Genetic Origins of Minoans and Mycenaeans

@Angela, what do you think of the Armenoi sample i wrote of earlier? Has this been discussed in the thread?

Yes, we discussed it, with some of the usual types trying to claim that the reason the sample is 30% steppe or so is because she was part of the elite, while the hoi polloi Mycenaeans were the ones with, if you average all the studies with all the various reference samples about what, 17%?

Ergo, the "real" Mycenaean Lords of legend had a significant amount of "steppe" ancestry, was the clear implication.

Of course, that ignores the fact that there was an elite sample in the mainland which had the same autosomal make up as the others.

It also ignores the fact that the Crete sample is from a later period and might be admixed, given that "Minoans" were such seafarers.

It's always best to stick with the paper, imo:

""Cretan from ArmenoiThis individual has only 42,052 SNPs covered in the HOIll dataset and it belongs to a later period(Late Minoan III A-B ~ 1400-1200 BC) than the samples from Moni Odigitria and Lasithi. It does notform a clade with any single (N=1) population of the All set (p-value for rank=0 < 0.001). There areseveral models that fit (p-value for rank=1 > 0.05) for N=2 that agree on this individual having mostof its ancestry from Anatolian Neolithic-related population with additional ancestry from easternEuropean/North Eurasian hunter-gatherers (Table S2.7), as also suggested by the shift of thisindividual in PCA relative to other Minoans and indeed even the Mycenaeans (Fig. 1b). Weacknowledge the possibility that there was geographical structure in the Bronze Age Cretanpopulation (the Armenoi sample comes from northwestern Crete; Fig. 1a), or that population changehad occurred between the time of the samples from Moni Odigitria and Lasithi and the time of thisindividual, however, the lack of high quality data does not allow us to test these hypotheses further."

That's the sensible and logical conclusion, typical of the work of this group.


Btw, I share some dna with her if mta is to be believed, so I really would like to know for personal reasons as well, but given the quality of the sample, it's probably just guesswork as to what she represents. She might be more like the Mycenaeans than it seems or less. Who knows?
 
Completely understandable. Your job is very tough as a moderator dealing with spammers, flame wars and what not, and you have a point.

About J2B2-L283 in the Italian Peninsula I would love your opinion? When does it date? Maybe this is more related to the Moots Paper, sorry for asking.

I'm not an expert on this clade, and to be honest one of the reasons I stopped investigating it is because the dedicated thread is a swamp of special pleading, spamming of irrelevant information, and insults, and I stopped even reading the thread. I only intervene if someone complains.


I do suspect that the frequency of J2b in certain parts of eastern Italy (and Calabria and Sicily) may represent migration through the Balkans/Greece into Italy.
 
There’s no argument from me. I was bringing up an old study from a legendary geneticist, Cavalli-Sforza (who lived to a very old age), and noting its similarity to the Mycenaean study for modern Greeks and Albanians. Historical demographics have had Albanians living in Greece and Greeks living in Albania. That should not be controversial.
 
Yes, we discussed it, with some of the usual types trying to claim that the reason the sample is 30% steppe or so is because she was part of the elite, while the hoi polloi Mycenaeans were the ones with, if you average all the studies with all the various reference samples about what, 17%?

Ergo, the "real" Mycenaean Lords of legend had a significant amount of "steppe" ancestry, was the clear implication.

Of course, that ignores the fact that there was an elite sample in the mainland which had the same autosomal make up as the others.

It also ignores the fact that the Crete sample is from a later period and might be admixed, given that "Minoans" were such seafarers.

It's always best to stick with the paper, imo:

""Cretan from ArmenoiThis individual has only 42,052 SNPs covered in the HOIll dataset and it belongs to a later period(Late Minoan III A-B ~ 1400-1200 BC) than the samples from Moni Odigitria and Lasithi. It does notform a clade with any single (N=1) population of the All set (p-value for rank=0 < 0.001). There areseveral models that fit (p-value for rank=1 > 0.05) for N=2 that agree on this individual having mostof its ancestry from Anatolian Neolithic-related population with additional ancestry from easternEuropean/North Eurasian hunter-gatherers (Table S2.7), as also suggested by the shift of thisindividual in PCA relative to other Minoans and indeed even the Mycenaeans (Fig. 1b). Weacknowledge the possibility that there was geographical structure in the Bronze Age Cretanpopulation (the Armenoi sample comes from northwestern Crete; Fig. 1a), or that population changehad occurred between the time of the samples from Moni Odigitria and Lasithi and the time of thisindividual, however, the lack of high quality data does not allow us to test these hypotheses further."

