The researchers also compared the ancient DNA with that of modern populations and found that most Arab and Jewish groups in the region owe more than half of their DNA to Canaanites and other peoples who inhabited the ancient Near East—an area encompassing much of the modern Levant, Caucasus, and Iran.
A study of ancient DNA traces the surprising heritage of these mysterious Bronze Age people.
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Today’s Jews and Arabs in Israel, Jordan and Lebanon get half their ancestry from Bronze Age Levantines
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Most of today’s Jewish and Arabic-speaking populations share a strong genetic link to the ancient Canaanites, according to a new study conducted by an international team of archaeologists and geneticists, including TAU’s Prof. Israel Finkelstein from the
Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures.
The study concludes that modern-day groups in Lebanon, Israel and Jordan share a large part of their ancestry, in most cases more than half, with the people who lived in the Levant during the Bronze Age, more than 3,000 years ago.
This is even from them. In fact, Palestinians have higher percentage of Canaan DNA than Jews especially Ashkanzi.