Results of a DNA study by geneticist Ariella Oppenheim matched historical accounts that Arab Israelis and Palestinians,[69][70] together as the one same population, represent modern "descendants of a core population that lived in the area since prehistoric times", albeit religiously Christianized and later largely Islamized, then both ultimately becoming culturally Arabized.[71] Referring to those of the Muslim faith more specifically, it reaffirmed that Palestinian "Muslim Arabs are descended from Christians and Jews who lived in the southern Levant, a region that includes Israel and the Sinai." Geneticist Michael Hammer praised "the study for 'focusing in detail on the Jewish and Palestinian populations.'" [72]