Nov 04, 2008 (M2 PRESSWIRE via COMTEX) - The Phoenicians gave the world more than the alphabet and a love of the color purple. A research study published today by Genographic scientists in the American Journal of Human Genetics shows they left some people their genes as well. The study finds that as many as one in 17 men in the Mediterranean basin may have a Phoenician as a direct male-line ancestor.
National Geographic and IBM's Genographic Project have developed a new method for detecting the genetic impact of historical migrations. Its was first used to reveal the genetic legacy of the Phoenicians.

An intriguing and mysterious first-millennium B.C. trading empire, the Phoenicians expanded by sea from their base in present-day Lebanon throughout the Mediterranean, founding colonies as far afield as Spain and North Africa, including their most powerful city, Carthage. The world's first "global capitalists," the Phoenicians controlled trade throughout the Mediterranean basin for nearly 1,000 years until their conquest by Rome in the 2nd century B.C. Over the ensuing centuries, much of what was known about this enigmatic people was lost or destroyed.

"When we started, we knew nothing about the genetics of the Phoenicians. All we had to guide us was history: We knew where they had and hadn't settled. But this simple information turned out to be enough, with the help of modern genetics, to trace a vanished people," said Chris Tyler-Smith, a Genographic research associate: The new analytical method looked for genetic signatures in modern men (Y-chromosomal lineages are present exclusively in males) that were more common in regions with a Phoenician history than in nearby places where the Phoenicians had never lived. It revealed a handful of genetic lineages that are shared among far-flung populations from around the Mediterranean, all united by just one feature: They had been Phoenician colonies. (The geographic scope of this study stretched from coastal Lebanon to coastal Spain and from coastal Tunisia to coastal Italy.)

Adding together all the lineages suggests that the Phoenicians contributed at least 6 percent to the modern populations -- one boy in each school class from Cyprus to Tunis may be a direct male-line descendant of the Phoenician traders.

Learn more

* The Alphabet, Tyrian Purple... and Genes: Genographic Scientists Uncover New Piece of Phoenician Legacy (press release)