MtDna from 2500 year old "Phoenician" in North Africa

Angela

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The paper itself can be found here:

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0155046

The paper is discussed here:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-05/uoo-ads051916.php

"Analysis of the variable sites with the online tool Haplogrep revealed that the ancient Phoenician had the mitochondrial haplotype U5b2c1."

"
Given the reputed Lebanese origins of the founders of Carthage, we undertook full mitochondrial genome sequencing of 47 modern Lebanese samples that had previously been typed to Haplogroup U through analysis of the HVR-1 [12]. Haplogroups identified and haplogroup frequency are shown in Table 1. Only seven of the modern Lebanese samples belonged to Haplogroup U5 and of those, two were U5b, but neither belonged to U5b2c or derived haplotypes."

"Haplogroup U5b2c1 has been identified in both La Braña 1 and 2, the 7000 year-old remains recovered from the La Braña-Arintero site in León in Northwestern Spain [42]. Our Phoenician differed from the La Braña 1 complete mitochondrial genome at eight sites (positions 3882, 5351, 5773, 6023, 9869, 16069, 16126, and 16192). The mutations at sites 16069 and 16126 appear to be private mutations for La Braña."

"t appears that the U5b2c1 haplogroup is rare in modern populations, with only a few modern sequences published [33, 38, 46] or available in public databases (Family Tree DNA). All of the reported U5b2c1 carriers are of presumably (if not specifically stated) European ancestry, from Spain, Portugal, England, Ireland, Scotland, the United States and Germany. Three of the additional non-defining mutations found in our Phoenician, 5351G, 6023A, and 9869T, are shared with one “European” sample [46] and an individual from central Portugal [33]. Interestingly, Fig 5 shows that our Phoenician sample is most closely related to the modern sample from central Portugal. The unidentified “European” sequence (EF758625) which was deleted from the analysis due to missing data, also carries the three mutations which define the branch on which we find the Phoenician and the Portuguese sample. A separate branch within U5b2c1 contains five samples, from England and Germany or otherwise unidentified as to location of origin, with the La Braña Mesolithic sample (JX186998) on its own branch. Given the limited numbers of published full mitochondrial genomes, it is difficult to identify a likely origin for the mutations defining the Phoenician and Portuguese branch, but it is currently not inconsistent with a Southwest European origin."

"U5b is found in only 0.4% of the modern populations from the Iberian peninsula, and only 0.18% Europe-wide [42], which provides us with further confidence of the authenticity of our ancient DNA result. Only the Saami, in northern Scandinavia, retain high levels of U5, and U5b1b in particular, with frequencies over 50% in some Saami populations [56]."

" Achilli, et al. [59], using full mitochondrial genome sequencing identified a U5b1b1 cluster that grouped Amazigh (North African Berbers) and Saami populations. This cluster is based on the control region motif (16270–150) which is present at low frequencies in Amazigh, North African and nearly all European populations with the exception of the Scandinavian Saami where it is at about 48%. The divergence time of this cluster is around 8600 years ago (+/- 2400) consistent with an expansion from Franco-Cantabrian refuge which is believed to have been a major refuge for the European hunter-gatherers prior to their post LGM expansion [44]. It is suggested that European haplogroup U5 and the more prevalent U6 “Berber cluster” diverged from a common ancestor in the Near East and spread along the north and south coasts, respectively, of the Mediterranean, as far as Iberia to the north and Cyrenaica to the south [60]. It is very plausible that descendants of the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers carried U5b1b1 and sister lineages across the Straits of Gibraltar into North Africa [59], but there is no indication of when this migration may have happened. While it is possible that U5b2 haplogroups were also carried across the Straits of Gibraltar prior to Phoenician arrival in North Africa, our result now provides a minimum date of arrival. We can now say that U5b2c1 was present by the late 6thcentury BCE."

