This was revealed following a comparative study between DNA samples, such as a tooth from a human jaw – which is around 4,000 years old – found in a mountain cave at Raskifa, Lebanon, and DNA samples taken from Maltese men, along with other samples from men from around the Mediterranean.
Led by a long-standing interest in the impact of ancient empires on the modern gene pool, geneticist and National Geographic emerging explorer Spencer Wells, with colleague Pierre Zalloua of the American University of Beirut, two years ago embarked on a genetic study of the Phoenicians, a first millennium BC sea empire that – over several hundred years – spread across the Mediterranean from the Levant, a coastal region in what is now Lebanon.
The results are explained in an article by Cassandra Franklin-Barbajosa in the October issue of the National Geographic Magazine.
Mr Wells accepts that the link between Phoenician and Maltese DNA composition is a significant genetic impact. But he can only speculate as to the reason. “Perhaps the population on Malta wasn’t as dense. Perhaps when the Phoenicians settled, they killed off the existing population, and their own descendants became today’s Maltese. Maybe the islands never had that many people, and shiploads of Phoenicians literally moved in and swamped the local population. We don’t know for sure, but the results are consistent with a settlement of people from the Levant within the past 2,000 years, and that points to the Phoenicians.”
Supported by a grant from National Geographic’s Committee for Research and Exploration, the scientists collected blood samples from men living in the Middle East, North Africa, southern Spain, and Malta, places where the Phoenicians are known to have settled and traded.
Starting with between 500 and 1,000 well-typed samples, they began looking at the Y chromosome, the piece of DNA that traces a purely male line of descent.
The Romans conquered the Phoenicians during the Punic Wars, destroying much of their culture. “In many ways, they’ve been quite enigmatic,” says Wells. “We know they existed, but we know very little about them. Why did they suddenly arise and start to spread around 1200 BC? And what impact did they have on other peoples in the Mediterranean? We’ve tried to use DNA, the genetic material we all carry in our bodies, to answer those questions.”
It seems, according to the study, that the Maltese are an exception. The study reveals that the impact of the Phoenicians could be more cultural than genetic on the rest of the Mediterranean.
A group of ancient Egyptians referred to as the Sea Peoples, apparently arrived in the Levant region about 1200 BC just before the Phoenician culture began to flower and expand.
“The people are very similar to the groups we see inland in Syria and Jordan, for example, suggesting that there wasn’t a huge influx of Sea Peoples or others from outside the area. A cultural shift occurred but not a genetic one. Today’s Lebanese, the Phoenicians, and the Canaanites before them are all the same people.”
Wells and Zalloua are finding similar results among samples taken in Tunisia, site of ancient Carthage and the largest of the Phoenician colonies. “Less than 20 per cent of the genetic lineages found could have come from the Middle East,” Wells continues. “They’re showing the markers of aboriginal North Africans. That means the Phoenicians moved into this area and, like the Sea Peoples, had more of a cultural impact than a genetic one.”