The Genetic history of Crete

Nice study but they could've used Minoan samples since Crete was the Minoan homeland.

I thought the same thing at first, maybe the Minoan samples are considered a basic part of the default genetic makeup of the Cretans, and they decided not to include them.

Probably because they're also talking about the Middle-Ages/Medieval-Period and the Minoans would’ve been off-topic :)
 
if you write an article named The Genetic history of Crete and you don't use Minoan DNA you are out of any reputation, I can't understand how many population DNA studies are published. It's all it pitable.
 
if you write an article named The Genetic history of Crete and you don't use Minoan DNA you are out of any reputation, I can't understand how many population DNA studies are published. It's all it pitable.

Granted. But, as Salento pointed out above, when the first line of your paper runs "The medieval history of several populations often suffers from scarcity of contemporary records", it's hard to imagine why Minoan DNA should be referred to, except as implicit background reference.
 
What about Turks in Greece? is there any way to detect Turkish genes in Greek population. (mainland).?

Turks in Greece should show Turkic (Central Asian-Siberian / East Asian) results. The Turks in Bulgaria show that. One of sample is my dad.

His Turkic percent 50% percent less than West Anatolian my mom. But his percent still double/triple than any other Balkan nations
 
Not all of the refugees during the 1922-23 exchange of populations were genetically Greek. Some of the Pontic and Capadoccian Greeks were Anatolian locals that got Hellenized or kept their Eastern Orthodox religion. If I had to guess I would say very very few were actually genetically Turkic. On the other hand the majority of the refugees that emigrated to Turkey were locals that got Islamized. So I expect to find quite a lot of genetically Greeks, Bulgarians, Albanians and Slavs in Turkey.

@Big Snake or any other guys, in Pontus Region-Turkey some of the Greeks accepted Islam and stayed in Turkey. Is there any source for Cretean Muslims? Became Chrisitanzied and stayed in Crete?
 
Turks in Greece should show Turkic (Central Asian-Siberian / East Asian) results. The Turks in Bulgaria show that. One of sample is my dad.

His Turkic percent 50% percent less than West Anatolian my mom. But his percent still double/triple than any other Balkan nations
I think Western Turks were always genetically closer to southern Balkans than to Eastern Turkey. Its my opinion, nothing scientific
 
I think Western Turks were always genetically closer to southern Balkans than to Eastern Turkey. Its my opinion, nothing scientific

Turks are mixed ball, so the only way to find who is a Turk (I am not talking about Turkic) is finding between 4-5% till 10-15% East Asian structure is in people of Balkans and Neareast.

Yes, you are right. West Turks in Anatolia is more close to Balkans than averange Kurdish or Turkish from the East. But also West Turks have more East Asian structure than East.
 
Granted. But, as Salento pointed out above, when the first line of your paper runs "The medieval history of several populations often suffers from scarcity of contemporary records", it's hard to imagine why Minoan DNA should be referred to, except as implicit background reference.

well, if they want to check migratory medieval impacts on DNA, the best is to run ancient DNA as a kind of departure base, even if the Minoan samples would not be the better as Dorian, Roman and Anatolian DNA might be added.
 
Iosif Lazaridis@iosif_lazaridis 22h22 hours ago



This work started before we published the first genome-wide data from Bronze Age Crete (doi: 10.1038/nature23310) which showed that the Minoan population of the island did not yet have the affinity to Central/Eastern Europe which contributes some ancestry of present-day Cretans.
 
i cluster with Cretans in some eurogenes calculators second population for me after ashkenazi in that order
some of them score 10% baltic in eurogenes k13 like me
that is the main element that push my total autosomal genome to resemble cretans more than sicilians :)
thanks for sharing angela nice study :)
 
It's good to finally put to rest the whole question of the relationship between Sicilians/Peloponnesians/Cretans.

As I tried to explain over and over again, a lot of the misunderstanding had to do with the fact that comparisons were being made with Greeks from around Thessaloniki (old Salonika).