 
Thanks Angela.
SO, this ancient mtDNA seem pointing to Portugal. I have not the precise SNP's (as could tell us recent studies) of Galicians, but in old surveys they showed at the Y-haplos level something evocating Semites to me - some of them Y-J2 and E1 - and not only North-Africa (E-M81), more than other Spanish regions, except perhaps some places in Andalusia. It evocates Phoenicians to me, without other clues at hand.
I suppose the Phoenician here is a man. The presence of close mtDNA lineages in Portugal, not too far from Galicia, could confirm this Phoenician had maternal local ancestors and that the galician supposed "semite" partial male ancestry could be actual?
 
Thanks Angela.
SO, this ancient mtDNA seem pointing to Portugal. I have not the precise SNP's (as could tell us recent studies) of Galicians, but in old surveys they showed at the Y-haplos level something evocating Semites to me - some of them Y-J2 and E1 - and not only North-Africa (E-M81), more than other Spanish regions, except perhaps some places in Andalusia. It evocates Phoenicians to me, without other clues at hand.
I suppose the Phoenician here is a man. The presence of close mtDNA lineages in Portugal, not too far from Galicia, could confirm this Phoenician had maternal local ancestors and that the galician supposed "semite" partial male ancestry could be actual?

Yes, it's a man. This is the reconstruction:

carthaginian-reconstruction.jpg


As always, who knows how accurate it is.

Too bad they don't give us this man's yDna. That old Zalloua paper maintained that the yDna marker of the Phoenicians was J2, but there are all kinds of holes in that paper, plus he only used a few strs. If some of them were J2, we'd need to know the specific subclade.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2668035/

I'm not sure how to interpret the mtDna results. It's certainly possible that he had a maternal line recently from the Iberian peninsula. Is it also possible that it came from Iberia to North Africa at a much earlier period?

As for all the yDna "E" and J2 in northwestern parts of the Iberian peninsula it's always been a puzzle to me. Very detailed studies need to be done for them similar to what has been done by Secher et al for mtDna U6 so it can be dated.

If it was all from the Moorish invasions one would expect a north to south gradient instead of the east to west one that we see. On the other hand, there seem to have been substantial population resettlements after the Reconquista. I can certainly see some of the E and J2 being older than the Moorish conquest and perhaps owing something to the Phoenicians. On the other hand, E-M81 is rather young. Is it old enough to have come with the Phoenicians, presumably picked up in North Africa and brought by them to Spain?
 
The Mediterranean 218 BC when the Roman and Carthaginian Empires were at logger heads.

first_punic_war_results.jpg

Direct link if it's too small:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe..._at_the_start_of_the_Second_Punic_War.svg.png

Carthaginian influence doesn't seem to have extended up to the area of modern Galicia.

(Just as an aside: there the Ligures were, still resisting when the rest of the peninsula around them had been incorporated. How typical of them. Sometimes, as in the 20th century, they were right in their bull headedness; then, they were wrong. )

Ed. Civil and charming as always, Sile. Did you post about the result then, and we missed it? Ah well, perhaps some of us get something from actually reading papers.
 
The Mediterranean 218 BC when the Roman and Carthaginian Empires were at logger heads.

first_punic_war_results.jpg

Direct link if it's too small:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe..._at_the_start_of_the_Second_Punic_War.svg.png

Carthaginian influence doesn't seem to have extended up to the area of modern Galicia.

(Just as an aside: there the Ligures were, still resisting when the rest of the peninsula around them had been incorporated. How typical of them. Sometimes, as in the 20th century, they were right in their bull headedness; then, they were wrong. )

Ed. Civil and charming as always, Sile. Did you post about the result then, and we missed it? Ah well, perhaps some of us get something from actually reading papers.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallaeci
 
I'm not sure how to interpret the mtDna results. It's certainly possible that he had a maternal line recently from the Iberian peninsula. Is it also possible that it came from Iberia to North Africa at a much earlier period?

...

If it was all from the Moorish invasions one would expect a north to south gradient instead of the east to west one that we see. On the other hand, there seem to have been substantial population resettlements after the Reconquista. I can certainly see some of the E and J2 being older than the Moorish conquest and perhaps owing something to the Phoenicians. On the other hand, E-M81 is rather young. Is it old enough to have come with the Phoenicians, presumably picked up in North Africa and brought by them to Spain?

