A new ancient-DNA survey of human remains from nine southern-Levantine sites indicates that present-day Jewish and Arabic-speaking communities typically derive at least fifty per cent of their genomes from Bronze Age inhabitants of the region who shared a common “Canaanite” material culture.
The authors extracted and analysed genome-wide data from seventy-three newly sampled individuals—dating between roughly 2400 BCE and 900 BCE—and combined them with twenty previously published genomes, creating a dataset of ninety-three ancient people. Comparative modelling shows that almost all can be described as a mixture of earlier Neolithic villagers of the Levant and migrants related to populations of the Zagros Mountains or the Caucasus, with the non-local component gradually increasing through the Middle and Late Bronze Age.
Across the nine sites, the Bronze-Age groups display striking genetic homogeneity; inland settlements such as Megiddo, Hazor and ‘Ain Ghazal are closer to one another genetically than to any outside population, despite political independence during the period . The main coastal exception is Sidon, whose inhabitants exhibit a more mixed profile, probably reflecting maritime contacts, yet even their genomes still fit the same two-way model .
Using two complementary statistical frameworks, the authors then compared these Bronze-Age genomes with fourteen modern Jewish and Levantine Arab populations. Both methods converge on a shared inheritance exceeding fifty per cent from the ancient Canaanite–Zagros blend; additional layers include a later east-African contribution that rises southwards and a milder European signal that is stronger in the north and among diaspora Jews .
Among the ancient remains, three individuals interred together at Megiddo stand out. Their genomes carry markedly higher Caucasus-related ancestry than their neighbours, yet strontium‐isotope ratios show local childhood diets, implying that their immigrant forebears had settled on the site only a generation or two earlier. The authors interpret these “Megiddo outliers” as evidence that pulses of migration from the northeast continued into the late second millennium BCE .
The study concludes that while later population movements left discernible traces, the genetic foundation laid by Bronze-Age Canaanite communities has persisted with remarkable continuity in the peoples living between the Mediterranean and Jordan Rift today.
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