Genetic origins of the Minoans and Mycenaeans (original) (raw)
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The origins of the Bronze Age Minoan and Mycenaean cultures have puzzled archaeologists for more than a century. We have assembled genome-wide data from 19 ancient individuals, including Minoans from Crete, Mycenaeans from mainland Greece, and their eastern neighbours from southwestern Anatolia. Here we show that Minoans and Mycenaeans were genetically similar, having at least three-quarters of their ancestry from the first Neolithic farmers of western Anatolia and the Aegean, and most of the remainder from ancient populations related to those of the Caucasus and Iran. However, the Mycenaeans differed from Minoans in deriving additional ancestry from an ultimate source related to the hunter–gatherers of eastern Europe and Siberia, introduced via a proximal source related to the inhabitants of either the Eurasian steppe or Armenia. Modern Greeks resemble the Mycenaeans, but with some additional dilution of the Early Neolithic ancestry. Our results support the idea of continuity but not isolation in the history of populations of the Aegean, before and after the time of its earliest civilizations.
Proceedings of the European Academy of Sciences & Arts, 2022
Alerted by a trio of papers that appear in the journal SCIENCE today (26 th August 2022) I present briefly the essential findings with some extension on the hot subject of ancient DNA studies over all the World but mainly the SE Mediterranean and Euro-Asian neighborhood. These three papers summarize the results of a remarkable Ancient DNA project and involving 202 co-authors. These studies draw on published archaeogenetic records and new DNA analysis of 727 individuals who lived during the Copper and Bronze Ages. These people populated the "Southern Arc," a swath of land connecting Europe to West Asia through Anatolia including coastal Levant. The findings are critically discussed in the wider frame of aDNA results, the migration and mobilities for the past about 8000 years ago and linked with the non-linear evolution processes of ancient cultures. Particular emphasis here is given to the 2016 expedition at the Late Helladic site of Kastrouli near Delphi in Greece, that contribute to these studies.
Finding Mycenaeans in Minoan Crete? Isotope and DNA analysis of human mobility in Bronze Age Crete
PLOS ONE
We undertook a large-scale study of Neolithic and Bronze Age human mobility on Crete using biomolecular methods (isotope analysis, DNA), with a particular focus on sites dating to the Late Bronze Age (‘Late Minoan’) period. We measured the strontium and sulphur isotope values of animal remains from archaeological sites around the island of Crete to determine the local baseline values. We then measured the strontium and sulphur values of humans from Late Neolithic and Bronze Age sites. Our results indicate that most of the humans have sulphur and strontium isotope values consistent with being local to Crete, showing no evidence for a wide-scale movement of people from the Greek mainland or other areas away from Crete in these time periods. However, we found four individuals from the late Bronze Age (Late Minoan III) cemetery of Armenoi with sulphur isotope values not typically found in Crete and are instead consistent with an origin elsewhere. This cemetery at Armenoi also has one of...
Ancient DNA reveals admixture history and endogamy in the prehistoric Aegean
Nature Ecology & Evolution
The Neolithic and Bronze Ages were highly transformative periods for the genetic history of Europe but for the Aegean—a region fundamental to Europe’s prehistory—the biological dimensions of cultural transitions have been elucidated only to a limited extent so far. We have analysed newly generated genome-wide data from 102 ancient individuals from Crete, the Greek mainland and the Aegean Islands, spanning from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. We found that the early farmers from Crete shared the same ancestry as other contemporaneous Neolithic Aegeans. In contrast, the end of the Neolithic period and the following Early Bronze Age were marked by ‘eastern’ gene flow, which was predominantly of Anatolian origin in Crete. Confirming previous findings for additional Central/Eastern European ancestry in the Greek mainland by the Middle Bronze Age, we additionally show that such genetic signatures appeared in Crete gradually from the seventeenth to twelfth centuries bc, a period when the in...
