Genetic Origins of Minoans and Mycenaeans

It is not easy for farmers to leave their land and migrate, unless there is pressure from other tribes or invaders, but ,hunters and gathers are mobile , they don't stay in just one place ,
It's a new trick merging EHG with WHG in all admixture analysis... what was done with EHG?

By the way if the common difference between Neolithic Greece and pre-Mycenean + Minoan is the CHG and their old languages were not IE but Minoan and Pelasgian, the CHG side is not supporting much a "Caucasian" IE urheimat.



Sintashta
 
Angela, i am sure that if we had more samples from southern Greece, Peloponnesus for example, they would also overlap with the Mycenaean samples as presented on the PCA for the Sicilians and the Ashkenazi Jews. What's your thoughts on this? The Greek samples are not very varied to give an accurate picture, since most come from Thessaloniki (Macedon) and Crete. It is a known fact that Sicilians are very close to Peloponnesian Greeks. Just as an example have a look at this PCA taken from the "Genetics of the peloponnesean populations and the theory of extinction of the medieval peloponnesean Greeks, https://www.nature.com/articles/ejhg201718" study, which shows the Peloponnesian Greeks overlapping with the Sicilians.

ejhg201718f2.jpg


Postscript: I didn't read all of the thread, but i did go through many pages. Don't know whether you already gave an answer to this.

I am afraid that this study is a failure since it compares the modern Greeks with populations such as Belorussians, Polish, Ukrainians and Russians to determine how much "ancient Greek" or "Slavic" modern Greeks are!

In order to do such an experiment, your assumption that the Slavs that came to Greece in the Medieval were like the modern Belorussians or Poles, must shift to an assumption that the proto-Slavs who started migrating from Central and Eastern Europe towards the Balkans, must have absorbed and accumulated a lot of foreign blood and with that regard a native Balkan, such as a Dacian or a Thracian who happened to be on their path to Greece.
We do have native Iron Age Balkan samples such as Iron Age Bulgaria I5769 and Iron Age Scythians from Moldova such as scy300 and scy305 who happen to be way more similar to the available ancient Greek samples than to modern Poles or Belorussians!

We can observe this phenomenon in every study until now, we have a study for Lombards, Visigoths or Avars and many of them were of mixed origins and yet they were united under a single culture because it is not the genetics that united them but the culture they accepted!

As such, many modern Greeks been close genetically to Sicilians doesn't mean much unless there is an alternative way such as comparing the y-dna and mt-dna markers or IBD sharing that can prove the kinship of the populations in question and of course, assuming that modern Sicilians are descendants of the ancient Greeks.

Now, we have here too many assumptions so we better skip the Sicilians altogether and compare the modern Greeks directly to the ancient ones for better results!

Unfortunately, we don't have many Greeks here who post their genetic results unlike others.
For example, we actually have a dozen of ancient samples to which we can actually compare our DNA directly using some helpful tools such as Gedmatch!

Comparing my own DNA, I have found out that I share the most DNA and segments with an ancient sample from LBK Stuttgart which was a Neolithic, farmer like sample!
Now, this is not a big surprise since this sample happens to be a very good match for a lot of people, you can check out this very useful blog: https://dna-explained.com/2014/10/04/more-ancient-dna-samples-for-comparison/

Now, when I try to compare my DNA with ancient samples from the Balkans, the best match for me is an Iron Age sample from Bulgaria, I5769, with who I share a total of 7.8 cM with the largest segment being 3.9 cM long!
I also share a DNA with the Bronze Age samples from Dalmatia, I3313 and I4331, the Bronze Age sample from Bulgaria, I2163 and the two "Avar" samples from Hungary, AV1 and AV2!

Interestingly enough, I don't share a DNA with the available ancient Greek samples on Gedmatch such as the Mycenaeans and the recently added Classical Greek from the Iberian colony of Emporion, I8215!

To me, this is very logical and trustworthy because if it was just a coincidence, how come I share DNA with ancient samples who actually are of relevance for the history of the Balkan people?
How come I don't share DNA with Germanic, Iberian or Collegno samples if it was just a coincidence?

The y-dna and mt-dna markers are also of great importance and so far all ancient Greek samples had turned out to be J2a albeit we need much better resolution than simple designation such as J2a!

But even then, modern Greeks are only around 20% J2a in terms of y-dna!

As you see, once you open the Pandora's box, you will find that there are so many if's, and it's not that easy as a simple two dimensional PCA plot or admixture comparison based on TSI, IBS or other imaginary admixture components, to determine what those scientist tried to do!
 
