Mysterious Minoans Were European!

[Kowalski]

Mysterious Minoans Were European, DNA Finds

The Minoans, the builders of Europe's first advanced civilization, really were European, new research suggests.

The conclusion, published today (May 14) in the journal Nature Communications, was drawn by comparing DNA from 4,000-year-old Minoan skeletons with genetic material from people living throughout Europe and Africa in the past and today.

"We now know that the founders of the first advanced European civilization were European," said study co-author George Stamatoyannopoulos, a human geneticist at the University of Washington. "They were very similar to Neolithic Europeans and very similar to present day-Cretans," residents of the Mediterranean island of Crete.

While that may sound intuitive, the findings challenge a long-held theory that the ancient Minoans came from Egypt.

First European Civilization

The Minoan culture emerged on Crete, which is now part of Greece, and flourished from about 2,700 B.C. to 1,420 B.C. Some believe that a massive eruption from the Volcano Thera on the island of Santorini doomed the Bronze Age civilization, while others argue that invading Mycenaeans toppled the once-great power.

Nowadays, the Minoans may be most famous for the myth of the minotaur, a half-man, half-bull that was fabled to lived within a labyrinth in Crete. [10 Beasts & Dragons: How Reality Made Myth]

When British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans discovered the Minoan palace of Knossos more than 100 years ago, he was dumbstruck by its beauty. He also noticed an eerie similarity between Minoan and Egyptian art, and didn't believe that the culture was homegrown.

"That's why Evans postulated the civilization was imported from Egypt or Libya," Stamatoyannopoulos told LiveScience.

Genetic clues

To test that idea, the research team analyzed DNA from ancient Minoan skeletons that were sealed in a cave in Crete's Lassithi Plateau between 3,700 and 4,400 years ago. They then compared the skeletal mitochondrial DNA, which is stored in the energy powerhouses of cells and passed on through the maternal line, with that found in a sample of 135 modern and ancient populations from around Europe and Africa.

The researchers found that the Minoan skeletons were genetically very similar to modern-day Europeans — and especially close to modern-day Cretans, particularly those from the Lassithi Plateau. They were also genetically similar to Neolithic Europeans, but distinct from Egyptian or Libyan populations.

The findings argue against Evan's hypothesis and suggest that locals, not African expats, developed the Minoan culture.

"It was a period of excitement around the Mediterranean," so although the Minoans definitely had contact with their African neighbors across the Mediterranean, any similarities in art were probably the result of cultural exchange, Stamatoyannopoulos said.

Ancient language?

The findings suggest that the ancient Minoans were likely descended from a branch of agriculturalists in Anatolia (what is now modern-day Turkey and Iraq) that fanned out into Europe about 9,000 years ago. If so, the Minoans may have spoken a proto-Indo-European language derived from the one possibly spoken by those Anatolian farmers, the researchers speculate.

Knowing that the Minoan language has Indo-European roots could help archaeologists decipher a mysterious Minoan writing system, known as Linear A, Stamatoyannopoulos said.

Taken from http://news.yahoo.com/mysterious-minoans-were-european-dna-finds-151455582.html

For more information check out this link: http://www.livescience.com/27955-knossos-palace-of-the-minoans.html

Another interesting article, on the eruption of Thera, check out: http://www.livescience.com/4846-eruption-thera-changed-world.html

Thera didn't just alter the cultural make up of Europe, it has kept adventurers and treasure hunters busy too.

When the Greek philosopher Plato described the lost city of Atlantis over a thousand years after the volcanic eruption, he may have been referring to Thera folklore passed down in Greece over many generations and exaggerated like a game of broken telephone.

The eruption has also been loosely linked with the Biblical story of Moses and the exodus from Egypt. The effects of Thera's eruption could have explained many of the plagues described in the Old Testament, including the days of darkness and polluting of the rivers, according to some theories.

[wolfknight]

I very interesting read.

[Abramelin]

Then how about this; it appears to contradict the OP:

DNA sheds light on Minoans

Crete’s fabled Minoan civilization was built by people from Anatolia, according to a new study by Greek and foreign scientists that disputes an earlier theory that said the Minoans’ forefathers had come from Africa.

The new study – a collaboration by experts in Greece, the USA, Canada, Russia and Turkey – drew its conclusions from the DNA analysis of 193 men from Crete and another 171 from former neolithic colonies in central and northern Greece.

The results show that the country’s neolithic population came to Greece by sea from Anatolia – modern-day Iran, Iraq and Syria – and not from Africa as maintained by US scholar Martin Bernal.

