Studying genetic and cultural admixture of Phoenicians in Sicily

**Francesco** · 02-02-23, 14:20

Link to the conference

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ExCYSxUd3aE

**kingjohn** · 02-02-23, 20:47

Nice francesco thanks for sharing

That should be interesting paper
I wonder if we will see the same haplogroups: (j2b, j2a, r1b) that we saw in iron age tunisia kerkouane site
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...03.13.483276v3
In the other phoenician sites across mediterranean ( sardinia, sicily , spain)

**Angela** · 03-02-23, 04:12

I only had time to listen to the first presenters, who discussed dna in the context of PCAs. The rest all seemed to be about culture, diet etc.

Basically, most of the people buried in the Phoenician settlements were standard issue Central Mediterraneans, with only 1 "Levantine" like sample, and one with a few percent of North African.

In other words, as I always predicted, there are very few Phoenicians in Phoenician settlements, because they were establishing trading marts not colonies, unlike the Greeks.

It's important to pay attention to the history and culture of the people we're discussing, and not go fantasizing in order to make some point that will fit your agenda. One path leads to good predictions, the other...not.

**Jovialis** · 03-02-23, 05:43

@1:12:00

There's an eupedia map in the slide.

**Francesco** · 03-02-23, 11:01

I'm wondering if the Sicily BA+IA cluster they projected on the PCA is made of the same Sicani samples from the Himera paper or it's made of new unpublished samples. It seems to plot a little bit differently than the Sicani one, so maybe they used samples from Siculi and Elimni tribes, but I can't really tell from that PCA.

**kingjohn** · 03-02-23, 15:48

**Jovialis** · 03-02-23, 15:51

Thanks Kingjohn, I just posted the PCA too, but you beat me to it.

**kingjohn** · 04-02-23, 02:54

I now read in twitter
There is a rumor ( about the future paper from above)
At least 1 of the 2 samples
From carthage was r1b-v88

And there are case/cases of e-m78>v12 in akhziv 13 samples
Will see this paper should be very cool thats for sure

**traveller** · 04-02-23, 07:10

There were a substantial number of North Africans at every site, including the Levant.

This could mean they were an integral part of the Phoenician network, much more so than Europeans and Levantines (some Levantines discovered at both Sardinia and Sicily, though, and there are many people that plot between Europeans and Africans)

**Mmiikkii** · 04-02-23, 08:14

Originally Posted by traveller

There were a substantial number of North Africans at every site, including the Levant.
This could mean they were an integral part of the Phoenician network, much more so than Levantines

There were magrebis in Punic sites
Question, are we talking about the colonies of the Phoenicians? Plantation economy like British India? They're an assimilated people?...
What do we know about the relationship of Cananites and locals?

Also, I wonder if it's in this time when the E1b1b-m81 clade expanded...
Or is it Numidian or something

**Cato** · 04-02-23, 15:32

The IA Sicilians are from Polizello,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polizz...te?wprov=sfla1

Moden Sardinians seems intermediate between Nuragic BA and these Sicilian Iron Age individuals or something similar, far away from the Punic era samples, despite that in many books about the History of Sardinia some scholars talk about vast migrations from North Africa since prehistory lol

**kingjohn** · 04-02-23, 16:20

Originally Posted by Mmiikkii

There were magrebis in Punic sites
Question, are we talking about the colonies of the Phoenicians? Plantation economy like British India? They're an assimilated people?...
What do we know about the relationship of Cananites and locals?
Also, I wonder if it's in this time when the E1b1b-m81 clade expanded...
Or is it Numidian or something

i am to
this future paper
also include : some new mesolithic and neolithic samples from tunisia ( see yellow Tunisia M/N )

i hope we will see some pre-e-m81 branch
like we saw in morocco neolithic remains
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1800851115
about the southern european phoenician sites from this future research
who knows i do not except that much after the preview paper: tunisia iron age remains
but we will see
if some punic remains were e-m81 or e-L19>pf2431

**Angela** · 04-02-23, 16:28

Originally Posted by traveller

There were a substantial number of North Africans at every site, including the Levant.

This could mean they were an integral part of the Phoenician network, much more so than Europeans and Levantines (some Levantines discovered at both Sardinia and Sicily, though, and there are many people that plot between Europeans and Africans)

According to the authors there was a "discontinuity" between the Phoenician and Punic "eras". It makes complete sense given the Phoenicians were just setting up trading centers, and then the history of the Levant. The North Africans took it over, as I've pointed out before.

It's interesting that the majority of the "mixed" samples, i.e. half-European and half-North African were from Sardinia. Again, that makes sense. To my knowledge it was the only place in Europe where the Phoenicians set up plantations for growing crops etc. Sardinia might have served the same function as Cape Town served for the Dutch, i.e. a half-way point to supply their ships. The men posted there would have stayed for perhaps decades, meaning, as in Cape Town, that there was admixture with the locals.