@Demetrios,

The particular paper you referenced above has nothing to do with ancient dna and really shouldn't be discussed at length on this thread. It attempted to use modern dna to assess relationships between groups, as many papers have done in the past, but doesn't tell us about the origin of the Minoans and Mycenaeans.

Post #1244 seems to be talking about the Lazaridis paper which is the subject of the thread, and then rather confusingly jumping to a discussion of IBD matching with ancient samples.

Given the hundreds of years of recombination which has gone on between the dates of these ancient samples and the present time, which particular IBD snippet any one might have wound up with is random, although clearly it's likely it will be one of the population groups from which that person can claim descent. One shouldn't be drawing conclusions about the majority of one's ancestry from such a finding, however, not to mention that these are amateur analyses which can conflict with one another.

Yes, one might take a test such as mytrueancestry, or use free online tools, and they could give you a sense of your overall similarity to the ancient samples we have, and they, or at least mytrueancestry, offers an IBD analysis, but these are not comparisons done by academics, and it's very difficult to sometimes to distinguish real IBD segments.

I also personally find the labeling of the samples at mytrueancestry extremely problematic and quite misleading.

In terms of the Greeks we also have very few ancient samples, unfortunately, only some Minoans and Mycenaeans, and some from all the way back in the Greek Neolithic. There are no samples from classical Greece for example, although hopefully they're somewhere in the pipeline. The Italian samples are just starting to trickle in as well.
 
@Demetrios,

The particular paper you referenced above has nothing to do with ancient dna and really shouldn't be discussed at length on this thread. It attempted to use modern dna to assess relationships between groups, as many papers have done in the past, but doesn't tell us about the origin of the Minoans and Mycenaeans.

Post #1244 seems to be talking about the Lazaridis paper which is the subject of the thread, and then rather confusingly jumping to a discussion of IBD matching with ancient samples.

Given the hundreds of years of recombination which has gone on between the dates of these ancient samples and the present time, which particular IBD snippet any one might have wound up with is random, although clearly it's likely it will be one of the population groups from which that person can claim descent. One shouldn't be drawing conclusions about the majority of one's ancestry from such a finding, however, not to mention that these are amateur analyses which can conflict with one another.

Yes, one might take a test such as mytrueancestry, or use free online tools, and they could give you a sense of your overall similarity to the ancient samples we have, and they, or at least mytrueancestry, offers an IBD analysis, but these are not comparisons done by academics, and it's very difficult to sometimes to distinguish real IBD segments.

I also personally find the labeling of the samples at mytrueancestry extremely problematic and quite misleading.

In terms of the Greeks we also have very few ancient samples, unfortunately, only some Minoans and Mycenaeans, and some from all the way back in the Greek Neolithic. There are no samples from classical Greece for example, although hopefully they're somewhere in the pipeline. The Italian samples are just starting to trickle in as well.

@ post 1245

You seem to have missed my point about the conclusion of Lazaridis that modern Greeks are Mycenaean descendants because of around 70% similarity with the Mycenaeans based on imaginary admixture components such as TSI, are just that, a similarity and doesn't mean actual ancestry!

From whom modern Greeks got that similarity is a different question, but we actually have historical accounts of Thracians migrating and settling in Greece during Roman Imperial times as per Strabon, resettling of mainland Greece with Italians and Anatolians after it was devastated by raids during the early Medieval period and also accounts of Vlachs and Albanians migrating to Greece in the late Medieval period!

I am saying that these scientist need other methods than just admixture similarity to determine if some people in question actually have any ancestry from another ancient people in question!
 
I don’t think it matters that much, that Balkan populations were omitted from the Peloponnese study of medieval Slavic impact. Balkan populations and Slavs settled in Greece and had a genetic impact, but the Greek language and culture survived and prevailed. How did that happen, if everyone was something other than Greek? The Peloponnese study is robust and includes many individuals who were tested. It seems to be in accord with the Mycenaean study. I’ll stick with scientific analysis until other peer-reviewed tests show otherwise.
 
@ post 1245

You seem to have missed my point about the conclusion of Lazaridis that modern Greeks are Mycenaean descendants because of around 70% similarity with the Mycenaeans based on imaginary admixture components such as TSI, are just that, a similarity and doesn't mean actual ancestry!

