WContinuity and Admixture in the Last Five Millennia of Levantine History from Ancient Canaanite and Present-Day Lebanese Genome Sequences
The American Journal of Human Genetics
July 27, 2017
Summary
The Canaanites inhabited the Levant region during the Bronze Age and established a culture that became influential in the Near East and beyond. However, the Canaanites, unlike most other ancient Near Easterners of this period, left few surviving textual records and thus their origin and relationship to ancient and present-day populations remain unclear. In this study, we sequenced five whole genomes from ∼3,700-year-old individuals from the city of Sidon, a major Canaanite city-state on the Eastern Mediterranean coast. We also sequenced the genomes of 99 individuals from present-day Lebanon to catalog modern Levantine genetic diversity. We find that a Bronze Age Canaanite-related ancestry was widespread in the region, shared among urban populations inhabiting the coast (Sidon) and inland populations (Jordan) who likely lived in farming societies or were pastoral nomads. This Canaanite-related ancestry derived from mixture between local Neolithic populations and eastern migrants genetically related to Chalcolithic Iranians. We estimate, using linkage-disequilibrium decay patterns, that admixture occurred 6,600–3,550 years ago, coinciding with recorded massive population movements in Mesopotamia during the mid-Holocene. We show that present-day Lebanese derive most of their ancestry from a Canaanite-related population, which therefore implies substantial genetic continuity in the Levant since at least the Bronze Age. In addition, we find Eurasian ancestry in the Lebanese not present in Bronze Age or earlier Levantines. We estimate that this Eurasian ancestry arrived in the Levant around 3,750–2,170 years ago during a period of successive conquests by distant populations.
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Canaanites survived Biblical 'slaughter', ancient DNA shows
ABC News (Australia)
28 July 2017
The ancient Canaanites, who according to the Bible were commanded to be exterminated, did not die out, but lived on to become modern-day Lebanese, according to the first study to analyse their DNA.
Key points
• DNA reveals that modern Lebanese are direct descendants of ancient Canaanites
• Despite tumultuous history, there has been substantial genetic continuity in the Near East across the past 3,000 to 4,000 years
• European additions to Lebanese ancestry occurred around 3,750-2,170 years ago
• Study also provides clues about ancient Phoenicians
The Bronze Age Canaanites lived between 3,000 and 4,000 years ago in the region now encompassed by Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
Despite being the first group known to use an alphabet, and appearing many times in the Bible, the Canaanites left few written records.
Now, in research published today in the American Journal of Human Genetics, an international team of geneticists has mapped the mass migrations that occurred in this tumultuous region by "reading" the DNA of the region's ancient and modern inhabitants.
"What is exciting was that we can see the genetic continuity between the Bronze Age population and the present-day populations," said Dr Marc Haber of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in the UK.
The study found that over 90 per cent of the ancestry of modern-day people from Lebanon was derived from the Canaanites.
"We know from history that after the Bronze Age, the region was under a lot of expansions and conquests, and you would expect that those would have brought new gene flow, but in the DNA we see that the present-day population did not change too much from the Bronze Age population."
Analysis of genetic traits found the ancient Canaanites would have looked very similar to today's Lebanese population, except perhaps a little darker in skin tone.
DNA may help solve Phoenician mystery
Alan Cooper of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA said the study was hard evidence that God's biblical command, as described in the Book of Deuteronomy, to "totally destroy" the Canaanites, was not carried out.
"Clearly the Bible's wrong in the sense of the Canaanites being smited, they were clearly not smit too well," Professor Cooper, who was not involved in the research, said.
Dr Cooper said the new study provides valuable insight into when shifts in the population occurred in the Near East in ancient times.