That's the sensible and logical conclusion, typical of the work of this group.


Btw, I share some dna with her if mta is to be believed, so I really would like to know for personal reasons as well, but given the quality of the sample, it's probably just guesswork as to what she represents. She might be more like the Mycenaeans than it seems or less. Who knows?
Thanks. Yeah, i agree with your and their input as well. As for your question of steppe average ancestry on the Mycenaean samples, it would be around 10%, and the Armenoi sample would be between 20-30%, if i recall correctly from the supplementary material.

Edit: Proximate sources yeah, it would be around 20% for the Mycenaeans.
 
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It peters out a bit by the time it gets to my area of Italy, but still pretty strong. Good. It's my favorite ancient culture. :)

Interesting how it's a bit darker around Marseilles than around Liguria. It's the effects of Greek colonization around Massalia, perhaps?

There's also a big difference between Cyprus and neighboring areas of the Levant and Turkey. For Turkey I always think the actual relatively recent actual "Turkic" ancestry screws up the similarities a bit.

Interesting for Turkey too--the affinity to modern Turks seems pretty even throughout Turkey (i.e. not too much), but western Turks (especially southwestern) are the Turks with the most actual "Turkic" ancestry. I'm surprised the affinity isn't higher in other areas of Turkey.
 
Interesting for Turkey too--the affinity to modern Turks seems pretty even throughout Turkey (i.e. not too much), but western Turks (especially southwestern) are the Turks with the most actual "Turkic" ancestry. I'm surprised the affinity isn't higher in other areas of Turkey.

Higher percentages of CHG/Iranian Neo? Particularly in the east?
 
Higher percentages of CHG/Iranian Neo? Particularly in the east?

Probably, via Hurro-Urartians and pre-PIEs, I think, right? Lots of Armenian and Iranian (Kurdish, Zaza, etc) genetic influence in the east.
 
what language is closest to ancient greek ?

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The designation "Ancient Greek" is very broad and can include anything from Mycenaean Greek, to Archaic Greek (including Epic/Homeric Greek), to Classical Greek, to Hellenistic/Koine Greek, and even to a number of different dialects for each period prior to Koine. People though mostly use the term "Ancient Greek" to refer to Classical Attic, since it's the dialect with most of the available original literary material. Anyway, in terms of language (i assume you meant modern) closest to Ancient Greek (regardless of period or dialect) then the answer is obviously Modern Greek. Furthermore, Modern Greek also has a number of dialects and idioms, but they are all (except the aforementioned Tsakonian which is traced to Doric) traced to Koine Greek, which is also known as Hellenistic Greek or Biblical Greek. If you meant to ask, which modern Greek dialect is closest to an Ancient Greek dialect prior to Koine, then the answer would be Tsakonian for Doric and the Ophitic variant of Pontic Greek (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontic_Greek#Ophitic) for Attic/Ionic.
 
This study/thread, certainly has influenced me to feel more of a connection with Greeks. Though, my mother's family specifically, always said that they believed they were partly-Greek or more Greek-like, given the history of their town, and region. I was happy to see that the connection verified; despite being 99% sure about it, prior.

If one goes to the Met in NYC, or the great museums in London, and Berlin; they can see an abundance of Ancient Greek pottery and artifacts from Puglia.

Jovialis, where were your parents/grandparents from, which part of Italy?
 
The designation "Ancient Greek" is very broad and can include anything from Mycenaean Greek, to Archaic Greek (including Epic/Homeric Greek), to Classical Greek, to Hellenistic/Koine Greek, and even to a number of different dialects for each period prior to Koine. People though mostly use the term "Ancient Greek" to refer to Classical Attic, since it's the dialect with most of the available original literary material. Anyway, in terms of language (i assume you meant modern) closest to Ancient Greek (regardless of period or dialect) then the answer is obviously Modern Greek. Furthermore, Modern Greek also has a number of dialects and idioms, but they are all (except the aforementioned Tsakonian which is traced to Doric) traced to Koine Greek, which is also known as Hellenistic Greek or Biblical Greek. If you meant to ask, which modern Greek dialect is closest to an Ancient Greek dialect prior to Koine, then the answer would be Tsakonian for Doric and the Ophitic variant of Pontic Greek (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontic_Greek#Ophitic) for Attic/Ionic.
certainly informative. so these dialects all represent an isolate and arent related to any of the celtic languages ?

