Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Continuity and admixture in the last five millennia of Levantine history from ancient Canaanite and present-day Lebanese genome sequences

Marc Haber, Claude Doumet-Serhal, Christiana Scheib, Yali Xue, Petr Danecek, Massimo Mezzavilla, Sonia Youhanna, Rui Martiniano, Javier Prado-Martinez, Michal Szpak, Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith, Holger Schutkowski, Richard Mikulski, Pierre Zalloua, Toomas Kivisild, Chris Tyler-Smith
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/142448
Marc Haber
1The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambs. CB10 1SA, United Kingdom.
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: mh25@sanger.ac.uk cts@sanger.ac.uk
Claude Doumet-Serhal
2The Sidon excavation, Saida, Lebanon.
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Christiana Scheib
3Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 1QH, UK.
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Yali Xue
1The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambs. CB10 1SA, United Kingdom.
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Petr Danecek
1The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambs. CB10 1SA, United Kingdom.
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Massimo Mezzavilla
1The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambs. CB10 1SA, United Kingdom.
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Sonia Youhanna
4Institute of Physiology, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057, Zürich, Switzerland.
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Rui Martiniano
1The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambs. CB10 1SA, United Kingdom.
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Javier Prado-Martinez
1The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambs. CB10 1SA, United Kingdom.
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Michal Szpak
1The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambs. CB10 1SA, United Kingdom.
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith
5Department of Anatomy, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, 9054.
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Holger Schutkowski
6Department of Archaeology, Anthropology, and Forensic Science, Bournemouth University, Talbot Campus, Poole BH12 5BB, UK.
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Richard Mikulski
6Department of Archaeology, Anthropology, and Forensic Science, Bournemouth University, Talbot Campus, Poole BH12 5BB, UK.
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Pierre Zalloua
7The Lebanese American University, Chouran, Beirut 1102 2801, Lebanon; Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Toomas Kivisild
3Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 1QH, UK.
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Chris Tyler-Smith
1The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambs. CB10 1SA, United Kingdom.
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: mh25@sanger.ac.uk cts@sanger.ac.uk
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Supplementary material
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

The Canaanites inhabited the Levant region during the Bronze Age and established a culture which became influential in the Near East and beyond. However, the Canaanites, unlike most other ancient Near Easterners of this period, left few surviving textual records and thus their origin and relationship to ancient and present-day populations remain unclear. In this study, we sequenced five whole-genomes from ~3,700-year-old individuals from the city of Sidon, a major Canaanite city-state on the Eastern Mediterranean coast. We also sequenced the genomes of 99 individuals from present-day Lebanon to catalogue modern Levantine genetic diversity. We find that a Bronze Age Canaanite-related ancestry was widespread in the region, shared among urban populations inhabiting the coast (Sidon) and inland populations (Jordan) who likely lived in farming societies or were pastoral nomads. This Canaanite-related ancestry derived from mixture between local Neolithic populations and eastern migrants genetically related to Chalcolithic Iranians. We estimate, using linkage-disequilibrium decay patterns, that admixture occurred 6,600-3,550 years ago, coinciding with massive population movements in the mid-Holocene triggered by aridification ~4,200 years ago. We show that present-day Lebanese derive most of their ancestry from a Canaanite-related population, which therefore implies substantial genetic continuity in the Levant since at least the Bronze Age. In addition, we find Eurasian ancestry in the Lebanese not present in Bronze Age or earlier Levantines. We estimate this Eurasian ancestry arrived in the Levant around 3,750-2,170 years ago during a period of successive conquests by distant populations such as the Persians and Macedonians.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted May 26, 2017.
Download PDF

Supplementary Material

Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Continuity and admixture in the last five millennia of Levantine history from ancient Canaanite and present-day Lebanese genome sequences
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Continuity and admixture in the last five millennia of Levantine history from ancient Canaanite and present-day Lebanese genome sequences
Marc Haber, Claude Doumet-Serhal, Christiana Scheib, Yali Xue, Petr Danecek, Massimo Mezzavilla, Sonia Youhanna, Rui Martiniano, Javier Prado-Martinez, Michal Szpak, Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith, Holger Schutkowski, Richard Mikulski, Pierre Zalloua, Toomas Kivisild, Chris Tyler-Smith
bioRxiv 142448; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/142448
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Continuity and admixture in the last five millennia of Levantine history from ancient Canaanite and present-day Lebanese genome sequences
Marc Haber, Claude Doumet-Serhal, Christiana Scheib, Yali Xue, Petr Danecek, Massimo Mezzavilla, Sonia Youhanna, Rui Martiniano, Javier Prado-Martinez, Michal Szpak, Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith, Holger Schutkowski, Richard Mikulski, Pierre Zalloua, Toomas Kivisild, Chris Tyler-Smith
bioRxiv 142448; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/142448

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Genetics
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (2430)
  • Biochemistry (4791)
  • Bioengineering (3332)
  • Bioinformatics (14677)
  • Biophysics (6639)
  • Cancer Biology (5168)
  • Cell Biology (7428)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (4365)
  • Ecology (6873)
  • Epidemiology (2057)
  • Evolutionary Biology (9919)
  • Genetics (7346)
  • Genomics (9527)
  • Immunology (4554)
  • Microbiology (12684)
  • Molecular Biology (4945)
  • Neuroscience (28329)
  • Paleontology (199)
  • Pathology (808)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (1391)
  • Physiology (2024)
  • Plant Biology (4498)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (977)
  • Synthetic Biology (1299)
  • Systems Biology (3914)
  • Zoology (726)