SCIENCE
The 'Young Man Of Byrsa' Actually Had European Heritage
- Osvaldo Nunez , Design & Trend Contributor
- May, 28, 2016, 04:51 PM
DNA analysis of the 2,500-year-old remains of the "Young Man of Byrsa" has found that he has European heritage.
The remains of the ancient Phoenician, named Ariche, were found in 1994 in a burial crypt across the National Museum of Carthage. The French and Tunisian excavators that found the bones sent them to France for further research.
DNA sequencing of Ariche's mitochondrial genome revealed that he lived on the Iberian Peninsula towards the end of the sixth century BC. The researchers said that he belonged to a rare European haplogroup called U5b2c1.
"U5b2cl is considered to be one of the most ancient haplogroups in Europe and is associated with hunter-gatherer populations there. It is remarkably rare in modern populations today, found in Europe at levels of less than one percent," said lead author Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith. "Interestingly, our analysis showed that Ariche's mitochondrial genetic makeup most closely matches that of the sequence of a particular modern day individual from Portugal".
Ariche's DNA sequencing also proved the existence of a European mitochondrial haplogroup in North Africa.
Researchers believe that the descendants of U5b2cl lived in northwestern Spain and remained there, even after the coming of the Phoenicians.
"While a wave of farming peoples from the Near East replaced these hunter-gatherers, some of their lineages may have persisted longer in the far south of the Iberian peninsula and on off-shore islands and were then transported to the melting pot of Carthage in North Africa via Phoenician and Punic trade networks."
The findings were published in the journal PLOS ONE. It found that Ariche's maternal lineage originated from the North Mediterranean coast, likely around modern Spain and Portugal.
Phoenicians are known as the creators of the first alphabet. They resided in the ancient coastal cities of Tyre, Sidon, Byblos and Arwad.
