Genetic Origins of Minoans and Mycenaeans

I used Eurogene G25's population averages. My Levant proxy is not meant only for Bronze Age migrations since i'm comparing modern Greeks and Cypriots. I added Levant because originally my calculator was meant for Cypriots since the Phoenicians settled in Cyprus in early Iron Age. Another reason i add proxies that are not historical ancestors is to see if it even detects it because we cannot be 100% sure that other nearby people didn't mix.

Another problem is that G25 might not have some ancient samples i need.

I should have mentioned that i didn't make my model for an 100% ancestry accuracy model but it is for seeing where modern Greeks shift to.

Here's What happens if i remove ancient Levant and ancient Italy.
Target: Greek_Thessaly
Distance: 0.8867% / 0.00886705
40.0Aegean_BA_IA
25.4Anatolia_BA
20.4Early_Slav_EMA
13.2Illyria_MBA
1.0Turkic_West_and_Ottoman

Without Levant_BA but with ancient Latium/Etruscan.
Target: Greek_Thessaly
Distance: 0.8776% / 0.00877554 | R5P
36.0Aegean_BA_IA
30.6Anatolia_BA
21.2Early_Slav_EMA
9.2Latium_IA
3.0Illyria_MBA

With my original source:
Target: Greek_Thessaly
Distance: 0.7821% / 0.00782111 | R5P
41.8Aegean_BA_IA
17.8Illyria_MBA
17.2Early_Slav_EMA
13.4Anatolia_BA
9.8Levant_BA
 
One thing i'm curious about. If i wanted to create and ancestry model for Cypriots does removing Anatolia make sense?
This is without Anatolia and Thracia which is similar to North Helladic.

Target: Greek_Cypriot
Distance: 1.0915% / 0.01091517
59.4Levant_BA
40.2Aegean_BA_IA
0.4Turkic_West_and_Ottoman
 
The model will select those populations that minimize the error no matter whether it make sense or not. The more potential populations you give it, the lower the error. It has to make sense those.
There is a lot of overlap between Aegean BA and Illyrian MBA. I suggest you use only Aegean if you're going to use it to model Greeks. If you want to model Balkanites then use Illyrian. For Cypriots you have to use adjoining populations plus some source for the Myceneans that we know migrated to the islands plus maybe a source for the Eteo-Cretans. Whether the Minoan samples are a good proxy or not I don't know but it would not hurt to try.
For example if you are trying to model Pontian Greeks you might want to use Aegean BA plus Anatolian + Laz.
Or if you were modeling the Athenians of today there has been such a total admix of Pontian Greeks + Arvanites + Asia Minor + people from all over the country. It will be a total mess :).
 
I know that the calculator will just fit anything to get a lower distance. I just add multiple samples from that Period for each proxy because we cannot know for sure how people mixed and also to disprove pseudotheories that Greeks today are just Illyrians or just Anatolians/Arabs. You know. Or that Cypriots are just a Levant Anatolian Arab mix. So since even adding those samples the Aegean one is still present then they must be wrong.
We cannot know if the Mycenaean settlers in Cyprus where from specific cities with a specific admixture.

Yes there is an overlap of Illyrian and Aegean but for the most part the calculator prefers Aegean which is something important.

I'm kinda too lazy right now to make models for each Greek region. I made a post on the Eurogenes forum here with multiple models but i made the same ones for all mainland Greeks.

Here's without Levant, Illyrian and Italian:

Target: Greek_Thessaly
Distance: 0.9786% / 0.00978563 | R5P
46.8Aegean_BA_IA
23.2Anatolia_BA
22.0Early_Slav_EMA
4.8Thracia_IA
3.2Balkan_East_IA

Target: Greek_Laconia
Distance: 1.6616% / 0.01661626 | R5P
38.0Anatolia_BA
27.0Early_Slav_EMA
23.6Aegean_BA_IA
11.4Balkan_East_IA

Without Levant, Thracia, Balkan, Illyria, Italian(Etruscan, Latium)
Target: Greek_Thessaly
Distance: 0.9649% / 0.00964893 | R5P
56.6Aegean_BA_IA
21.0Anatolia_BA
21.0Early_Slav_EMA
1.4Turkic_West_and_Ottoman

Target: Greek_Laconia
Distance: 1.6771% / 0.01677115
37.8Anatolia_BA
33.8Aegean_BA_IA
28.4Early_Slav_EMA
 
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I just add multiple samples from that Period for each proxy because we cannot know for sure how people mixed and also to disprove pseudotheories that Greeks today are just Illyrians or just Anatolians/Arabs. You know. Or that Cypriots are just a Levant Anatolian Arab mix. So since even adding those samples the Aegean one is still present then they must be wrong.
We cannot know if the Mycenaean settlers in Cyprus where from specific cities with a specific admixture.

Yes there is an overlap of Illyrian and Aegean but for the most part the calculator prefers Aegean which is something important.