From whom modern Greeks got that similarity is a different question, but we actually have historical accounts of Thracians migrating and settling in Greece during Roman Imperial times as per Strabon, resettling of mainland Greece with Italians and Anatolians after it was devastated by raids during the early Medieval period and also accounts of Vlachs and Albanians migrating to Greece in the late Medieval period!

I am saying that these scientist need other methods than just admixture similarity to determine if some people in question actually have any ancestry from another ancient people in question!

You have confused the two papers. Please go back and re-read both of them before commenting further. In fact, perhaps you never read the Mycenaean paper at all, since anyone who had even skimmed it would know they used multiple analytical statistical methods, certainly NOT just the Admixture program.

I am not going to get into a prolonged discussion with you until you understand the differences between the papers and what they did and did NOT say.
 
@Demetrios,

The particular paper you referenced above has nothing to do with ancient dna and really shouldn't be discussed at length on this thread. It attempted to use modern dna to assess relationships between groups, as many papers have done in the past, but doesn't tell us about the origin of the Minoans and Mycenaeans.

Post #1244 seems to be talking about the Lazaridis paper which is the subject of the thread, and then rather confusingly jumping to a discussion of IBD matching with ancient samples.

Given the hundreds of years of recombination which has gone on between the dates of these ancient samples and the present time, which particular IBD snippet any one might have wound up with is random, although clearly it's likely it will be one of the population groups from which that person can claim descent. One shouldn't be drawing conclusions about the majority of one's ancestry from such a finding, however, not to mention that these are amateur analyses which can conflict with one another.

Yes, one might take a test such as mytrueancestry, or use free online tools, and they could give you a sense of your overall similarity to the ancient samples we have, and they, or at least mytrueancestry, offers an IBD analysis, but these are not comparisons done by academics, and it's very difficult to sometimes to distinguish real IBD segments.

I also personally find the labeling of the samples at mytrueancestry extremely problematic and quite misleading.

In terms of the Greeks we also have very few ancient samples, unfortunately, only some Minoans and Mycenaeans, and some from all the way back in the Greek Neolithic. There are no samples from classical Greece for example, although hopefully they're somewhere in the pipeline. The Italian samples are just starting to trickle in as well.
Excuse me Angela, i didn't want to confuse anyone. By the way i just saw the comments, never received any alerts for them. My comment was meant to present that modern Peloponnesians and modern Sicilians are indeed very close autosomally. Indeed this is not an ancient populations study, i simply made an observation and i criticized the fact that no modern Peloponnesian sample was included in the "Genetic origins of the Minoans and Mycenaeans" study.
 
Excuse me Angela, i didn't want to confuse anyone. By the way i just saw the comments, never received any alerts for them. My comment was meant to present that modern Peloponnesians and modern Sicilians are indeed very close autosomally. Indeed this is not an ancient populations study, i simply made an observation and i criticized the fact that no modern Peloponnesian sample was included in the "Genetic origins of the Minoans and Mycenaeans" study.

It's absolutely fine, Demetrios. :) You aren't at fault in any way.
 
You have confused the two papers. Please go back and re-read both of them before commenting further. In fact, perhaps you never read the Mycenaean paper at all, since anyone who had even skimmed it would know they used multiple analytical statistical methods, certainly NOT just the Admixture program.

I am not going to get into a prolonged discussion with you until you understand the differences between the papers and what they did and did NOT say.

@post 1248

I don't understand your aggressive stance, I have only criticized the approach of the scientists.
And no, I didn't confuse anything, my first reply was towards another user, who quoted a PCA from a paper who definitely failed to prove how much "Slavic" modern Greeks are.
I don't know why you felt obligated to reply to me and accuse me for confusion when I mentioned the IBD relation as a better approach when you yourself are doing the exacts same thing few posts earlier with Mytrueancestry.
I've seen you doing the exact same thing here with the Albanians when they criticize the paper or when they write that the modern Greeks are not much ancient by ancestry!

But since you mentioned the paper of the OP and Lazaridis when I replied that the scientists need better approaches, and that they used multiple analytical statistical methods, not that it makes a big difference in determining whether modern Greeks are by large descendants of the Mycenaeans, the f-statistics and other statistical methods the scientists used in the paper are by large used to compare the ancient populations between themselves, not with the modern people, except the extended data of figure 8 where they do symmetry testing of the Mycenaeans with the modern populations and make a conclusion that the modern populations lack alleles shared between the Mycenaeans and the Neolithic populations.
They also use some methods to determine ancestry in modern populations.
We can basically do the same thing with some other tools like nMonte and model ourselves using our own dna data but modeling is all about that, it doesn't mean actual ancestry.