The DNA analysis indicates that the arrival of neolithic man in Greece from Anatolia coincided with the social and cultural upsurge that led to the birth of the Minoan civilization, Constantinos Triantafyllidis of Thessaloniki’s Aristotle University told Kathimerini.

“Until now we only had the archaeological evidence – now we have genetic data too and we can date the DNA,” he said.

Archeological dates for the colonisation of Crete are about 7,000 BC.

In more detail...

(...)

They identified J2a parent haplogroup J2a-M410 (Crete: 25.9%) with the first ancient residents of Crete during the Neolithic (8500 BCE – 4300 BCE) suggesting Crete was founded by a Neolithic population expansion from ancient Turkey/Anatolia. Specifically, the researchers connected the source population of ancient Crete to well known Neolithic sites of ancient Anatolia: Asıklı Höyük, Çatalhöyük, Hacılar, Mersin/Yumuktepe, and Tarsus. Haplogroup J2b-M12 (Crete: 3.1%; Greece: 5.9%) was associated with Neolithic Greece. Haplogroups J2a1h-M319 (8.8%) and J2a1b1-M92 (2.6%) were associated with the Minoan culture linked to a late Neolithic/ Early Bronze Age migration to Crete ca. 3100 BCE from North-Western/Western Anatolia and Syro-Palestine (ancient Canaan, Levant, and pre-Akkadian Anatolia); Aegean prehistorians link the date 3100 BCE to the origins of the Minoan culture on Crete.

http://mathildasanth...ns-dna-and-all/

http://onlinelibrary....20857/abstract

[PersonFromPorlock]

But the fact that the Minoans were genetically European doesn't rule out the possibility they imported their culture from Egypt. Two different things entirely.

[Abramelin]

I see a difference: Kowalski's article is about genetic research done on 4000 years old bones (2000 BCE), mine is about bones of 8500 BCE – 4300 BCE.

So that would mean the Minoans of 4300 BCE and older are related to Anatolians, those of 2000 BCE are Europeans.

.

Edited May 15, 2013 by Abramelin

[cormac mac airt]

I see a difference: Kowalski's article is about genetic research done on 4000 years old bones (2000 BCE), mine is about bones of 8500 BCE – 4300 BCE.

So that would mean the Minoans of 4300 BCE and older are related to Anatolians, those of 2000 BCE are Europeans.

.

Considering that the article doesn't go into specifics as to what sub-haplogroup the word "Europeans" is being applied to the only thing the article is doing is, as has been done by prior genetics tests, ruled out Evans claim of Egyptian ancestry for the Minoans. As to the primary haplogroups involved in the study; Haplogroups H (43.2%), T (18.9%), K (16.2%) and I (8.1%) they are Anatolian/Middle Eastern in origin. The article itself actually stating:

Our results strongly suggest that the principal matrilineal genetic relationships of the Minoans are with Neolithic, ancient and modern European populations. Such findings are in support of the hypothesis of an autochthonous origin of the Minoan civilization by the descendants of the Neolithic settlers of the island (4,13). As it has been proposed for the other Neolithic European populations (21-23), the most likely origin of the Cretan Neolithic settlers was Anatolia and the Middle East (4,7,9-11). Given that the timing of the first Neolithic inhabitants to reach Crete 9,000 YBP coincides with the migration of Neolithic farmers out of Anatolia (3), it is highly probable that the same ancestral population that spread to Europe, also spread to Crete and contributed to the founding of the early Minoan civilization.

It has been suggested (24) that in addition to agricultural methods, the Anatolian farmers also brought with them the Indo-European language (25,26). The current prevailing hypothesis is that the Minoan language was unrelated to the Indo-European family. Alternatively, as suggested by Renfrew (5), Proto-Minoan was one of the branches derived from the Proto-Indo-European language about 9,000 YBP.

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n5/pdf/ncomms2871.pdf

cormac

[Glorfindel]

I see a difference: Kowalski's article is about genetic research done on 4000 years old bones (2000 BCE), mine is about bones of 8500 BCE – 4300 BCE.

So that would mean the Minoans of 4300 BCE and older are related to Anatolians, those of 2000 BCE are Europeans.

.

I did not realize there was debate over whether the Minoans were European or not, intersting. I should point out the "Anatolians" of the ancient world were also Europeans, at least from a cultural and linguistic stand point. Were not these Anatolians Indo-European farmers? Or am I going off outdated info? Apologies if these questions have already been answered.

Edit* I just read the above post, must have missed that one. So where does the debate even originate? Where is evidence of non-European origins? Just cultural similarities with other Mediterranean cultures like the Egyptians? Oh, there language was not I-E, I see, sorry guys, I havent dranken any coffee yet today hehe.