The best would be to do a more massive sampling as to know if this man displays a real local mtDNA or had a recent Iberian origin; take into account that Carthaginians used to hire Iberian, Celtiberian, Ligurian, and Balear mercenaries. By the way phoenicians were traders and founded many colonies, some in south Spain (being Cadiz old as Carthage) and traders usualy change places; in fact there are Spanish historians that thing that the orientalizing period of Tartessos was in fact a Phoenician colonization as that done in Tunisia. In whichever case there were so many colonizers that the southern inhabitants of actual Andalusia were known as "blastophoenicians". The effect of this colonization in the north is to check.
 
(Just as an aside: there the Ligures were, still resisting when the rest of the peninsula around them had been incorporated. How typical of them. Sometimes, as in the 20th century, they were right in their bull headedness; then, they were wrong. )

Volendo però "disporre" della Liguria per la loro prossima conquista della Gallia, i Romani approntarono una grande armata di quasi 36'000 soldati, agli ordini dei proconsoli Romani Publio Cornelio Cetego e Marco Bebio Tamfilo, con l'obbiettivo di porre fine all'indipendenza ligure.
Nel 180 a.C. i Romani inflissero una gravissima sconfitta ai Liguri (soprattutto agli irriducibili Liguri Apuani), e ne deportarono ben 40.000 nelle regioni del Sannio (compresa tra Avellino e Benevento). A questa deportazione ne seguì un'altra di 7.000 Liguri nel corso dell'anno successivo.

Of course their Roman friends did a lot to down their bull headedness as to become their masters.....
 
Volendo però "disporre" della Liguria per la loro prossima conquista della Gallia, i Romani approntarono una grande armata di quasi 36'000 soldati, agli ordini dei proconsoli Romani Publio Cornelio Cetego e Marco Bebio Tamfilo, con l'obbiettivo di porre fine all'indipendenza ligure.
Nel 180 a.C. i Romani inflissero una gravissima sconfitta ai Liguri (soprattutto agli irriducibili Liguri Apuani), e ne deportarono ben 40.000 nelle regioni del Sannio (compresa tra Avellino e Benevento). A questa deportazione ne seguì un'altra di 7.000 Liguri nel corso dell'anno successivo.

Of course their Roman friends did a lot to down their bull headedness as to become their masters.....

Yes, I know. This is rather in the nature of "family" history for me.

So far, Italian researchers have not been able to find any trace of them genetically near Avellino and Benevento. It's difficult to know if they've been tracking the wrong yDna line, the Ligures (actually the Liguri Apuani) just totally blended into the population and certain y lineages drifted out, or the Romans exaggerated the number of them that were deported, as conquerors tend to do. (Ironically, my husband's blonde and blue-eyed maternal grandmother came from Benevento, so I used to tell her we were long lost cousins. :))

I personally think it's probably a combination of the latter two, as I certainly don't believe the Liguri were ethnically cleansed from their own land. My Ligure ancestors just blended into the mountains for a while to get away from my Roman ancestors. :) I certainly wouldn't use the word "friends" to describe the interaction. They weren't "friends" when they were fighting to the death; they were mortal enemies, mortal enemies whom the Romans greatly respected. Doubtless their long years as mercenaries throughout the Mediterranean gave them some handy skills, but part of it was just their character. They were "un popolo dotato di fierezza, sobrietà, robustezza e resistenza alla fatica. Also, " "Le donne combattono come gli uomini, spietate e feroci come fiere" "

Of course, over the years they came back down and mixed with them. That was the purpose of Luni: pacification and Romanization of the natives. It worked too, as it worked almost everywhere. We lived better and more peacefully as Romans than we had before, and, after the fall, than we did for the next at least eight hundred years. In fact, given the latest finds at Luni, better than virtually up to the modern era. It was nothing like the Nazi occupation of two thousand years later. Still, they held onto a lot of their own culture. Christian priests were still smashing the statue stelle in the Lunigiana in the sixth century AD to stamp out cult practices.
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apuani

As for being conquered by the Romans, that was rather universal, don't you think, if there was anything worth having in your territories or worth the blood and treasure it would cost to get it? Then, given the technology of the time, and the costs involved, there was a natural limit to how large the empire could become. It's all rather well documented.

