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DNA from a 2,500-year-old Phoenician has European ancestry



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

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2016/05/27/dna-from-ancient-phoenician-stuns-scientists.html?intcmp=hpff

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.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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