DNA Analysis Unveils Fate of Ancient Canaanites

The New York Times published an article about Dr. Tyler Smith and a team of geneticists and archaeologists that recently found DNA evidence that contradicts a story in the Hebrew Bible.  In the story, God requests the annihilation of all living things including the Ancient Canaanite population.  Dr. Smith and the teams excavated five Canaanite bodies and recovered DNA from the bones; the bodies are known to be between 3,650 to 5,750 years old.  Teams compared the DNA with the genomes of 99 people living in modern day Lebanon and found that modern Lebanese people shared about 93% of their ancestry with the excavated bodies.  Unlike other civilizations from this time period, not much information is known about the Canaanite population.  The discovery of modern day Canaanite ancestry could possibly answer some questions about the population.  These finding are interesting because it shows that the population only changed slightly over a long period of time.    The results also bring up many questions for the Hebrew religion.