By using Peloponnesians, who, after all, provided a lot of the migration to Southern Italy and Sicily, we can see the overlap with Sicilians, and we can also see the overlap with Crete, meaning there is not in fact this huge divide between mainland Greece and Crete.

I also find it amusing that after hundreds of thousands of posts on how different Sicilians from different parts of the island were from one another, they all nestle quite nicely within the Cretan cluster. :)
 
@Big Snake or any other guys, in Pontus Region-Turkey some of the Greeks accepted Islam and stayed in Turkey. Is there any source for Cretean Muslims? Became Chrisitanzied and stayed in Crete?

No Cretan Turks, either locals that converted to Islam or imported from Anatolia migrated to Turkey.

It was very hard if not impossible for a Muslim to convert to Christianity under the Ottoman Empire. Converting to Islam was incentivized by lower taxes, serving in the army, gathering of kids and converting them to Islam. Converting back was totally discouraged under penalty of death.

Now if some Cretan Muslims stayed behind in Greece and then converted to Christianity, that was definitely allowed under Greek laws. I am not aware of any large numbers of conversions though.
 
I don't know how much more clearly the authors could have put it. Those three areas show less influence from anyone. It's isolation and then drift.

As for the "there must be Turkish" blood in Greece, Albania and other countries", bigsnake I'm sure knows better than I do, so if I go wrong, he may, of course, correct me, but this is my understanding:

By the time of the Ottoman take over, they were Muslim, and the inhabitants were Christian of one variety or another.

It boggles the imagination that an Ottoman family would allow their daughters to abjure their faith, turn apostate, and go marry a Christian Greek and live in that community. If a Christian Greek male wished to marry a Muslim girl, he would need to convert, be circumcised, and become part of the Ottoman community, and when they left he and his progeny would be part of the group going into exile.

Now, I think a Christian girl could become a wife or concubine to a Turk, and could then even keep her Christian faith, but her children would then become part of the Ottoman society.

From what I've read there was no such thing as "civil marriage"; marriages were performed by a holy man or teacher of that particular faith. A Christian and a Muslim couldn't marry without one of them converting or at least the ceremony being performed by either a Christian priest or a Muslim officiate.

So, if anything, I think there is Balkan ancestry in Ottoman Turks, but I don't see how it could have happened the other way around, except perhaps where whole groups converted to Islam, as many Albanians did. I don't know if in that case intermarriage did occur between Albanian Muslims and Muslims from Turkey, and if it did whether they went into exile back to Turkey or not.

Very well put Angela, see Yetos' post for more details.
 
Turks in Greece should show Turkic (Central Asian-Siberian / East Asian) results. The Turks in Bulgaria show that. One of sample is my dad.

His Turkic percent 50% percent less than West Anatolian my mom. But his percent still double/triple than any other Balkan nations

It depends on where the Turks still remaining in Greece came from. Were they from deep Anatolia that has a higher Turkic genetic content or from Western Anatolia that has lower Turkic content or locals that got Islamized or all three combined. I am not aware of any large scale genetic studies of the Turks in Western Thrace but would love to be directed to one.
 
Now if some Cretan Muslims stayed behind in Greece and then converted to Christianity, that was definitely allowed under Greek laws. I am not aware of any large numbers of conversions though.

Yeah this is what I am asking. Greek Kingdom rule during the population exchange period. Turks who didn't want to their own village.
 
Who was settled mostly the placed where were left by Cretean Turks? Greeks from Pontus?
 
Who was settled mostly the placed where were left by Cretean Turks? Greeks from Pontus?
I will have to investigate it. I had seen a study somewhere and I should have bookmarked it. If I remember correctly the numbers were pretty low. 10-20,000 sounds about right.
 
Iosif Lazaridis@iosif_lazaridis 22h22 hours ago



This work started before we published the first genome-wide data from Bronze Age Crete (doi: 10.1038/nature23310) which showed that the Minoan population of the island did not yet have the affinity to Central/Eastern Europe which contributes some ancestry of present-day Cretans.

so basicaly the authors are yet anchored in XX century? it sounds to me like an excuse, a work two years old can be processed quickly after acceptation of the paper, or even they could stop publication. I would prefer to deal with lack of knowledge than with children like reactions.
 