10.95A%20Roman_Empire_Trajan_117AD%20wiki%20tataryn77.png


Apologies, everybody, that was off-topic.
 
That of the "friend" Romans was irony of course (because I was amazed about your statement of why Ligures weren't under Roman yoke).

If you don't believe in Roman deportations it's because you believe in their full kindness or that such history and calculations were invented by classic authors? Take into account that Romans did a lot of harm to dispose of such large empire.

By the way the genetic effects of deportation are difficult to track. Take the case of the deportation of 300000 Spanish Moriscos to North Africa: you will find an "Andalusi square" in Tunis but also testimonials that tell how such dissorted Muslims were slavized, raped, robbed so that their ethnic unity was lost in few years. Even those that managed to come back to Spain gave up their religion quickly as to don't be deported again.
 
That of the "friend" Romans was irony of course (because I was amazed about your statement of why Ligures weren't under Roman yoke).

If you don't believe in Roman deportations it's because you believe in their full kindness or that such history and calculations were invented by classic authors? Take into account that Romans did a lot of harm to dispose of such large empire.

I'm not following you. The Apuani resisted because they, and their descendants, are a stiff necked, proud people who wanted to maintain their independence. I admire that about them. The fact remains that there was no resisting the Roman juggernaut and all their resistance did was to lead to the slaughter and deportation of thousands of their own people. The same happened to the Jews. Now, if their would be conquerors had been like the Huns and Germans of the 20th century, who only wanted to plunder and enslave and had no desire to incorporate and include them as full citizens at some point, continued resistance at all costs would have been the only option. That wasn't the case, however. If only they'd had a crystal ball. The reality is that in about a century they were living very well indeed as Romans, with all the benefits that Roman civilization brought, and many of their sons went on to fight in the Roman armies.

I think I made it clear why I don't believe the numbers given for the deportations. Conquerors always inflate such figures. Conquering Roman generals, in particular, wanted to ensure a really big triumph in Rome. Also, too much of the Apuani culture (and genetics) survived for the numbers to have been that large. You're right that the genetic effects of deportations can be hard to track, although in this particular case they weren't enslaved at their destination, but rather settled there as family groups.

Regardless of my genetic affinity or lack of it to the various empires in history, I try to approach it all as objectively as possible, and have done ever since I thought I'd be a professional historian. No empire was ever built by playing patty cake with the invaded. The conquest of the Americas is a much more recent example. Still, one can examine them and make distinctions. Those empires that co-opted local elites and eventually included the defeated among their ranks lasted. The ones that didn't were short lived. Of course, I personally could wish that the male of our species didn't have this ingrained desire to dominate others by violence, but I'm afraid we women are stuck with you. :)

Now, I think perhaps we should get back on topic, yes?
 
Thanks Angela.
SO, this ancient mtDNA seem pointing to Portugal. I have not the precise SNP's (as could tell us recent studies) of Galicians, but in old surveys they showed at the Y-haplos level something evocating Semites to me - some of them Y-J2 and E1 - and not only North-Africa (E-M81), more than other Spanish regions, except perhaps some places in Andalusia. It evocates Phoenicians to me, without other clues at hand.
I suppose the Phoenician here is a man. The presence of close mtDNA lineages in Portugal, not too far from Galicia, could confirm this Phoenician had maternal local ancestors and that the galician supposed "semite" partial male ancestry could be actual?


The presence of the Phoenicians in the Iberian pensinsula can also be attested by vinification, as it’s thought they introduced wine to the region. These are reported in archeology findings of this period as far north as Almada (infront of Lisbon), by the Tagus river - speaking only for Portugal. It seems that north of Portugal (and Galicia) started only to import wine from the Roman Empire period. So, by this factor only, one could exclude a sufficient phoenician presence in the northern half of the peninsula.

