A team of scientists from the Genographic Project, which looks at the migration of humans through tracking their DNA, has discovered faint genetic strains in Lebanon possibly left over from the time of the Crusades.
Researchers have discovered evidence of crusaders\' DNA in Lebanese Christian men. Pic: Medieval miniature painting of the Siege of Antioch. Credit: Public Domain
According to new research by the Project, some European Y chromosomes can be detected in Lebanese Christian men. The European originated chromosome is more prevalent in Lebanese Christians than Lebanon’s Muslim or Druze communities.
The Y chromosome in many Muslim men can be traced from earlier migrations across the Arabian peninsula as the new religion of Islam spread in the 7th and 8th centuries.
Pierre Zalloua, of the Lebanese American University in Beirut, who led the study with Chris Tyler-Smith, of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge, said: “This is the most careful and comprehensive study of these populations ever undertaken, and it’s revealed new insights into the complex history of my country.”
Research was carried out on 926 Lebanese males and it was discovered that 10 per cent of Lebanese Christian men belong to a Y haplogroup known as R1b, which has European origins as opposed to just 6 percent of non-Christian men who carried this type of chromosome.
More than a quarter of a million men travelled from Europe to the Levant during the four Crusades between 1095 and 1204, and thousands stayed to build and to garrison castles.
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