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🇪🇸🇮🇹 Columbus may have been SPANISH, not Italian...
Researchers at Spain's University of Granada say genetic evidence points to Columbus having roots in the Iberian Peninsula, potentially in what is now eastern Spain.
For centuries, the explorer who reached the Americas in 1492 has been widely regarded as a native of Genoa, in present-day Italy.
But historians have long debated competing theories about his birthplace.
The DNA findings have sparked renewed debate and more than 500 years later, the question of where Columbus really came from is back in the spotlight.
Source: Universidad de Granada / Writer: Samuel
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Gregory Kheyn @GKK239 ·
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Another proof of Mario’s selective amnesia: the exact University of Granada DNA study he cites (22-year analysis by José Antonio Lorente) found Columbus’s partial DNA and his son Hernando’s Y-chromosome + mtDNA “compatible with Jewish ancestry,” placing him as a Sephardic Jew from the western Mediterranean (likely Spanish Mediterranean coast/Valencia area under the Crown of Aragon), not Genoa. He was a Sephardi Jew who almost certainly hid it amid the 1492 expulsion. Funny how that part vanished from the summary.
Short description of the DNA results:
In October 2024, University of Granada forensic researchers (led by José Antonio Lorente), after ~22 years of work on remains in Seville Cathedral, announced in the RTVE documentary Colón ADN: Su verdadero origen that DNA from Columbus (partial) and especially his son Hernando showed traits in the Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA “compatible with Jewish origin.” Combined with historical context (large Sephardic communities in medieval Spain vs. almost none in Genoa), they concluded he was most likely a Sephardic Jew from the western Mediterranean / Iberian Peninsula (eastern Spain/Crown of Aragon territories), who presented as Christian. The remains were also confirmed as Columbus’s. Findings were presented via documentary rather than a peer-reviewed paper at the time; full data release was later postponed, and independent geneticists noted the lack of published sequences, the vagueness of “compatible with,” and that no unique “Jewish gene” exists.
Note: Mario himself posted the Sephardic finding clearly in October 2024 (“NEW STUDY REVEALS COLUMBUS WAS A SEPHARDIC JEW”), so the omission in the newer post is selective.
