
Ancient Phoenician DNA may change the way we see human migration - tokenadult
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0529/Ancient-Phoenician-DNA-may-change-the-way-we-see-human-migration
======
nivertech
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...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Carthage#Dido_and_the_foundation_of_Carthage)

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

~~~
ryan_j_naughton
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...](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0155046)
(the actual journal article)

~~~
danieltillett
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.

~~~
ryan_j_naughton
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).

~~~
danieltillett
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.

------
bedros
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

