Seven date palm seeds (Phoenix dactylifera L.), radiocarbon dated from the fourth century BCE to the second century CE, were recovered from archaeological sites in the Southern Levant and germinated to yield viable plants. We conducted whole-genome sequencing of these germinated ancient samples and used single-nucleotide polymorphism data to examine the genetics of these previously extinct Judean date palms. We find that the oldest seeds from the fourth to first century BCE are related to modern West Asian date varieties, but later material from the second century BCE to second century CE showed increasing genetic affinities to present-day North African date palms. Population genomic analysis reveals that by ∼2,400 to 2,000 y ago, the P. dactylifera gene pool in the Eastern Mediterranean already contained introgressed segments from the Cretan palm Phoenix theophrasti, a crucial genetic feature of the modern North African date palm populations. The P. theophrasti introgression fraction content is generally higher in the later samples, while introgression tracts are longer in these ancient germinated date palms compared to modern North African varieties. These results provide insights into crop evolution arising from an analysis of plants originating from ancient germinated seeds and demonstrate what can be accomplished with the application of a resurrection genomics approach.

七颗椰枣种子 ( Phoenix dactylifera L.) 是从公元前四世纪到公元二世纪的放射性碳，从南黎凡特的考古遗址中被发现并发芽以产生可行的植物。我们对这些发芽的古代样本进行了全基因组测序，并使用单核苷酸多态性数据来检查这些以前灭绝的朱迪亚枣椰树的遗传学。我们发现公元前四世纪到一世纪最古老的种子与现代西亚枣品种有关，但公元前二世纪到公元二世纪的后期材料显示出与当今北非枣椰树的遗传亲和力增加。种群基因组分析表明，到 2,400 到 2,000 年前，P. dactylifera东地中海的基因库已经包含来自克里特岛棕榈Phoenix theophrasti的基因渗入片段，这是现代北非椰枣种群的一个重要遗传特征。该P.苘渗入成分的含量通常在以后的血样中是较高的，而渗入大片，在这些古老的发芽椰枣较长相比，现代北非品种。这些结果提供了对源自古代发芽种子的植物的分析所产生的作物进化的见解，并证明了应用复活基因组学方法可以实现的目标。