Ancient Phoenician DNA may change the way we see human migration | Hacker News Reader

Ancient Phoenician DNA may change the way we see human migration

csmonitor.com

38 pointstokenadult13 comments

1. Punic, not Phoenician.

2. Why is this surprising? At some point in time half of Iberian peninsula belonged to Punic Republic.

3. It's mtDNA, not Y-DNA. Men travelling to distant lands usually marry local women.

4. Even the story of the foundation of Carthage tells that they stopped in Cyprus and took 80 temple prostitutes as wives:

"Queen Elissa (Dido) along with some nobles to flee the city of Tyre westward in a fleet of ships carrying royal gold.[27][28] At Cyprus, four score temple maidens were taken aboard the ships.[29][30] Then her fleet continues on, landing in North Africa to found Carthage."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Carthage#Dido_and_t...

Amazing - people who loved boats, sailing and setting up new colonies moved around a lot - who would have guessed?

I think you've missed the point. This individual, who was buried in the late 6th century BC in Carthage, has mitochondrial DNA from a European (likely Spanish) maternal line. Thus, despite being a wealthy individual of supposedly Phoenician blood (which one would make to have Lebanese / Levant DNA), he has a European lineage from hunter gatherers that has been virtually wiped out.

The implication is that when the Phoenicians colonized the southern Iberian peninsula, they mixed with the local hunter gatherer Europeans. Then, the individuals who mixed spread out to more substantial and traditional Phoenician urban centers further east.

Given that:

- he died in the late 6th century BC in Carthage

- Carthage was only founded in 814 BC

- Traditional Phoenicia (Lebanon) was conquered by the Persians in the late 6th century, resulting in Carthage becoming the most important remaining Phoenician city during his lifetime.

Then it is quite significant that in the relatively early days of Carthage, then the de facto capital of the Phoenician world, a wealthy individual actually had hunter gatherer DNA from Spanish Europeans.

What is the story explaining this? An ultimate tale of social mobility wherein his family was integrated into Phoenician society and steadily increased their status through only 10 generations (300 years)? A Jon Snow bastard situation where a wealthy Phoenician impregnated a local indigenous Spanish woman, potentially in war or rape?

Given that his haplogroup, U5b2c1, "has been identified in both La Braña 1 and 2, the 7000 year-old remains recovered from the La Braña-Arintero site in León in Northwestern Spain" Then it is almost assuredly that his maternal line is hunter gatherer Europeans. They were only beginning to see the waves of technology radiate from the middle east. 2800 - 1800 BC they experience the Beaker Culture, which is characterized by pottery likely used to drink alcohol. Thus, as grains, alcohol, and pottery first arrive, their society rapidly begins to change. Then in 1000-800 BC the Phoenicians show up and bring writing and massive advances in technology and social organization. Nonetheless, Spain remained more of a source of raw materials than a major urban development for the Phoenicians at that point. Much of the silver in the Levant was coming from Spain and Sardinian mines run by Phoenicians.

[1] http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjourna... (the actual journal article)

I understand this. The only really interesting aspect is the Phoencians would appear to be similar to the Romans in having a cultural rather than a genetics based hierarchy. Given their cosmopolitan culture this is really not that surprising.

I think there is an additional interesting aspect differentiating the Phoenicians from the Romans. The Romans didn't really start spreading out from central Italy until 300BC. In contrast, the Phoenicians hit their peak around 1200-800BC

Thus, by the time the Romans are conquering places, other Indo-European or Middle Eastern civilizations have already done so. Thus, the Romans are taking less civilized (in terms of urbanism, technology, agriculture, etc) and making them more civilized. But "less" is still closer to the Romans terms of development than no civilization at all. For example, the Celts, the Greeks, the Egyptians, and the Phoenicians (the main areas Rome conquered to get their empire) were all true civilizations BC by the time the Romans got there (300-50BC) all those places had become part of the civilized world.

In contrast, the Phoenicians where bringing civilization to places that were just barely coming out of being hunter gatherer or had minimal agriculture but no cities. They were the first one to bring writing to most of those places, while when Rome showed up, they already had it (BC of Phoenicians 800-1200 years earlier).

Yes this is certainly true. Despite the Carthage being the mortal enemy of Rome, I suspect romans culturally appropriated more than they would like to admit from the Phoenicians. For all their bad points the Romans were not racists in the modern sense and I wonder how much this world view came down from the Phoenicians.

I suppose that when everyone around is pretty much of the same genetic makeup, you've got to pick different factors to segment your populace. Modern conceptions of race would be profoundly weird to the ancients, I think.

Between all the Greek and Phoenician colonies sprinkled all over the Mediterranean, there was a huge amount of admixture.

The past is a really foreign land. We don't know too much how the Phonecians viewed race and culture, but the Romans had a very different view to us. To them the idea that being Roman had something to do with what you looked like rather than what you believed and what paperwork you had would have been crazy. This culture first view did have a downside in the way they viewed and supported slavery.

Makes sense when the men sailing around are taking local wives (slaves?)

I read in another article that U5b2c1 is not wiped out, but just very rare in modern population.

Good explanation, thanks.

"Sarcastically" Just about every civilization around would have guessed

actually, Lebanon back then did not exist. the whole region, which is now Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan was known as the Land of Syria.

So, Phoenicians are Ancient Syrians who lived on the coast area of syria (which part of it right now is called Lebanon)

The Alphabet system was created in city of Ugarit, which is located inside Modern Syria

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