In the paper they also mention that the Greeks, the Albanians and the Italians share most similarity with the Mycenaeans.
Now, this is what I am talking about, because the Albanians are also very similar to Mycenaeans and yet, anyone who knows both Greeks and Albanians, would know thy are very different in terms of phenotype which often goes hand in hand with ancestry!
So, the great similarities of the Albanians with the Mycenaeans doesn't mean that the Albanians are descendants of Mycenaeans but probably they are descendants of populations that are very similar to Mycenaeans in terms of genetics.

So, why can't this be applied to Greeks who very well might just be a mix of Anatolians and Italians which might produce similarity with the Mycenaeans?


That's why imho, y-dna and mt-dna markers are better in determining actual ancestry and we shall see in future that the modern Greeks are way less than around 70% Mycenaean in ancestry!
As I said, all ancient Greeks until now, turned J2a, including the supposed ancient Greek from the classical times Greek colony of Emporion!


 
The other issue with Lazaridis paper is that he leaves space for two different scenarios of Mycenaeans ancestry.
One is mix between Anatolian Neolithic with Armenian Chalcolithic to Bronze age populations and the other is a mix between Minoans with Steppe populations.
Mycenaeans can't be a mix of Anatolian Neolithic as Minoans are, simply because they are not a Neolithic population but MLBA.
So they are definitely Minoan-Steppe mix!
 
There's not much to say to someone who at this late date still thinks uniparentals tell us more about genetic ancestry than autosomal analysis.

When scientists leave two possibilities open, it's for a good reason: all the requisite facts are still unavailable. Clearly, you don't understand that.

Anyone who could write the following knows nothing, and I mean absolutely NOTHING about population genetics.

"Mycenaeans can't be a mix of Anatolian Neolithic as Minoans are, simply because they are not a Neolithic population but MLBA."

If you don't understand that every population in Europe after the arrival of the Neolithic farmers from Anatolia, including modern populations, is the product of a mix which includes such Anatolian Neolithic, then discussing something as complicated as these papers with you is an exercise in futility.

As for IBD analysis, it is extremely RANDOM which bits will survive. It can give you clues that this particular group is part of your ancestry, but it is ABSOLUTELY NOT a substitute for other means of analysis.

There's nothing wrong or shameful in being ignorant of a topic. Everyone is ignorant until they learn, but when there is no attempt to learn the topic, and moreover, ignorant opinions are arrogantly and aggressively proclaimed, often because of idiotic agendas, then I draw the line.

Consider yourself ignored. I would suggest other members do likewise.
 
Your arrogance is amazing.
Clearly your on something...
You still don't get the point, I know that modern Europeans own much of their ancestry to EEF.
My point is that Mycenaeans are derived from Minoans and Steppe populations because considering their place of origin and time, it's much more logical to be a mix between Minoans than pure preserved Anatolian Neolithic farmers from Neolithic.
You can ignore me and please don't suggest to others what to do, you can be a PHD or a president as much as I care, you still gonna end up dead.
As much morbid as this sounds, I am sure you get the point this time.
Keep on...
 
WHO THE HELL EVER SAID MYCENAEANS DON"T HAVE STEPPE?????

That's it. I've wasted enough time on this.
 
"There's nothing wrong or shameful in being ignorant of a topic. Everyone is ignorant until they learn, but when there is no attempt to learn the topic, and moreover, ignorant opinions are arrogantly and aggressively proclaimed, often because of idiotic agendas, then I draw the line"

Look, ignorant opinions are only those who call others as ignorant just because they don't agree with them.
Ignorant opinion is the one who thinks that uniparental markers are not more or at least just as important as the autosomals are!
As I said earlier, the Albanians are also very similar to the Mycenaeans, are they now descendants of the Mycenaeans??
Uniparental markers on the other hand can be clearly distinguished and make a difference of who you actually descend from and not only who you are similar to.
That's my opinion and I don't push it aggressively as much as you try aggressively to make me ignorant and with agenda.

Plus you clearly don't understand what am I saying and yet, persistently replying to me.

From the paper:
"Could model Mycenaeans as a mixture between Anatolian Neolithic to Chalcolithic and BA populations of Armenia... but also the Mycenaeans can be modeled as a mixture between Minoans and BA Steppe populations.