Edited May 15, 2013 by Glorfindel

[Glorfindel]

ffffffffacepalm

Edited May 15, 2013 by Glorfindel

[Kowalski]

I did not realize there was debate over whether the Minoans were European or not, intersting.

I didn't either! I just thought it was in interesting article!

[cormac mac airt]

I did not realize there was debate over whether the Minoans were European or not, intersting. I should point out the "Anatolians" of the ancient world were also Europeans, at least from a cultural and linguistic stand point. Were not these Anatolians Indo-European farmers? Or am I going off outdated info? Apologies if these questions have already been answered.

Edit* I just read the above post, must have missed that one. So where does the debate even originate? Where is evidence of non-European origins? Just cultural similarities with other Mediterranean cultures like the Egyptians? Oh, there language was not I-E, I see, sorry guys, I havent dranken any coffee yet today hehe.

The writer of the article, based on whatever sources she is using, appears to think that Evans original claim retains any merit in the scientific community. It doesn't and hasn't for quite some time. That she apparently doesn't know this is sad, to say the least.

cormac

[cormac mac airt]

I didn't either! I just thought it was in interesting article!

The debate isn't so much that they were European, since they are closely related to other European groups, but that they are not Egyptian/Libyan in origin. That is the real point of the article.

And yes, it is an interesting article.

cormac

[No Censorship]

Afrocentrists won't like this one. As for Turkey, a tiny portion or region is in Europe. It's one of those Eurasian conundrums. Continental debates aside, the first known great cultures had one thing in common: the Mediterranean. It's possible that Egyptian art and scholarship found their way to the Minoans. That doesn't mean that both groups shared the same ethnicity. The relationship might have been common to that of the continental Celts and the Isles tribes when the culture and language of the former was shared with the latter. On the subject, can anybody fill in this blank?: _ to Mesopotamia to Egypt to Crete to Greece to Rome to other European regions to the Americas to the moon.

[docyabut2]

Afrocentrists won't like this one. As for Turkey, a tiny portion or region is in Europe. It's one of those Eurasian conundrums. Continental debates aside, the first known great cultures had one thing in common: the Mediterranean. It's possible that Egyptian art and scholarship found their way to the Minoans. That doesn't mean that both groups shared the same ethnicity. The relationship might have been common to that of the continental Celts and the Isles tribes when the culture and language of the former was shared with the latter. On the subject, can anybody fill in this blank?: _ to Mesopotamia to Egypt to Crete to Greece to Rome to other European regions to the Americas to the moon.

Perhaps the Anatolians were of the Celts and of the Isles tribes.

[Kowalski]

According to this thread: http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=248093

There was this article posted. Very interesting:

http://www.nature.com/news/minoan-civilization-was-made-in-europe-1.12990

When the British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans discovered the 4,000-year-old Palace of Minos on Crete in 1900, he saw the vestiges of a long-lost civilization whose artefacts set it apart from later Bronze-Age Greeks. The Minoans, as Evans named them, were refugees from Northern Egypt who had been expelled by invaders from the South about 5,000 years ago, he claimed.

Modern archaeologists have questioned that version of events, and now ancient DNA recovered from Cretan caves suggests that the Minoan civilization emerged from the early farmers who settled the island thousands of years earlier.

The Minoans flourished on Crete for as many as 12 centuries until about 1,500 bc, when it is thought to have been devastated by a catastrophic eruption of the Mediterranean island volcano Santorini, and a subsequent tsunami. They are widely recognized as one of Europe's first 'high cultures', renowned for their pottery, metal-work and colourful frescoes. Their civilization fuelled Greek myths such as the story of the Minotaur, the half-man, half-bull creature who lived in a labyrinth.

Evans was among the first to explore Crete after it gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1898. His team discovered the 4,000-year-old Palace of Minos, and uncovered artefacts very different from those of Bronze Age Greece, including thick-walled circular tombs that bore a resemblance to those of ancient North Africans, and still-undeciphered scripts dubbed Linear A and Cretan hieroglyphs.

Others have suggested that the Minoans originated in the Middle East, modern-day Turkey or the Mediterranean. Genetic studies of modern Cretans have come to little consensus.

George Stamatoyannopoulos, a geneticist at the University of Washington in Seattle who has been working on the problem for more than a decade, hoped that he could settle the debate by looking at the DNA of the long-dead Minoans. “One of my motivations when I started the whole thing was to see whether Sir Arthur Evans was right or not,” he says.

Stamatoyannopoulos's team assembled bone and tooth samples from more than 100 individuals who lived on Crete between 4,900 and 3,800 years ago. Of these, 37 yielded mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down in the maternal line. The team analysed the samples in two different laboratories — a quality-control method common in ancient DNA work.

