Cultural continuity, but genetic distance. Ancient DNA challenges established beliefs about the close links between Phoenician and Punic communities
Known as one of the most influential maritime cultures in history, the Phoenician civilisation emerged around 3000 years ago in the Levant, a historical region stretching from southern Turkey to north-eastern Egypt and including Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan and Israel. The Phoenicians weaved an extensive trade network across the Mediterranean, spreading their culture, religion and language along the entire coast. By the 6th century B.C., the Phoenician colony of Carthage, having become independent from the motherland, had formed a small empire of communities known as “Punic”.
Despite the cultural continuity between the Phoenician and Punic civilisations, the genetic history of the inhabitants of the two populations seems to develop along two parallel lines: this is what emerges from a recent study conducted by Sapienza University, which contributed 6 authors from 5 departments, in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute and Harvard University.
Through the analysis of ancient DNA, the research revealed the great genetic diversity of Punic communities, the result of numerous trade exchanges with other Mediterranean civilisations. The researchers analysed the genomic data of 210 ancient individuals, of which 128 Phoenician-Punic, buried in 14 archaeological sites located on the Mediterranean coast, thus discovering that the Phoenician civilisations of the Levant had a limited genetic influence on the Punic populations of the central and western Mediterranean.
'The sequencing and analysis of a large sample of genomes revealed an unexpected picture of the relationships between Phoenician-Punic communities,' says Alessia Nava, director of the BIOANTH Laboratory at Sapienza and co-author of the study, 'suggesting how Phoenician-Punic culture spread not through mass migrations, but through dynamic processes of cultural transmission and assimilation. '
The study showed that all the Punic sites sampled, including Carthage, were inhabited by people with extremely heterogeneous genetic profiles. DNA analysis showed that individuals with North African ancestry lived next to and mingled with a majority of people mainly of Sicilian-Egyptian ancestry.
‘These findings reinforce the idea that ancient Mediterranean societies were profoundly interconnected, with people moving and mixing across vast geographical distances,’ comments Alfredo Coppa, co-director of the Sapienza Archaeological Mission in Kerkouane (Tunisia). ‘Studies such as these highlight the power of ancient DNA in shedding light on the ancestry and mobility of ancient populations, for which direct historical records are relatively scarce. '
Lorenzo Nigro, former director of the Sapienza Mozia Mission and co-director of the Carthage Archaeological Mission, concludes that ‘the research, which integrates the data already known from the sources and the study of material culture, re-evaluates the fundamental contribution made by the indigenous cultures of the central Mediterranean to the formation of the Punic and then Roman world, that Mediterranean civilisation which Rome inherited from Carthage.’
Networks of genetic relationships between Mediterranean populations suggest how trade, intermarriage and population mixing played a key role in shaping these communities. The results of the study, published in the journal “Nature”, highlight the cosmopolitan nature of the Punic world and open up new research perspectives on the formation of Mediterranean cultures.
References
Ringbauer, H., Salman-Minkov, A., Regev, D., Olalde, I., Peled, T., Sineo, L., Falsone, G., van Dommelen, P., Mittnik, A., Lazaridis, I., Pettener, D., Bofill, M., Mezquida, A., Costa, B., Jiménez, H., Smith, P., Vai, S., Modi, A., Shaus, A., Callan, K., Curtis, E., Kearns, A., Lawson, A. M., Mah, M., Micco, A., Oppenheimer, J., Qiu, L., Stewardson, K., Workman, J. N., Márquez-Grant, N., Sáez Romero, A. M., Lavado Florido, M. L., Jiménez-Arenas, J. M., Toro Moyano, I. J., Viguera, E., Suarez Padilla, J., López Chamizo, S., Marques-Bonet, T., Lizano, E., Rodero Riaza, A., Olivieri, F., Toti, P., Giuliana, V., Barash, A., Carmel, L., Boaretto, E., Faerman, M., Lucci, M., La Pastina, F., Nava, A., Genchi, F., Del Vais, C., Lauria, G., Meli, F., Sconzo, P., Catalano, G., Cilli, E., Fariselli, A. C., Fontani, F., Luiselli, D., Culleton, B. J., Mallick, S., Rohland, N., Nigro, L., Coppa, A., Caramelli, D., Pinhasi, R., Lalueza-Fox, C., Gronau, I., & Reich, D., "Punic people were genetically diverse with almost no Levantine ancestors", Nature, DOI 10.1038/s41586-025-08913-3.
Further Information
Alfredo Coppa
Department of History, Anthropology, Religion, Arts and Performing Arts
Lorenzo Nigro
Department of Ancient World Studies
Alessia Nava
Department of Oral and Maxillo-Facial Sciences
Michaela Lucci
Department of Environmental Biology
Francesco Genchi
Italian Institute of Oriental Studies – ISO