Ancient Phoenicians forgotten, but not gone

Last update: October 30, 2008 - 7:36 PM

Rome destroyed the Phoenicians' greatest city -- Carthage -- centuries ago, but new genetic studies indicate that as many as one in 17 men living in communities around the Mediterranean could be descended from these ancient mariners.

Originating from what is now Lebanon, the Phoenicians were early seafarers and traders who spread their culture, including a love for the color purple, to North Africa, Spain and other countries around the region. But they seemed to fade from history after being defeated in a series of wars with Rome.

Genographic Research Project scientists led by Chris Tyler-Smith of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in England were able to locate a genetic marker for the Phoenicians on the male-only Y chromosome.

FOLLOWING THE TRAIL

First they studied references in the Bible and by Greek and Roman writers to determine where there had been Phoenician cities and colonies.

Then the researchers compared the genes of residents in those areas to those of people living in other Mediterranean communities which had not been Phoenician settlements.

They were able to find differences on the Y chromosome that occurred only in the Phoenician-settled areas, affecting more than 6 percent of the population there.

HISTORY AS A GUIDE

"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," Tyler-Smith said.

Added Daniel Platt, of IBM's Computational Biology Center: "The results are important because they show that the Phoenician settlement sites are marked by a genetic signature. ... This proves that these settlements, some of which lasted hundreds of years, left a genetic legacy that persists to modern times."

FOOTSTEPS OF ARMIES?

Researchers suggested similar studies may be able to trace the genetic influence of the army of Alexander the Great in Asia, the Mongol invasion of Europe and the spread of the Vikings.

The findings are being published online Thursday by the American Journal of Human Genetics. The work was supported by National Geographic and IBM's Genographic Project, an effort to research the history of human migration.

IS FUNGUS BEHIND BAT DIE-OFF?

Researchers have found a clue in the die-off of bats that has hit the northeastern United States -- a fungus that seems to be present only in afflicted bats and in caves where the die-off has occurred.

"The fungus is in some way involved in causing the bats to starve," said biologist Thomas Tomasi of Missouri State University in Springfield. "They are burning up too many calories, at a rate faster than they can sustain."

Mycologist David S. Blehert of the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., and his colleagues identified the fungus as a previously unrecognized strain of the group Geomyces. Their report is in the online version of the journal Science.

Bat experts are not yet sure if the fungus is the cause of the deaths or is simply an opportunistic microorganism. Bats represent about a quarter of all mammalian species and are voracious eaters of insects that attack crops.

The disease, which bears similarities to honeybees' colony collapse disorder, first appeared near Albany, N.Y., in the winter of 2006. It has spread to at least three other states in the region with overall populations declining about 75 percent in the affected areas.

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