Genetic Origins of Minoans and Mycenaeans

[davef]

What if these Mycenaeans & Minoans burials actually belongs to slaves who were Imported from foreign countries?

The Ancient Greeks were known for establishing slave trades, every Greek household had their own slaves. This was well known.

The Mycenaean King wasn't any different from the peasants, genetically.

 

[Odysseus]

The Mycenaean King wasn't any different from the peasants, genetically.

How would you know those burials were of Mycenaean kings?

The report never identified whom the burials belonged to.

 

[LeBrok]

No, because they are able to accurately identify the graves of elites.

And they all were uniform genetically, like coming from one society. It gives them very high probability of being local and not slaves from other lands. They have also very strong genetic continuity to modern inhabitants of same area. Inforcing the reasoning even further.

 

[Jovialis]

The report never identified whom the burials belonged to.

Yes it does.

Go to the paper, hit ctrl+f, type "elite", and read it for yourself.

 

[LeBrok]

You have a very beautiful view of ancient history

Indo European societies may have been divided into 3 social classes: 1- Military Nobility 2- Religious Elite 3- Commoners. How would these castes be ordered after an IE speaking tribe migrates to and domnate some territory with previous inhabitants ?

They had nobility sure, but commoners were the warriors. They were farmer/warrior in the core. The best examples are Vikings. This is how they had advantage in conquering BA South Europe, with their professional armies. If these armies were weakened and shrunk by poor times and lack of funds, the common citizen/farmer didn't know how to fight against Northern tribes were everybody was a warrior.

 

[Odysseus]

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread1184514/pg1

 

[IronSide]

They had nobility sure, but commoners were the warriors. They were farmer/warrior in the core. The best examples are Vikings. This is how they had advantage in conquering BA South Europe, with their professional armies. If these armies were weakened and shrunk by poor times and lack of funds, the common citizen/farmer didn't know how to fight against Northern tribes were everybody was a warrior.

Maybe, but what do you think of this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trifunctional_hypothesis

 

[Dianatomia]

And they all were uniform genetically, like coming from one society. It gives them very high probability of being local and not slaves from other lands. They have also very strong genetic continuity to modern inhabitants of same area. Inforcing the reasoning even further.

Not to mention that we are talking about the Mycenean era. Even if we would hypothesize that Myceneans imported foreign slaves, so many that the random burials for this research all belong to foreign slaves, then that would mean that the people in Greece a thousand years later would be the descendants of those slaves. Coincidentally, the people inhabiting Greece a thousand years later are the Classical and Hellenistic Greeks. Those are the Greeks of the Golden Age of Greek history. It would mean that Plato and Aristotle are the descendants of Mycenean slaves.

If anything, if the Mycenaeans would have received additional admixture over time, it would belong to people with more Steppe admixture compared to themselves. Since obviously the modern inhabitants in these lands today are mostly Mycenaean + some additional steppe admixture. So if slaves were absorbed into the Mycenaean gene-pool, these slaves most likely carried more Steppe admixture than Mycenaeans did.

We should be objective and consider that there is a possibility that there were Mediterranean (predominantly EEF) overlords who could have had slaves who had more Steppe ancestry than them.

 

[IronSide]

I actually don't know this: is the J2a Mycenaean also from an elite burial ? is he the one you're all discussing here ?

 

[Angela]

I actually don't know this: is the J2a Mycenaean also from an elite burial ? is he the one you're all discussing here ?

Yes, he is J2a if I remember correctly. If the Indo-Europeans came down the Balkans from the steppe it's difficult to see how they would have carried J2a. In that case it would mean they incorporated local elite men, much like happened as mentioned with Alexander and even with the Lombards in Italy.

 

[DuPidh]

Not to mention that we are talking about the Mycenean era. Even if we would hypothesize that Myceneans imported foreign slaves, so many that the random burials for this research all belong to foreign slaves, then that would mean that the people in Greece a thousand years later would be the descendants of those slaves. Coincidentally, the people inhabiting Greece a thousand years later are the Classical and Hellenistic Greeks. Those are the Greeks of the Golden Age of Greek history. It would mean that Plato and Aristotle are the descendants of Mycenean slaves.

