical site in Carthage, just
outside Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. Carthage was the centre of the
Phoenician civilization.
The mitochondrial genome analysis revealed that his mother (his maternal
ancestry) was linked to locations on the North Mediterranean coast, probably on
the Iberian Peninsula. The genetic group shows he belonged to a rare European
haplogroup. The closest genetic matching is to a group of modern-day
individuals from Portugal.
Professor Lisa Matisoo-Smith of the research team in New Zealand said that
the findings are the earliest evidence of the European mitochondrial haplogroup
U5b2c1 in North Africa, dating its arrival to at least the late 6th century BCE.
It is considered to be one of the most ancient haplogroups in Europe and is
associated with hunter-gatherer populations there. In modern populations today,
it is rare, and found to be less than 1% in Europe.
The Phoenicians are thought to have originated from modern-day Lebanon and
spread across the Mediterranean and the Iberian Peninsula. The Spanish cities
of Malaga and Cadiz were founded by the Phoenicians. The researchers tested DNA
from 47 people in Lebanon and found no linkages to the 2,500-year-old
Phoenician man.
The Phoenician man – the ‘Young Man of Byrsa’ – was found in 1994 in a
Punic burial crypt on Byrsa Hill near the entry to the National Museum of
Carthage in Tunisia. Inside the crype were the remains of a young man along
with a range of burial goods, all dating to the 6th century BCE.
The study is published in the journal Plos One.
Matisoo-Smith EA, Gosling AL, Boocock J, Kardailsky O,
Kurumilian Y, Roudesli-Chebbi S, et al. (2016) A European Mitochondrial
Haplotype Identified in Ancient Phoenician Remains from Carthage, North Africa.
PLoS ONE 11(5): e0155046. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0155046
Image of trade route: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PhoenicianTrade.png
MARTINA NICOLLS is the author of:-
The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends
(2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse
(2009).
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