Another thing which should be kept in mind is that these samples don't represent all of Sardinia or all of Sicily or Iberia. These are samples from specific "Phoenician" settlements, which can be seen in the graphics presented.

For example, the Iron Age sample for Sicily comes from the center of Sicily and is quite different.

**Angela** · 04-02-23, 16:51

Originally Posted by Mmiikkii

There were magrebis in Punic sites
Question, are we talking about the colonies of the Phoenicians? Plantation economy like British India? They're an assimilated people?...
What do we know about the relationship of Cananites and locals?
Also, I wonder if it's in this time when the E1b1b-m81 clade expanded...
Or is it Numidian or something

What we know is that there were extremely few Canaanite/Phoenicians in the Phoenician/Punic sites, for reasons I explained in another post.

Magrebi is not a word I would use to describe the North Africans of this time period. The addition of a lot more SSA admixture as a result of the Arab slave trade changed the North Africans substantially, although there is variation on a north/south cline, and a few isolated tribes in the mountains weren't much affected.

From the reconstructions I've seen of North Africans of this era, I'd think Zinedine Zidane.

Ignore the nose; it's the most difficult feature to reconstruct, and I think the artist was 'grafting' a Semitic nose onto a North African skull.

Zidane:

**Angela** · 04-02-23, 16:55

I find the Villaricos tomb from Iberia very interesting.

It repeats the pattern from the other paper we recently discussed in that these Greeks were endogamous, and practiced first cousin marriage. The same was probably true of the Catalunya sample which is still very similar to the Mycenaeans.

Yet, in Sicily (Himera) they did assimilate and inter-marry.

Fascinating.

**kingjohn** · 04-02-23, 19:00

Originally Posted by Angela

According to the authors there was a "discontinuity" between the Phoenician and Punic "eras". It makes complete sense given the Phoenicians were just setting up trading centers, and then the history of the Levant. The North Africans took it over, as I've pointed out before.

It's interesting that the majority of the "mixed" samples, i.e. half-European and half-North African were from Sardinia. Again, that makes sense. To my knowledge it was the only place in Europe where the Phoenicians set up plantations for growing crops etc. Sardinia might have served the same function as Cape Town served for the Dutch, i.e. a half-way point to supply their ships. The men posted there would have stayed for perhaps decades, meaning, as in Cape Town, that there was admixture with the locals.

Another thing which should be kept in mind is that these samples don't represent all of Sardinia or all of Sicily or Iberia. These are samples from specific "Phoenician" settlements, which can be seen in the graphics presented.

For example, the Iron Age sample for Sicily comes from the center of Sicily and is quite different.

here is the 1 levantine sample it is from birgi west sicily ( dated later to roman time)
as you said angela most of them are predominantly of central med in ancestery
it does seem even without reading the paper
that the phoenicans mostly didn't stay behind like the greeks were in there colonies

**Pygmalion** · 04-02-23, 20:49

Originally Posted by Cato

The IA Sicilians are from Polizello,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polizz...te?wprov=sfla1

Moden Sardinians seems intermediate between Nuragic BA and these Sicilian Iron Age individuals or something similar, far away from the Punic era samples, despite that in many books about the History of Sardinia some scholars talk about vast migrations from North Africa since prehistory lol

To be fair those "modern Sardinian" samples are probably not representative of the whole island, they're probably the usual Ogliastra samples. I remember seeing some PCAs with the Sulcis_Iglesiente samples and they clustered almost on top of the Sicilian BA samples.

The new Sardinian samples should mostly come from the city of Tharros, since the other two places named on the chart are Monte Sirai and Villamar, with respectively 2 and 6 samples, therefore they're in all likelihood the Punic samples that have already been published, except maybe an additional one from Villamar. So I assume that the Nuragic-like sample comes from Tharros, while the other Tharros samples seem to be close to Greeks and Italics, while a few seem to have a significant degree of North African admixture like the Villamar samples, there's also one sample which seems to cluster with continental Europe, maybe France or N Spain, and one which clusters with Levantines, so overall we have the Monte Sirai samples, that both seem to share a Central Italian IA like profile, the ones from Villamar that all seem to have different degree of North African admixture, and the samples from Tharros, which are a bit all over the place, from a Nuragic-like one to a Levantine-ike one.

**Jovialis** · 05-02-23, 07:17

I'm watching The White Lotus season 2 that takes place in Sicily, on HBO Max. I'm on episode four. It is a good show, and funny.

**Hawk** · 06-02-23, 13:58

Originally Posted by kingjohn

I now read in twitter
There is a rumor ( about the future paper from above)
At least 1 of the 2 samples
From carthage was r1b-v88

And there are case/cases of e-m78>v12 in akhziv 13 samples
Will see this paper should be very cool thats for sure

Weird samples, R1b-V88 and E-V12. I am expecting a combination of J1 and E-M34 among Phoenicians as main Y-DNA's.

**capisan** · 06-02-23, 20:36

Originally Posted by Angela

What we know is that there were extremely few Canaanite/Phoenicians in the Phoenician/Punic sites, for reasons I explained in another post.

