Canaanites

In the Bronze Age, between 4,000 and 3,000 years ago, a diverse group of people called the Canaanites lived in the Middle East. Despite their culture and influence — one of the only golden calf idols discovered was found in the Canaan seaport of Ashqelon — they left behind little information about themselves. Other civilizations made records of them, such as the Greeks, Egyptians and the authors of the Hebrew Bible. But, without Canaanite texts to cite, scholars view the ancient people as a bit of an enigma. The Hebrew Bible offers one explanation for the destiny of the Canaanites: annihilation. The Israelites, per Deuteronomy 20:16-18, were commanded to “utterly destroy” the cities of various tribes including the Canaanites. Those who survived fled or became servants.

Not a heritage our kinder, gentler world wants to have.

Now a study of Canaanite DNA, published  in the "American Journal of Human Genetics," rules out the biblical idea that an ancient war wiped out the group. The DNA, when compared to that of modern-day people, shows that the Canaanites managed to leave a long line of descendants. Even if they suffered some defeats, “enough people survived that they contributed to the present-day population,” Tyler-Smith said.

Tyler-Smith and his colleagues sampled ancient DNA from five Canaanite people who lived 3,750 and 3,650 years ago. Though the skeletal remains were buried in a hot and humid region along the Mediterranean, the scientists were still able to extract genetic material. They mined the petrous bone, a region of skull behind the ear that's also the densest bone in the body. (The discovery that the tough petrous bone protects DNA like a bank vault has, in recent years, greatly advanced the study of ancient DNA.)

The geneticists sequenced the Canaanite genome and compared it to genomes of modern people, including Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and others from around the world. The comparison revealed that 90 percent of the genetic ancestry of people in Lebanon came from the Canaanites. (The other 10 percent was of a Eurasian steppe population.)

The unbroken genetic heritage was a surprise. From the Bronze Age onward, that coastal Mediterranean region has been the site of repeated conquering and reshuffling of populations. There was more genetic continuity in Lebanon than in a place like England, Tyler-Smith said.

(from the WashPo)