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certainly informative. so these dialects all represent an isolate and arent related to any of the celtic languages ?

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Only Tsakonian can be considered an isolated dialect, and some even classify it as an independent Hellenic language since it has diverged considerably from the other dialects. On the other hand the Ophitic variant of Pontic Greek is simply the most conservative descendant of Attic/Ionic, which is where all other Greek dialects descend from likewise, through Koine Greek, and hence not an isolated dialect. As for your last question, Greek is generally not related to Celtic. If anything Celtic shares similarities mostly with Italic, hence the hypothetical grouping of the Italo-Celtic branch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo-Celtic) in an Indo-European context.
 
My family is 100% from the province of Bari.

Drove through it on the way back to Rome from Lecce. So it stands to chance that your folks had some interaction with Balkanites at some point or another.
 
Drove through it on the way back to Rome from Lecce. So it stands to chance that your folks had some interaction with Balkanites at some point or another.
... hope you had a good time in Salento, my Town is 5 km (about 3 miles) from Lecce :)

in Roca (Lecce province) they found the:
... the largest set of Mycenaean pottery ever recovered west of mainland Greece.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roca_(archaeological_site)

Roca (archaeological site)
Mycenaeans, Messapi, ...

University of Salento, ... some of the best-preserved monumental architecture of the Bronze Age (2nd millennium BC) in Southern Italy, along with the largest set of Mycenaean pottery ever recovered west of mainland Greece.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roca_(archaeological_site)

Mycenaean Era

DoGagZD.jpg



q5ylWtW.jpg



Northern Gate of the Messapic Walls


rFVWVDS.jpg

https://www.eupedia.com/forum/showthread.php?p=581353#post581353

 
I do not understand why Albanians and Greeks seem to always argue. Given how similar their genetic makeup is.
Its akin to disliking your own kin... Gotta hate politics man.

I say love your neighbor. We can discuss and argument without getting at each others throats maybe?

The Greek and Alban ydna doesn't look too kin. It's clear to me that modern Greeks share a lot of more Mycenean ydna than their Alban neighbors.
 
Y dna represents only 2% of your genome. I wouldn't get so worked up about it. Autosomally, mainland Greeks and Albanians are pretty similar. Indeed, Albanians in some graphs are within Modern Northern Greek variation, a subset, if you will.

I'm half Eastern Ligurian/Tuscan, and I get some similarity to Mycenaeans, although not like Southern Italians or Greek Islanders. If there are no Northern Italians on a calculator I come out either Bulgarian or Albanian. If more Albanians posted their results I'm pretty sure they'd get some matches to Mycenaeans as well.
 
Y dna represents only 2% of your genome. I wouldn't get so worked up about it. Autosomally, mainland Greeks and Albanians are pretty similar. Indeed, Albanians in some graphs are within Modern Northern Greek variation, a subset, if you will.
I'm half Eastern Ligurian/Tuscan, and I get some similarity to Mycenaeans, although not like Southern Italians or Greek Islanders. If there are no Northern Italians on a calculator I come out either Bulgarian or Albanian. If more Albanians posted their results I'm pretty sure they'd get some matches to Mycenaeans as well.
If we stay at the same region for centuries or either millennia, than obviously Greeks and Albans would be autosomally close. However the ydna is important here to understand our origins, especially for the question on this thread.
So far we have a sample ydna of Myceneans which is J2a1. Meanwhile we have other three Minoans which are two J2a1 and one G2a. By these samples we prove that Albanians have nothing to do with bronze age south Greece. At this point they lived somewhere in northern Balkans.
Another point. Myceneans autosomally show some steppe ancestry , while Minoans doesn't. From this we understand that the Ydna haplotype J2a1 is not the carrier which brought the proto Myceneans in southern Balkans.
The one million dollars question is; which was the original ydna haplo that brought proto Myceneans from the Eurasian steppes into southern Greece?
Is it R-Z93 ? Is it Ev13 ? Is it J2b1 ?
 

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