Let's not forget that the people we now call Jews (Judeans) were members of a group that called themselves "The ten tribes". Their history begins sometime aroun

Let's not forget that the people we now call Jews (Judeans) were members of a group that called themselves "The ten tribes". Their history begins sometime around the end of the stone age and beginning of the copper age. They appear to have had some special skill or affinity with mining of minerals. For instance the Jewish high priest wears a hoshen or breastplate with samples of 12 different minerals attached to it. At that time in history people lived in tribal groups that migrated a lot in particular those which herded sheep or cattle. This means that out of the 10 tribes, one or more could have originated very far away from modern Israel. Over time, commerce between the 10 tribes would have led them to settle on one language as their lingua franca, and eventually this language would become the language of status even in a tribe that spoke a completely different language. And then the individual languages disappear altogether. Let's not forget that the people of Europe came from somewhere else too. 12,000 years ago, all of Europe except a small part of Spain, was covered under a thick Arctic ice cap. Nothing lived there. So this study could be showing that ancestors of the Phoenicians (who spoke a language very close to Hebrew and were renowned travelers and traders) were the first to repopulate Italy when it reemerged from under the ice.