This Culture’s Linguistic Fingerprints Are Everywhere—But Scientists Can’t Find Their DNA

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It was previously believed that the Levantine DNA of the Phoenicians spread as far as their famous alphabet, which influenced quite a few languages.
DNA analysis of individuals buried in what used to be Phoenician outposts in southern Europe showed Greek and Sicilian DNA instead of Middle Eastern DNA.
While the founders of these outposts were probably Phoenician, a constant flow of Sicilians and Greeks created a different DNA profile.

If it wasn’t for the Phoenician alphabet, you probably wouldn’t be reading this right now—but the DNA of these vanished Levantine people didn’t reach nearly as far as their cultural and linguistic influence did.

The Phoenicians appeared in what is now Lebanon around 3,000 years ago, and were descendants of the Canaanites (of biblical fame). Gold, silver, copper, and tin were exchanged as they traveled trade routes along the Mediterranean and established hundreds of colonies. Until now, they were thought to be genetically related to the Punic people, who emerged from Phoenician outposts along coastal regions of southern Europe. That would have meant Punic people had Middle Eastern ancestry.

This was what population geneticist Harald Ringbauer and his research team expected to see when they analyzed ancient DNA from the bones of some 210 individuals that had been unearthed from sites in the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe. However, most Punic genomes showed no Middle Eastern ancestry at all—instead, they were closest in genetic makeup to ancient Greeks and Sicilians. These genomes were also highly diverse, and did not always reflect the genes of other local populations.

Even the name “Phoenician” is derived from the ancient Greek phoinix—a possible reference to purple dye, which was a luxury in ancient times. Phoenicians actually called themselves “Kena’ani.”

“[Punic people] derived most of their ancestry from a genetic profile similar to that of Sicily and the Aegean,” the researchers said in a study recently published in the journal Nature. “Much of the remaining ancestry originated from North Africa, reflecting the growing influence of Carthage.”

Carthage, whose ruins still stand in Tunisia, rose as a trading empire around 500 B.C. Any North African DNA in Punic people from Europe can be explained by Carthaginian migrations through the trade routes, but not much of it was found in samples from the European sites—or even those from Carthage. Individuals from different regions were found to vary highly in their genetic makeup, with similar variations seen in Sicily, North Africa, Sardinia, and Iberia. Ringbauer thinks that the Punic populations in such disparate locations could only be genetically linked because of shared ancestry.

Some individuals were actually found to be related despite having died on different continents—for example, one person in Sicily has a second cousin buried in North Africa. Before seafaring Punic traders, there was much higher genetic disparity between the peoples of Sicily and North Africa, but sailing across the Mediterranean and stopping at different outposts made journeying to far-flung regions possible for people with similar genetic profiles.

When the researchers studied a tomb in the coastal district of Villaricos, Cuevas de Almanzora, Spain, became a window into Punic culture. DNA extracted from one tomb told the story of a family with Sicilian and Aegean ancestry. Buried with the deceased were painted ostrich eggs—symbolic of resurrection and eternal life. There was also an ivory plaque that appeared to be carved in the Ionian style more associated with Greece, but this did not necessarily mean that its Punic craftsman had adopted Greek culture. Phoenicians were ivory workers in their own right.

Ringbauer and his team have a hypothetical answer as to why the culture of the Phoenicians spread without taking their DNA with it. Phoenician settlements might have been founded by Levantine people, but they likely experienced a continuous influx of Greek and Sicilian migrants. Generations later, genes from the original founders would not be detectable, despite the culture staying alive. The DNA of the individuals studied has already degraded for thousands of years. Before 600 B.C., Punic people cremated their dead, so genetic information from before then has been lost to time.

Maybe the genetics of Phoenicians did not live on in Europe, but the Phoenician influence on the Greek and Latin alphabets did, and aspects of those two languages have since been incorporated into English. If only they knew their greatest legacy would not be genetic.

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