Ancient Phoenician DNA Study Makes Anthropologists Reconsider History

The study of a 2,500-year-old body in present day Tunisia has jolted researchers to reanalyze their knowledge of the history of human migration and anthropology. The body belonged to a Phoenician man, named the "Ariche" or "Young Man of Byrsa", and provided the ancient DNA of an early Phoenician for the first time.

On in depth analysis, the researching team of scientists reportedly founda that the DNA contained a rare genome that was thought to be present only among ancient Europeans, whereas Phoenicians are from the Near East. Therefore, the discovery made the researchers rethink their understanding of human migration in history, particularly because it was previously believed that European hunter-gatherers were replaced by Near-Eastern farmers.

"Some of the hunter-gatherers' lineages may have persisted longer in the far south of the Iberian Peninsula and on off-shore islands and were then transported to the melting pot of Carthage in North Africa through Phoenician and Punic trade networks," said Lisa Matisoo-Smith, the biological anthropologist and study co-leader from New Zealand's University of Otag.

Incidentally, the remains of the Phoenician man were discovered in a sarcophagus located, quite ironically, near Tunisia's National Museum of Carthage in 1994. The Young Man of Byrsa seems to hold a clue to one the great ancient Mediterranean civilizations. Phoenicians were thought to be originally from Lebanon, who took over the Mediterranean trade routes and later on built cities in what is present day Carthage as well as in Lebanon and Southern Syria. Furthermore, there is also proof that the Phoenicians crossed over to Spain, Morocco and may have even reached Africa.

The recent study puts forward a doubt in the belief that Phoenicians are of Lebanese descent due to the rare genome found in the DNA that indicates a rare almost nonexistent European haplogroup U5b2c1, and Ariche's lineage can be traced back to the Iberian Peninsula of Portugal and Spain.

The researchers had actually hoped to find lineage to North Africa or the Near East, therefore the European ancestry baffled them and contradicted their present understanding about Mediterranean migration of humans into North Africa, as the Phoenician man predates Iberia's Moorish migration by around 2,000 years. Currently, anthropologists are looking deeper into the matter, and conducting further analysis and studies to solve the genetic mystery.