Here's without Levant, Illyrian and Italian:

Target: Greek_Thessaly
Distance: 0.9786% / 0.00978563 | R5P
46.8Aegean_BA_IA
23.2Anatolia_BA
22.0Early_Slav_EMA
4.8Thracia_IA
3.2Balkan_East_IA

Target: Greek_Laconia
Distance: 1.6616% / 0.01661626 | R5P
38.0Anatolia_BA
27.0Early_Slav_EMA
23.6Aegean_BA_IA
11.4Balkan_East_IA

Without Levant, Thracia, Balkan, Illyria, Italian(Etruscan, Latium)
Target: Greek_Thessaly
Distance: 0.9649% / 0.00964893 | R5P
56.6Aegean_BA_IA
21.0Anatolia_BA
21.0Early_Slav_EMA
1.4Turkic_West_and_Ottoman

Target: Greek_Laconia
Distance: 1.6771% / 0.01677115
37.8Anatolia_BA
33.8Aegean_BA_IA
28.4Early_Slav_EMA

Thus if Anatolia_BA is 5% Levantine farmer, than in this model giving 23.2% of Anatolia_BA, equals about only 1.2% of verifiable Levantine in the first model. Which is quite significantly different from the amount originally inferred.
 
mxOwdzm.png


Code:
Mycenaean:I9006:Lazaridis_2017,3.38,0,1.25,0,36.32,5.47,0,0,7.73,1.07,44.26,0.51
Mycenaean:I9010:Lazaridis_2017,0,0,3.66,1.15,38.24,6.6,0.59,0.65,13.92,0,35.19,0
Mycenaean:I9033:Lazaridis_2017,1.55,1.33,2.36,0,39.11,8.61,2.19,0,7.76,0,34.35,2.74
Mycenaean:I9041:Lazaridis_2017,3.15,0,2.41,0,37.19,8.87,0,0,10.69,0,37.17,0.52
NE_Iberia_Hel_(Empúries2):I8208:Olalde_2019,0.47,0,4.06,0,36.68,5.45,0,0,12.64,0,40.71,0

IMO, Empuries2, specifically I8208, despite being found in Iberia, is totally appropriate for Aegean_IA, because it matches the Mycenaeans. Furthermore, it also matches the two Greek_IA found in Campania:

BufrJB4.jpg
 
Not using Levantine:

Target: Italian_Veneto
Distance: 1.8577% / 0.01857729
51.0ITA_Etruscan
33.4HRV_IA
15.6DEU_MA_Alemannic

Using Levantine:

Target: Italian_Veneto
Distance: 1.2078% / 0.01207796
30.6ITA_Ardea_Latini_IA
25.2DEU_MA_Alemannic
15.6HRV_IA
14.6ITA_Etruscan
14.0Levant_Beirut_Hellenistic

And the fit is not even that different 1.8 to 1.2. This proves that using multiply sources is usually inaccurate, therefore those sort of calculations should be used only for 2 populations in relation with chronological historical events.
Like for example using 200CE-400CE "Croats" versus Poles (assuming they are an accurate proxy) as an ancestry source for 900CE Slavic Croats as a target is accurate but further than that it get murky.
 
It reminds me of 4 way Oracles under GEDMatch. Great fits but results that don't make sense.
 
Seems pretty pseudo-scholarship.

“Isotopic studies suggest that these could have been people hired all the way from the Catalan coast, from the Iberian peninsula, or from mainland Greece or even from the Black Sea coast,” says Mario Novak at the Institute for Anthropological Research in Croatia.


https://www.newscientist.com/articl...t-greeks-used-foreign-fighters-in-key-battle/


What do you think about this? Excuse me for my ignorance but I don't think it is talking about Autosomal DNA. What was the difference between Mainland Greeks and a Sicilian Greeks? Many of Sicilian Greeks came from Mainland.

I think it is on par with study saying South Italians were just Greek-like not influenced genetically by Greeks.

Also hired people from the Black Sea and Spain? Seriously?
 
“Isotopic studies suggest that these could have been people hired all the way from the Catalan coast, from the Iberian peninsula, or from mainland Greece or even from the Black Sea coast,” says Mario Novak at the Institute for Anthropological Research in Croatia.
https://www.newscientist.com/articl...t-greeks-used-foreign-fighters-in-key-battle/
What do you think about this? Excuse me for my ignorance but I don't think it is talking about Autosomal DNA. What was the difference between Mainland Greeks and a Sicilian Greeks? Many of Sicilian Greeks came from Mainland.
I think it is on par with study saying South Italians were just Greek-like not influenced genetically by Greeks.
Also hired people from the Black Sea and Spain? Seriously?

Isotope analysis has nothing to do with any DNA. However isotope analysis will tell you whether somebody was local or not and DNA analysis would tell you their heritage. I am sure that Greeks as well other powers of the era used mercenaries. I am not a great believer in Herodotus historicity. I think of him as a story teller and a travelogue. I would not use him as my only source.
 
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Totally plausible results. Historical sources tell us that my own Ligures went to fight in Greece, in Sicily on both sides, in Italy on Hannibal's side.

Ancient armies, unlike the early armies of ancient Rome, contained lots of mercenaries from, indeed, across the Mediterraneana.
 
Something i'm curious about. Did Ionian Greeks bring Iron Age Anatolian admixture on mainland Greece?
 
Something i'm curious about. Did Ionian Greeks bring Iron Age Anatolian admixture on mainland Greece?

Not that I know of. However Ionian islanders did bring Greek genetic heritage to the western shores of Asia Minor.
 
Isotope analysis has nothing to do with any DNA. However isotope analysis will tell you whether somebody was local or not and DNA analysis would tell you their heritage. I am sure that Greeks as well other powers of the era used mercenaries. I am not a great believer in Herodotus historicity. I think of him as a story teller and a travelogue. I would not use him as my only source.
It's not about Herodotus. It's that the geographical difference is very big. It would not suprise me if they hired some people from Italy or Greece but Spain and Black Sea is way too far away.
Maybe they were Greeks from Spain and Black Sea. Greeks had colonies there.
 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Spain is not that far from Sicily if you are talking about the Sicilian wars.
 

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