I don't know how much more clearly the authors could have put it. Those three areas show less influence from anyone. It's isolation and then drift.

As for the "there must be Turkish" blood in Greece, Albania and other countries", bigsnake I'm sure knows better than I do, so if I go wrong, he may, of course, correct me, but this is my understanding:

By the time of the Ottoman take over, they were Muslim, and the inhabitants were Christian of one variety or another.

It boggles the imagination that an Ottoman family would allow their daughters to abjure their faith, turn apostate, and go marry a Christian Greek and live in that community. If a Christian Greek male wished to marry a Muslim girl, he would need to convert, be circumcised, and become part of the Ottoman community, and when they left he and his progeny would be part of the group going into exile.

Now, I think a Christian girl could become a wife or concubine to a Turk, and could then even keep her Christian faith, but her children would then become part of the Ottoman society.

From what I've read there was no such thing as "civil marriage"; marriages were performed by a holy man or teacher of that particular faith. A Christian and a Muslim couldn't marry without one of them converting or at least the ceremony being performed by either a Christian priest or a Muslim officiate.

So, if anything, I think there is Balkan ancestry in Ottoman Turks, but I don't see how it could have happened the other way around, except perhaps where whole groups converted to Islam, as many Albanians did. I don't know if in that case intermarriage did occur between Albanian Muslims and Muslims from Turkey, and if it did whether they went into exile back to Turkey or not.

There are Turks (and even Anatolian Greeks) who suggest that there is a genetic Turkish imprint on the mainland. Most mainland Greeks (including my own family) lived in isolated communities and had no genetic interaction with invading populations (including Turks). If you look at the autosmal results of mainland Greeks there is nothing to suggest even a remote connection.
 
I don't know how much more clearly the authors could have put it. Those three areas show less influence from anyone. It's isolation and then drift.

As for the "there must be Turkish" blood in Greece, Albania and other countries", bigsnake I'm sure knows better than I do, so if I go wrong, he may, of course, correct me, but this is my understanding:

By the time of the Ottoman take over, they were Muslim, and the inhabitants were Christian of one variety or another.

It boggles the imagination that an Ottoman family would allow their daughters to abjure their faith, turn apostate, and go marry a Christian Greek and live in that community. If a Christian Greek male wished to marry a Muslim girl, he would need to convert, be circumcised, and become part of the Ottoman community, and when they left he and his progeny would be part of the group going into exile.

Now, I think a Christian girl could become a wife or concubine to a Turk, and could then even keep her Christian faith, but her children would then become part of the Ottoman society.

From what I've read there was no such thing as "civil marriage"; marriages were performed by a holy man or teacher of that particular faith. A Christian and a Muslim couldn't marry without one of them converting or at least the ceremony being performed by either a Christian priest or a Muslim officiate.

So, if anything, I think there is Balkan ancestry in Ottoman Turks, but I don't see how it could have happened the other way around, except perhaps where whole groups converted to Islam, as many Albanians did. I don't know if in that case intermarriage did occur between Albanian Muslims and Muslims from Turkey, and if it did whether they went into exile back to Turkey or not.

It's good to finally put to rest the whole question of the relationship between Sicilians/Peloponnesians/Cretans.

As I tried to explain over and over again, a lot of the misunderstanding had to do with the fact that comparisons were being made with Greeks from around Thessaloniki (old Salonika).

By using Peloponnesians, who, after all, provided a lot of the migration to Southern Italy and Sicily, we can see the overlap with Sicilians, and we can also see the overlap with Crete, meaning there is not in fact this huge divide between mainland Greece and Crete.

I also find it amusing that after hundreds of thousands of posts on how different Sicilians from different parts of the island were from one another, they all nestle quite nicely within the Cretan cluster. :)

Yes but what separates Peloponnesians from Cretans is the minor Slavic genetic imprint (Slavic incursions of the 6th and 7th Century) with the exception of deep Mani and isolated Tskanonian regions of Aracadia.
 

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