Ancient DNA Reveals the True Origins of the Punic People

In the salty air of the ancient Mediterranean, where merchant ships crisscrossed coastlines and gods changed names as easily as cities changed rulers, an enigmatic seafaring people wove a cultural tapestry that would outlast even their most powerful rivals. These were the Phoenicians—masters of maritime trade, creators of the first widely adopted alphabet, and catalysts of a Mediterranean civilization whose reach and influence are only now being fully understood.

Recent advances in archaeogenetics, published in the prestigious journal Nature, have peeled back the layers of myth and history that surround the Phoenicians and their descendants, the Punic peoples of Carthage and beyond. Thanks to a collaboration between the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and Harvard University, we now have unprecedented insight into the genetic legacy of these ancient civilizations. What researchers discovered was both surprising and profoundly illuminating.

The Rise of the Phoenicians

Emerging from the bustling, independent city-states of the Levant—modern-day Lebanon and parts of Syria and Israel—Phoenician culture blossomed during the Bronze Age. These were urbanized societies long before many of their neighbors, trading cedarwood, purple dye, glass, and luxury goods with Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Aegean world.

The Phoenicians were not a single empire but a cultural-linguistic network of merchant cities like Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos. They did not conquer with swords; they conquered with trade. And through their trade, they spread more than goods—they transmitted religious ideas, artistic styles, technologies, and, most importantly, their written language.

Their most revolutionary invention was the phonetic alphabet, a system that allowed the written recording of language using symbols for individual sounds. This innovation was simple, elegant, and so effective that it became the foundation for Greek, Latin, and eventually the modern Western alphabets. In a way, every text you read today—this one included—bears the imprint of Phoenician ingenuity.

The Punic Transformation

By the early first millennium BCE, the Phoenicians had stretched their maritime reach westward, establishing trading posts and colonies across the Mediterranean. Among these was Carthage, founded around 814 BCE on the North African coast in what is now Tunisia. Originally a humble outpost, Carthage grew rapidly into a powerful city-state, eventually eclipsing its Phoenician homeland in political and economic influence.

As Carthage rose, it brought with it Phoenician culture, religion, and language, giving birth to what the Romans would later call the Punic civilization—a term derived from “Poeni,” their Latin word for the Carthaginians. The Punics held sway over vast swaths of the Mediterranean, from Iberia to Sicily, and would famously clash with the rising Roman Republic in the Punic Wars, the last of which left Carthage in ruins but cemented its place in historical memory.

Hannibal’s legendary crossing of the Alps with war elephants during the Second Punic War became one of the most studied military feats in history, and for centuries, Carthage was Rome’s ultimate rival—culturally rich, militarily innovative, and economically potent.

But even with its towering achievements and iconic conflicts, much about Punic civilization remained shrouded in mystery—particularly its people.

Genetics Enters the Mediterranean Arena

That mystery has now been partially unraveled, thanks to a groundbreaking genetic study conducted by an international team of researchers under the auspices of the Max Planck-Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean.

Led by Harald Ringbauer, David Reich, Ilan Gronau, and other leading scientists, the team set out to trace the ancestral threads of Phoenician and Punic peoples by examining ancient DNA from 14 archaeological sites spanning the heart of the Phoenician homeland and its western Mediterranean diaspora. The locations stretched across modern-day Lebanon, Tunisia, Spain, Sicily, Sardinia, and Ibiza—regions once linked by the maritime might of Phoenician traders and Carthaginian warships.

Their results were startling.

Cultural Diffusion, Not Mass Migration

Contrary to long-held assumptions, the researchers found minimal direct genetic input from Levantine Phoenicians into Punic populations of the western and central Mediterranean. The Phoenician diaspora, it seems, was not created by waves of colonists sweeping across the sea from the East. Instead, Phoenician culture spread through a softer, more organic process: cultural diffusion, intermarriage, trade, and local assimilation.

Rather than a Phoenician “bloodline” transplanted across the sea, the Punic world was more like a cultural melting pot that absorbed and transformed surrounding populations while retaining Phoenician language, religion, and social structures.

“The picture that emerges is one of striking heterogeneity,” explained David Reich. “At every Punic site, we see people with very different genetic ancestries—North African, Aegean, Sicilian, and more—all coexisting under the banner of Punic civilization.”

This finding not only rewrites our understanding of ancient Mediterranean mobility but also emphasizes the cosmopolitan nature of ancient Carthage and its sister cities.

A Mediterranean Mosaic of Peoples

One of the most vivid illustrations of this ancient interconnectedness was the discovery of two individuals, likely second cousins, buried on opposite sides of the sea—one in North Africa and the other in Sicily. This suggests not only population mixing but also family-level ties that spanned hundreds of kilometers.

Such genetic proximity between far-flung locations challenges the simplistic notion of distinct, bounded ancient civilizations. Instead, it paints a picture of a fluid, dynamic Mediterranean world, where peoples and ideas moved constantly, and where identity was as much about culture as it was about biology.

In Carthage itself, the genetic diversity was even more pronounced. The ancient capital of the Punic world housed people with varying degrees of North African, Sicilian, and Aegean ancestry. This blending wasn’t a rare exception—it was the norm. Carthage, in effect, was an early example of a multicultural metropolis.

Implications for Historical Narratives

These genetic findings are not just scientific curiosities—they challenge deeply ingrained historical narratives. Classical authors like Herodotus and Livy, often the only surviving sources about the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, tended to view these peoples through the lens of Greek or Roman rivalry. Modern scholarship, too, has sometimes defaulted to simplistic models of colonization that emphasize conquest and population replacement.

But the DNA tells another story—one of cultural resilience without demographic domination. The Punic identity spread not because thousands of Phoenicians boarded ships and sailed west, but because their cultural institutions—alphabet, religion, trade networks, and political systems—proved adaptable and influential.

This mode of expansion has profound parallels in world history. Just as Latin spread through the Roman Empire and Islam through the Arabic world, Phoenician culture spread through networks of connectivity rather than brute force.

Ancient DNA: The New Archaeological Frontier

This research exemplifies the power of ancient DNA to illuminate corners of history where traditional archaeology and textual sources fall short. “In regions where written records are limited or biased, ancient DNA provides a direct window into the lives and relationships of past peoples,” said Ilan Gronau.

The Punic world left behind few detailed written records, and what survives often comes from their adversaries. But bones, it seems, do not lie. The molecules locked inside them carry the whispers of distant migrations, long-forgotten intermarriages, and the fingerprints of genetic diversity that defy ethnic stereotypes.

As technology advances, the ability to extract and analyze ancient DNA will only deepen. We are entering a golden age of molecular archaeology, where laboratory science complements spade-and-shovel excavation, and where data can reanimate the lives of people buried for thousands of years.

Reconstructing a Lost Identity

The Phoenicians and their Punic descendants have long stood as shadowy figures in ancient history—revered as innovators, vilified as enemies, and too often oversimplified in both roles. This new research challenges us to think of them not as a vanished people, but as part of a vast, diverse, and adaptable Mediterranean world.

They were not merely Levantines in exile, but hybrid communities formed through interaction, negotiation, and mutual influence. Their legacy is not just in the alphabet they passed on, but in the model of civilization they represented—fluid, pluralistic, and enduring.

In a time when borders are once again tightening and identities often defined by purity and exclusion, the story of the Phoenicians and the Punic world serves as a timely reminder: great civilizations are rarely built by walls, but by bridges.

Reference: David Reich, Punic people were genetically diverse with almost no Levantine ancestors, Nature (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08913-3. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08913-3