New Study Proves Lebanese Ancestry Is Mostly Phoenician
The latest study led by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in England and in collaboration with universities from around the world, including Lebanon, Switzerland, and New Zealand, proves that most of the Lebanese ancestry is Phoenician .
In fact, they argue that the links go further back to the Canaanites, the historic and biblical people - who include the Phoenician people.
The study shows non-stop continuity as well as some mixture in the last 5000 years in Levantine history, from the ancient Canaanites to the present-day Lebanese people.
In fact, the study found the Canaanite and Phoenician ancestry was not only present but widespread in the region and shared among urban populations inhabiting the coast as well as inland populations.
The study shows that present-day Lebanese derive most of their ancestry from a Canaanite-related population - which are the Phoenicians .
Related:
Ancient Phoenician castle is being restored in Batroun
15 Interesting facts about Phoenicians
Phoenician cities that still exist today in Lebanon
The Details
The study has a total of 16 contributors, 4 of whom are Lebanese:
Marc Haber - The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, United Kingdom.
Claude Doumet-Serhal - The Sidon excavation, Saida, Lebanon.
Christiana Scheib - Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, United Kindom.
Yali Xue - The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, United Kingdom.
Petr Danecek - The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, United Kingdom.
Massimo Mezzavilla - The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, United Kingdom.
Sonia Youhanna - Institute of Physiology, University of Zurich, Switzerland.
Rui Martiniano - The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, United Kingdom.
Javier Prado-Martinez - The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, United Kingdom.
Michal Szpak - The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, United Kingdom.
Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith - Department of Anatomy, University of Otago, New Zealand
Holger Schutkowski - Bournemouth University, United Kindom.
Richard Mikulski - Bournemouth University, United Kindom.
Pierre Zalloua - Lebanese American University, Beirut, Lebanon; Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, USA.
Toomas Kivisild - Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, United Kindom.
Chris Tyler-Smith - The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, United Kingdom.
The abstract states that despite the Canaanites inhabiting the Levant region (Lebanon, Cyprus, Egypt, Iraq, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey) during the Bronze Age and establishing an influential culture, they left few surviving textual records.
As a result, their origin and relationship to ancient and present-day populations remain unclear.
So in this study , they sequenced five whole-genomes from ~3,700-year-old individuals from the city of Sidon (Saida) from the excavation.