Magrebi is not a word I would use to describe the North Africans of this time period. The addition of a lot more SSA admixture as a result of the Arab slave trade changed the North Africans substantially, although there is variation on a north/south cline, and a few isolated tribes in the mountains weren't much affected.

From the reconstructions I've seen of North Africans of this era, I'd think Zinedine Zidane.

Ignore the nose; it's the most difficult feature to reconstruct, and I think the artist was 'grafting' a Semitic nose onto a North African skull.

Zidane:

We have little Admixture DNA SSA
My origin side dad from west Anti-Atlas and Mom from west high Atlas

Target: Myscaled Distance: 1.4732% / 0.01473184
38.6	Mesolithic_North_Africa_Iberomaurusian

33.6	Anatolia_Barcin_Neolithic

7.4	Levant_Neolithic_PPNB

7.0	Caucasian_Neolithic

5.8	Levant_Natufian

4.6	Basal_Central/West_African

1.8	EHG_Mesolithic_RUS_Sidelkino

1.2	Western_Hunterer_Gatherer_Rochedane

Target: Myscaled Distance: 1.4732% / 0.01473184
38.6	Mesolithic_North_Africa_Iberomaurusian

33.6	Anatolia_Barcin_Neolithic

7.4	Levant_Neolithic_PPNB

7.0	Caucasian_Neolithic

5.8	Levant_Natufian

4.6	Basal_Central/West_African

1.8	EHG_Mesolithic_RUS_Sidelkino

1.2	Western_Hunterer_Gatherer_Rochedane

**kingjohn** · 07-02-23, 14:24

Originally Posted by Hawk

Weird samples, R1b-V88 and E-V12. I am expecting a combination of J1 and E-M34 among Phoenicians as main Y-DNA's.

Well
E-v12 was found before
In middle late bronze age extreme south turkey/ north syria ( not far from where the horrible earthquaqe took place)

Ala136-e-v12 ( after his bam file analysis)

https://www.theytree.com/usersample/...aa4ee5c59.html

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0241883
So it can occure in 1 of those 13 akhzib individuals who dates to
8th centurey bc ( modern north israel)
We shall wait and see

**kingjohn** · 09-02-23, 15:34

i don't know from where
this dude has those other punic
samples results ( but it was posted in twitter )
notice the j1 ( nice this could be a phoenician sailor strait from lebanon)

**Pax Augusta** · 09-02-23, 16:13

To all those interested in Phoenicians, I recommend reading this book.

Josephine Quinn, In Search of the Phoenicians, Princenton, 2017

Who were the ancient Phoenicians, and did they actually exist?

https://press.princeton.edu/books/ha...he-phoenicians

The Phoenicians traveled the Mediterranean long before the Greeks and Romans, trading, establishing settlements, and refining the art of navigation. But who these legendary sailors really were has long remained a mystery. In Search of the Phoenicians makes the startling claim that the “Phoenicians” never actually existed. Taking readers from the ancient world to today, this monumental book argues that the notion of these sailors as a coherent people with a shared identity, history, and culture is a product of modern nationalist ideologies—and a notion very much at odds with the ancient sources.

Josephine Quinn shows how the belief in this historical mirage has blinded us to the compelling identities and communities these people really constructed for themselves in the ancient Mediterranean, based not on ethnicity or nationhood but on cities, family, colonial ties, and religious practices. She traces how the idea of “being Phoenician” first emerged in support of the imperial ambitions of Carthage and then Rome, and only crystallized as a component of modern national identities in contexts as far-flung as Ireland and Lebanon.

In Search of the Phoenicians delves into the ancient literary, epigraphic, numismatic, and artistic evidence for the construction of identities by and for the Phoenicians, ranging from the Levant to the Atlantic, and from the Bronze Age to late antiquity and beyond. A momentous scholarly achievement, this book also explores the prose, poetry, plays, painting, and polemic that have enshrined these fabled seafarers in nationalist histories from sixteenth-century England to twenty-first century Tunisia.

**Francesco** · 10-02-23, 10:17

Originally Posted by Pax Augusta

To all those interested in Phoenicians, I recommend reading this book.

Josephine Quinn, In Search of the Phoenicians, Princenton, 2017

Who were the ancient Phoenicians, and did they actually exist?

https://press.princeton.edu/books/ha...he-phoenicians

Civitas VS Natio, a typical dualism of iron age Mediterranean.

**Pygmalion** · 10-02-23, 11:02

Originally Posted by kingjohn

i don't know from where
this dude has those other punic
samples results ( but it was posted in twitter )
notice the j1 ( nice this could be a phoenician sailor strait from lebanon)

The c14 dates of the bones from the Villamar necropolis are 200-400 years older than the objects buried in the tombs and the type of tombs in general, which both date to the 4th-3rd century bc, Late Punic, almost Roman period. Strange. There's a discrepancy between the c14 dates of the bones and the objects buried with the dead in the Punic Sicilian tombs as well.

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