Cultural exchange

The Minoan samples possessed 21 different mitochondrial DNA markers, including 6 unique to Minoans and 15 common in modern, Bronze Age and Neolithic European populations. None of the Minoans possessed mitochondrial markers similar to those of present-day African populations. The results are published online today in Nature Communications¹.

It is likely, says Stamatoyannopoulos, that the Minoans descended from Neolithic populations that migrated to Europe from the Middle East and Turkey. Archaeological excavations suggest that early farmers were living in Crete by around 9,000 years ago, so these could be the ancestors of the Minoans. Similarities between Minoan and Egyptian artefacts were probably the result of cultural exchanges across the navigable Mediterranean Sea, rather than wholesale migrations, he adds.

Wolfgang Haak, a molecular archaeologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia, thinks that Crete’s early history is probably more complicated, with multiple Neolithic populations arriving at different times. “It's nevertheless good to see some data — if authentic — from this region of Europe contributing to the big and complex puzzle,” he says.

Evans was among the first to explore Crete after it gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1898. His team discovered the 4,000-year-old Palace of Minos, and uncovered artefacts very different from those of Bronze Age Greece, including thick-walled circular tombs that bore a resemblance to those of ancient North Africans, and still-undeciphered scripts dubbed Linear A and Cretan hieroglyphs.

Others have suggested that the Minoans originated in the Middle East, modern-day Turkey or the Mediterranean. Genetic studies of modern Cretans have come to little consensus.

George Stamatoyannopoulos, a geneticist at the University of Washington in Seattle who has been working on the problem for more than a decade, hoped that he could settle the debate by looking at the DNA of the long-dead Minoans. “One of my motivations when I started the whole thing was to see whether Sir Arthur Evans was right or not,” he says.

Stamatoyannopoulos's team assembled bone and tooth samples from more than 100 individuals who lived on Crete between 4,900 and 3,800 years ago. Of these, 37 yielded mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down in the maternal line. The team analysed the samples in two different laboratories — a quality-control method common in ancient DNA work.

Cultural exchange

The Minoan samples possessed 21 different mitochondrial DNA markers, including 6 unique to Minoans and 15 common in modern, Bronze Age and Neolithic European populations. None of the Minoans possessed mitochondrial markers similar to those of present-day African populations. The results are published online today in Nature Communications¹.

It is likely, says Stamatoyannopoulos, that the Minoans descended from Neolithic populations that migrated to Europe from the Middle East and Turkey. Archaeological excavations suggest that early farmers were living in Crete by around 9,000 years ago, so these could be the ancestors of the Minoans. Similarities between Minoan and Egyptian artefacts were probably the result of cultural exchanges across the navigable Mediterranean Sea, rather than wholesale migrations, he adds.

Wolfgang Haak, a molecular archaeologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia, thinks that Crete’s early history is probably more complicated, with multiple Neolithic populations arriving at different times. “It's nevertheless good to see some data — if authentic — from this region of Europe contributing to the big and complex puzzle,” he says.

I think this is extremely interesting! Not that long ago, I watched a documentary on the history channel, about who discovered America. Anyway, a blood DNA test showed that many full blood Cherokee Indians had Jewish DNA!! Where the heck did that come from??

[cormac mac airt]

According to this thread: http://www.unexplain...howtopic=248093

There was this article posted. Very interesting:

http://www.nature.co...-europe-1.12990

[/color]

I think this is extremely interesting! Not that long ago, I watched a documentary on the history channel, about who discovered America. Anyway, a blood DNA test showed that many full blood Cherokee Indians had Jewish DNA!! Where the heck did that come from??

While you may have seen a "documentary" on the History Channel full-blooded Cherokee DO NOT have the same DNA as the Jews. While the Native American groups are mtDNA haplogroups A2, B2, C1, D1, X2a and X2g the Cherokee themselves belong mainly to the B and C haplogroups. Actual Ashkenazi Jews belong to the main haplogroups K (31.9%), H (20.4%), N (10.1%), J (8.1%), HV (5.8%), U (5.8%) and T (4.8%). Notice that there are NO common groups between the two. As to where any other haplogroup may have come from it's not hard to explain considering that the Americas from the time of Columbus to present have been colonized for more than 520 years. With that much time there would have been many, MANY Native American/European pairings introducing non-Native American DNA into the Cherokee gene-pool.

cormac

[No Censorship]

Perhaps the Anatolians were of the Celts and of the Isles tribes.

Celts lived in Turkey, and they were known as Galatians. They weren't the same ethnicity as the Isles tribes, though.