Out-of-Anatolia: cultural and genetic interactions during the Neolithic expansion in the Aegean
Western Anatolia has been a crucial yet elusive element in the Neolithic expansion from the Fertile Crescent to Europe. Using 30 new palaeogenomes from Anatolia c.8000-6000 BCE we describe the early Holocene genetic landscape of Western Anatolia, which reveals population continuity since the late Upper Pleistocene. Our findings indicate that the Neolithisation of Western Anatolia in the 7 th millennium BCE was a multifaceted process, characterised by the assimilation of Neolithic practices by indigenous groups and the influx of populations from the east, their admixed descendants eventually laying the foundations of Neolithic Southeast Europe. Intriguingly, the observed diversity in material culture among Aegean Early Neolithic communities correlates with their geographical distances but not their genetic differences, signifying a decoupling between cultural developments and genetic admixture processes. .
The genomic history of the Aegean Palatial civilisations
Highlights d Bronze Age (BA) Helladic, Cycladic, and Minoan genomes from the Aegean were sequenced d 3,000 BCE Aegeans are homogeneous and derive ancestry mainly from Neolithic farmers d Neolithic Caucasus-like and BA Pontic-Caspian Steppe-like gene flow shaped the Aegean d Present-day Greeks are genetically similar to 2,000 BCE Aegeans from Northern Greece
The genomic history of the Aegean palatial civilizations
Cell
Highlights d Bronze Age (BA) Helladic, Cycladic, and Minoan genomes from the Aegean were sequenced d 3,000 BCE Aegeans are homogeneous and derive ancestry mainly from Neolithic farmers d Neolithic Caucasus-like and BA Pontic-Caspian Steppe-like gene flow shaped the Aegean d Present-day Greeks are genetically similar to 2,000 BCE Aegeans from Northern Greece
The earliest Neolithic sites of Europe are located in Crete and mainland Greece. A debate persists concerning whether these farmers originated in neighboring Anatolia and the role of maritime colonization. To address these issues 171 samples were collected from areas near three known early Neolithic settlements in Greece together with 193 samples from Crete. An analysis of Y-chromosome haplogroups determined that the samples from the Greek Neolithic sites showed strong affinity to Balkan data, while Crete shows affinity with central/Mediterranean Anatolia. Haplogroup J2b-M12 was frequent in Thessaly and Greek Macedonia while haplogroup J2a-M410 was scarce. Alternatively, Crete, like Anatolia showed a high frequency of J2a-M410 and a low frequency of J2b-M12. This dichotomy parallels archaeobotanical evidence, specifically that while bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) is known from Neolithic Anatolia, Crete and southern Italy; it is absent from earliest Neolithic Greece. The expansion time of YSTR variation for haplogroup E3b1a2-V13, in the Peloponnese was consistent with an indigenous Mesolithic presence. In turn, two distinctive haplogroups, J2a1h-M319 and J2a1b1-M92, have demographic properties consistent with Bronze Age expansions in Crete, arguably from NW/W Anatolia and Syro-Palestine, while a later mainland (Mycenaean) contribution to Crete is indicated by relative frequencies of V13.
Early farmers from across Europe directly descended from Neolithic Aegeans
Mark Thomas, Jens Blöcher, Fokke Gerritsen, Mathias Currat, Christina Papageorgopoulou, Lucy van Dorp, Barbara Horejs, Dushka Urem-Kotsou, Sevi Triantaphyllou, Stephen Shennan, Ciler Cilingiroglu
Farming and sedentism first appeared in southwestern Asia during the early Holocene and later spread to neighboring regions, including Europe, along multiple dispersal routes. Conspicuous uncertainties remain about the relative roles of migration, cultural diffusion, and admixture with local foragers in the early Neolithization of Europe. Here we present paleogenomic data for five Neolithic individuals from northern Greece and northwestern Turkey spanning the time and region of the earliest spread of farming into Europe. We use a novel approach to recalibrate raw reads and call genotypes from ancient DNA and observe striking genetic similarity both among Aegean early farmers and with those from across Europe. Our study demonstrates a direct genetic link between Mediterranean and Central European early farmers and those of Greece and Anatolia, extending the European Neolithic migratory chain all the way back to southwestern Asia. paleogenomics | Neolithic | Mesolithic | Greece | Anatolia