For centuries, the expansion of the Phoenician-Punic civilization across the Mediterranean was attributed to massive migrations. However, a recently published genetic study reveals that their success was largely due to a dynamic process of cultural transmission and assimilation, rather than large-scale population movements.

The study, conducted by an international team of researchers under the Max Planck-Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean, analyzed human remains from 14 Phoenician and Punic archaeological sites located in the Levant, North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, and the Mediterranean islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Ibiza.

The results, based on ancient DNA analysis, offer a groundbreaking view of how this culture spread and what the societies that adopted it were like.

A Genetic Melting Pot in the Ancient Mediterranean

The Phoenician civilization emerged in the city-states of the Levant during the Bronze Age, standing out for innovations such as the first alphabet, from which many modern writing systems are derived. By the early first millennium BCE, their cities had established a vast maritime trade network reaching as far as Iberia, spreading their culture, religion, and language throughout the central and western Mediterranean.

Carthaginians phoenicians origin
Map of sites included in the aDNA study (approximately 600 BCE). The numbers indicate the number of human genomes produced from these sites. Credit: Harald Ringbauer

By the 6th century BCE, Carthage, a Phoenician colony in what is now Tunisia, dominated the region. These communities, culturally Phoenician but associated with or governed by Carthage, were referred to as “Punic” by the Romans. Their legacy is widely known, especially due to the wars against Rome, including Hannibal’s epic crossing of the Alps.

However, the new genetic study reveals that despite sharing a common culture and language, the Punic people were not mostly descended from Levantine Phoenicians. We found a surprisingly small genetic contribution from the Levantine Phoenicians in Punic populations of the western and central Mediterranean, explains Harald Ringbauer, lead author of the study and group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

Instead of demographic expansion, Phoenician culture spread through a process of cultural transmission and assimilation. This changes our perspective on how Phoenician culture expanded: it was not through mass migrations, but through dynamic exchange, adds Ringbauer.

A Cosmopolitan and Diverse Society

The study shows that Punic populations had a highly heterogeneous genetic profile, with significant ancestry from North Africa and from Sicily and the Aegean. In the Punic world, we observe extraordinary genetic diversity, notes David Reich, professor of Genetics and Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and co-author of the study.

Carthaginians phoenicians origin
Punic Necropolis of Puig des Molins on the island of Ibiza. The new ancient DNA study sequenced human remains from this and other important Phoenician-Punic Archaeological sites. Credit: Photo Raymar, MAEF

In all the analyzed sites, individuals exhibited great variability in their ancestry. The largest genetic source came from populations similar to those of Sicily and the Aegean, while many others had a significant component of North African ancestry.

One of the most revealing findings was the discovery of two close relatives (possibly second cousins) buried in distant places: one in a Punic site in North Africa and the other in Sicily. This data reinforces the idea that Mediterranean societies were deeply interconnected, with constant long-distance movement of people.

These results underscore the cosmopolitan nature of the Punic world, says Ilan Gronau, professor of Computer Science at Reichman University in Herzliya (Israel) and co-author of the study. People of different backgrounds lived together, traded, intermingled, and formed families.

The research not only redefines Phoenician-Punic expansion but also offers new insights into population dynamics in the Mediterranean during the first millennium BCE. The genetic data suggest that trade, intermarriage, and population mixing were key factors in the formation of these societies.

The site of the Punic necropolis of Puig des Molins in Ibiza, one of those analyzed in the study, is an example of this diversity. The human remains sequenced there confirm that the island was a key point in this multicultural network.

SOURCES

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

Ringbauer, H., Salman-Minkov, A., Regev, D. et al. Punic people were genetically diverse with almost no Levantine ancestors. Nature (2025). doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08913-3

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