What is that you don't understand when I am saying that because of the time and place of origin of the Mycenaeans, it's more logical for them to be modeled as a mixture between Minoan and BA Steppe populations rather than as the other option?
I know very well that BA populations of Armenia do have Steppe in them but look carefully, Lazaridis doesn't say Anatolian Neolithic to Chalcolithic populations and BA Steppe populations or Minoans and BA populations of Armenia but Minoans and BA Steppe populations!

Now you can very well ignore me if you don't have an answer to my question whether the autosomal analysis can make a difference between a similarity and a true ancestry as uniparental markers do and stop replying with unnecessary and negative comments about ignorance and agenda just because you don't like my opinion!
 
A lot of modern Greeks have a “Mediterranean” look, and a lot of them don’t. Some look like the people in ancient vases. A lot have dark brown hair and brown eyes. Of course these looks are not limited to just Greeks. A lot or some could be recognized as Greek just by their appearances. So it seems the scientific studies are corroborated by simple phenotypes.
 
A post of mine from another thread which might be helpful to future readers:

An example of how wrong an over-reliance on both uniparental markers and IBD analysis can be:

I carry mtDna U2e. It stems from the Paleolithic in Europe, the earliest "native" Europeans. Should I go around saying I'm the only true native and all the rest of you aren't European? Do you know where it is most often found in ancient samples so far? It's found in steppe people and Corded Ware and northeastern Europeans and Central Europeans.

However, the salient point is that while it is a clue that I have some of that ancestry, the mtDna itself represents only about 2% of all my genes.

Now, in terms of overall genetic relatedness, the comparison of all my genes to all the genes of these people, the fit is very bad, i.e. probably over 24 or something. That's because that mtDna represents only one of my many ancestors.

Or, let's look at IBD, which someone on another thread considers the be all and end all for studying our ancestors and with whom we "should" be identifying. If mytrueancestry is correct, the only snippet of actual IBD I have with the ancient samples for which they have data is Crete Armenoi, a more "steppe" admixed Minoan sample. I score a 4cm snip with her. Yes, I was happy about that, as I like Minoan civilization very much.

Does that mean I should suddenly stop thinking of myself as Italian and start thinking of myself as being Cretan or even Greek? Of course not. My overall relatedness to that sample is about 22. something. It would be ridiculous. My closest overall relatedness to an ancient sample so far is from a place in Hungary where a lot of Roman burials were found: 3.64.

If people posting on these topics would take the time to review some textbooks on population genetics, or even just the tools and statistics involved, a lot of confusion and contentiousness would ameliorate.
 
There's not much to say to someone who at this late date still thinks uniparentals tell us more about genetic ancestry than autosomal analysis.
[/COLOR]

I have decided after a long absence to comment.

Angela, can you explain what you understand by "genetic ancestry"?

I am not sure I understand your comment above and would like to clarify what you mean by 'genetic ancestry' before contributing.

Thanks in advance
 
A post of mine from another thread which might be helpful to future readers:

An example of how wrong an over-reliance on both uniparental markers and IBD analysis can be:

I carry mtDna U2e. It stems from the Paleolithic in Europe, the earliest "native" Europeans. Should I go around saying I'm the only true native and all the rest of you aren't European? Do you know where it is most often found in ancient samples so far? It's found in steppe people and Corded Ware and northeastern Europeans and Central Europeans.

However, the salient point is that while it is a clue that I have some of that ancestry, the mtDna itself represents only about 2% of all my genes.

Now, in terms of overall genetic relatedness, the comparison of all my genes to all the genes of these people, the fit is very bad, i.e. probably over 24 or something. That's because that mtDna represents only one of my many ancestors.

Or, let's look at IBD, which someone on another thread considers the be all and end all for studying our ancestors and with whom we "should" be identifying. If mytrueancestry is correct, the only snippet of actual IBD I have with the ancient samples for which they have data is Crete Armenoi, a more "steppe" admixed Minoan sample. I score a 4cm snip with her. Yes, I was happy about that, as I like Minoan civilization very much.

Does that mean I should suddenly stop thinking of myself as Italian and start thinking of myself as being Cretan or even Greek? Of course not. My overall relatedness to that sample is about 22. something. It would be ridiculous. My closest overall relatedness to an ancient sample so far is from a place in Hungary where a lot of Roman burials were found: 3.64.

If people posting on these topics would take the time to review some textbooks on population genetics, or even just the tools and statistics involved, a lot of confusion and contentiousness would ameliorate.

Angela, you have to understand that he has an agenda. That agenda is to trash anything that connects Ancient Greek population with Modern Greek ones. It's Fallmeyer all over again. It's the intra Balkan squabble over and over again.
 

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