Maybe his maternal line was from southern Iberia. The study also adress that hypothesis - "it is possible that the second, Eurasian Steppe derived, replacement occurred later or had less of an impact on the southern and western Iberian coast and other Mediterranean coastal regions than in more northern or eastern inland locations and thus the Western Hunter-Gatherer mtDNA lineages, including U5b2c1, may have been more common there at the time of Phoenician contact and settlement."



(He’s a strange looking fella though this phoenician)
 
Since he is Phoenician, we know he cannot be arabic/semetic

He looks to me like a Maltese/Sicilian
 
Since he is Phoenician, we know he cannot be arabic/semetic

He looks to me like a Maltese/Sicilian
Maybe not Arabic but surely Semitic.
 
Since he is Phoenician, we know he cannot be arabic/semetic

He looks to me like a Maltese/Sicilian

It could be a phenotype out of many and hardly the prominent features as the reconstruction. It is known all around the med including Cyprus and Lebanon and would neither leave out Southern balkans.

http://www.allocine.fr/personne/fichepersonne_gen_cpersonne=568960.html

and my favorite Italian song writer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelo_Branduardi

Fairuz singer Lebanon

Fairuz.jpg
 

The map Angela posted show big territories under an uniform colour; I doubt this could reflect real demic imput of colonizators, i'm almost sure the genetic supposed imput of Phoenicians and later Carthaginians was rather on shores than in inlands. (this problem of maps recalls me the question of the BB's territories)
I took thois in your link with wikipedia
Archaeologically, the Gallaeci were a local Atlantic Bronze Age people (1300–700 BC). During the Iron Age they received several influences, from central-western Europe (Hallstatt and, to a lesser extent, La Tène culture), and from the Mediterranean (Phoenicians and Carthaginians). The Gallaeci dwelt in hill forts (locally called castros), and the archaeological culture they developed is called "Castro culture", a hill-fort culture with round houses.

Partial view of the Castro de Santa Tegra, an oppidum from the 2nd century BC.​

The Gallaecian life style was based in land occupation especially by fortified settlements that are known in Latin language as "castrum" (hillforts), being able to vary its size from a small village of less than one hectare (more common in the northern territory), and great forts with more than 10 hectares denominated oppida or "citadel," being these latters more common in the Southern half of their traditional settlement. This mode of inhabiting the territory-by hillforts was common throughout Europe during the Bronze and Iron Ages, getting in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, the name of 'Castro culture" (Castrum culture) or "hillfort's culture", which alludes to this type of settlement before the Roman arrival. However, an important quantity of Gallaecian hillforts continued to be inhabited until the 5th century AD.
These fortified villages tended to be located in the hills, rocky promontories and peninsulas surrounded on the sea, it improved its visibility, advocacy and the domain over territory. The location of these settlements was also studied to a better control of natural resources used by its inhabitants. The Gallaecian hillforts and oppidas maintain a great homogeneity, presenting evident commonalities.
[h=2]Political-territorial organ[/h]

So even if in a smaller scale, Phoenicians and later Carthaginians would have had some influence in parts of Galicia? What is not so amazing.
Aside this, some Spanish scientists thing Castro culture was not typically Celtic, spite of surely I-Ean inspiration. I don't know what to think... So numerous politcally biased agendas even in officla science...
To go back to mt-U5b2c1 it seems proving some females of Carthaginians were or local women (not Phoenician) or even Iberian women. The paucity or quasi absence of this clade in todaf NorthAfrica seems favouring an Iberian origin of some of these females.
 
Since he is Phoenician, we know he cannot be arabic/semetic

He looks to me like a Maltese/Sicilian

Phoenicians were Semitic speaking, if I remember well. Genetically, surely a mix between typical Southern Semites (Arabs before SSA crossings) and North Near-Eastern people, a little bit (slightly) more "southern" than the mean of Sicilians.
Because I speak of types, I 'll speak here too of the reconstruction:
made by skillful people, recontrusctions can roughly well restitue the general proportions of bony face, prognathy, nasal bridge, and perhaps, depth of eyes in orbits (spite less sure here). They are 100% inaccurate, so more art than science, when we look at pigmentation, mouth form, lips, eyelids form, fleshy part of nose, and eyebrows and head hair implantation. But a lot of people know that now.
 
