Skip to main content

Continuity and Admixture in the Last Five Millennia of Levantine History from Ancient Canaanite and Present-Day Lebanese Genome Sequences.

Haber, M., Doumet-Serhal, C., Scheib, C., Xue, Y., Danecek, P., Mezzavilla, M., Youhanna, S., Martiniano, R., Prado-Martinez, J., Szpak, M., Matisoo-Smith, E., Schutkowski, H., Mikulski, R., Zalloua, P., Kivisild, T. and Tyler-Smith, C., 2017. Continuity and Admixture in the Last Five Millennia of Levantine History from Ancient Canaanite and Present-Day Lebanese Genome Sequences. American Journal of Human Genetics, 101 (2), 274-282.

Full text available as:

[img]
Preview
PDF (Open Access funded by Wellcome Trust)
1-s2.0-S0002929717302768-main.pdf - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.

1MB
[img] PDF (Open Access funded by Wellcome Trust)
Haber et al AJHG 2017.pdf - Accepted Version
Restricted to Repository staff only
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.

1MB

DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2017.06.013

Abstract

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.

Item Type:Article
ISSN:0002-9297
Uncontrolled Keywords:Bronze Age ; Lebanon ; Near East ; Phoenicians ; Sidon ; aDNA ; population genetic history ; whole-genome sequences
Group:Faculty of Science & Technology
ID Code:29562
Deposited By: Symplectic RT2
Deposited On:02 Aug 2017 11:28
Last Modified:14 Mar 2022 14:06

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

More statistics for this item...
Repository Staff Only -