Coon spoke about PHoenicians people, and I think the he said something close to what I say above. I cannot check just now. That said, after some time, Carthaginians could have took distance from the first Phoenicians colonizators.
 
It could be a phenotype out of many and hardly the prominent features as the reconstruction. It is known all around the med including Cyprus and Lebanon and would neither leave out Southern balkans.

http://www.allocine.fr/personne/fichepersonne_gen_cpersonne=568960.html

and my favorite Italian song writer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelo_Branduardi

Fairuz singer Lebanon

Fairuz.jpg

Exactly so. I don't know why anyone would think it's a particularly "Sicilian" look. As you say, variations are found all over the Mediterranean. I've personally known hundreds of Sicilian Americans and seen pictures of hundreds and hundreds more, or seen them on screen, and Sicily is such a diverse place in terms of phenotypes that I'd be hard pressed to pick one as "the" Sicilian "look".

This, I think, is a pretty representative sample showing the variety:

Actor Vincent D'Onofrio is full Sicilian. A lot of Sicilians I know look like him.
http://images.buddytv.com/btv_2_1301_1_434_593_0_/vincent-d-onofrio-ph.jpg

I think everyone knows what Al Pacino looks like...the eyes, the nose and the mouth are all totally different.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/7d/ed/ac/7dedacbceb6fef60ac2f03e6afb10db5.jpg

Guy Williams: He played Zorro for years. I always used to confuse him with Errol Flynn when I was a girl. He is indeed full Sicilian.
http://imgc.allpostersimages.com/images/P-473-488-90/54/5487/6MQKG00Z/posters/guy-williams-zorro.jpg

Guido Caprino...love him
http://cache2.asset-cache.net/gc/10...vOTnhpa3z2CS7SNfck4HXo0aeADwvGJQM6RMJBjVAinY=

Claudio Gioe'
http://velvetgossip.it/wp-content/gallery/claudio-gioe-le-foto/claudio_gioe_002.jpg

"Iron Eyes Cody":
This was one of the worst advertising frauds I can remember. Everyone believed for years that he was a Native American.
http://www.mancrushes.com/sites/default/files/iron-eyes-cody-crying-1.jpg

Tony Danza-much loved American actor:
http://savingmamasita.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/tonydanza.jpeg

Antonin Scalia...I didn't always agree with him, but he had a monumental intellect and legal mind, and is one of the most influential judges ever to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.
https://assets.entrepreneur.com/con...-us-supreme-court-justice-antonin-scalia.jpeg

The only one who comes to mind who looks something like the reconstruction is the half Sicilian and great actor John Turturro.
http://www.superiorpics.com/hs/john_turturro/main1.jpg

Anyway, I'm on record for years as saying I don't take "reconstructions" very seriously. One of the most egregiously bad examples is a "reconstruction" done of Cleopatra's sister. Someone neglected to inform the artist that the Ptolemys were Macedonians, and had been marrying brother and sister to each other for years, so it's highly unlikely she looked like this:
http://arhiva.dalje.com/slike/slike_3/r1/g2009/m03/x213198604895222546_3.jpg

A coin struck during the reign of Cleopatra:
http://www.renocoinclub.org/images/cleopatra-coin.jpg

As for another claim made upthread, when are the Semites supposed to have "arrived" in the Levant if the Phoenicians of the last centuries of the first millennium weren't Semites? Even the Canaanites were already Semites, as were the Hebrews, for goodness sakes.
 
Carthage spoke a semitic language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punic_language

They also had an extensive empire including parts of Spain and used lots of Iberian mercenaries so it wouldn't be surprising if the mtdna came from Iberia.

when are the Semites supposed to have "arrived" in the Levant

Could be wrong but I assumed he meant arab-semitic i.e. specific aspects of arab phenotype (if there are any?) that might not have been in the Levant in the Punic era.
 

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