If anything, if the Mycenaeans would have received additional admixture over time, it would belong to people with more Northern admixture compared to themselves. Since obviously the modern inhabitants in these lands today are mostly Mycenaean + some additional northern admixture. So if slaves were absorbed into the Mycenaean gene-pool, these slaves were most likely on average more Northern than Mycenaeans.

We should be objective and consider that there is a possibility that there were Mediterranean (Neolithic Farmer) overlords who could have had slaves who had more IE ancestry than them.

The whole story about Mycenaean is that they are pre Hellenistic stock mostly. Hellenistic art, culture, and science was mostly done by non Hellene people of classical Greece, who by virtue of coexistence were Hellenize later. There is no other explanation to genetic similarity between Albanians, Mycenaean's. There already was there tremendous civilization before Hellenes. Minoans for instance are a pre Hellenic civilization with their writing system, their art and culture etc. What could Hellenes been brought is a more advanced schooling system that recorded sequences of history and made us believe it was Hellenes.
So had Hellenes been a people distinct from others in our region, there should not have been similarities genetically speaking with Toscans, Albanians, Southern Italy where Hellenes did not settle.The existence of similarity shows Hellenes were a minority who had a writing system and unfairly whole civilization of that time is attributed to them.

 

[davef]

The whole story about Mycenaean is that they are pre Hellenistic stock mostly. Hellenistic art, culture, and science was mostly done by non Hellene people of classical Greece, who by virtue of coexistence were Hellenize later. There is no other explanation to genetic similarity between Albanians, Mycenaean's. There already was there tremendous civilization before Hellenes. Minoans for instance are a pre Hellenic civilization with their writing system, their art and culture etc. What could Hellenes been brought is a more advanced schooling system that recorded sequences of history and made us believe it was Hellenes.
So had Hellenes been a people distinct from others in our region, there should not have been similarities genetically speaking with Toscans, Albanians, Southern Italy where Hellenes did not settle.The existence of similarity shows Hellenes were a minority who had a writing system and unfairly whole civilization of that time is attributed to them.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. You're saying that Hellenistic culture wasn't founded by Hellenistic people and they happened to use their "advanced schooling system" to claim that it was? Nothing about that makes sense.

 

[IronSide]

Yes, he is J2a if I remember correctly. If the Indo-Europeans came down the Balkans from the steppe it's difficult to see how they would have carried J2a. In that case it would mean they incorporated local elite men, much like happened as mentioned with Alexander and even with the Lombards in Italy.

Nah sorry Angela, they were ordinary people
https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/sites/reich.hms.harvard.edu/files/inline-files/nature23310-s1_0.pdf

The chamber tombs at APATHEIA
Seven rock-cut chamber toms were excavated between 1985 and 1993 in the area of Apatheia, ca. 2
km west of the modern town of Galatas, in the northern foothills of Mt. Adheres. Those tombs held
the burials of ordinary people, judging by the few, common-type furnishings of the deceased.
However, some evidence for the practice of funerary libation rites indicated that the lower classes of
the Troezenian society were not unfamiliar with the mortuary customs of the ruling elite (1), who
performed similar rites when burying their dead in the tholos tombs brought to light on the hill of
Megali Magoula, lying ca. 3 km north-east of the site of Apatheia (2).

"I9041 (Mycenaean from Galatas Apatheia in the Peloponnese)This individual was derived for mutations L26:22942897T->C and F4326:23021978A->G (J2a1) aswell as upstream mutations M410:2751678A->G, L559:21674327A->G, L152:22243566C->T,L212:22711465T->C (J2a). He was ancestral for M322:15469740C->A (J2a1a), M260:15025506G->A and M92:21904023T->C (J2a1b1), M166:21764694C->T (J2a1b2), L210:16492197A->T(J2a1b3), M68:21878700A->G (J2a1c), M339:2881367T->G (J2a1e), P81:6739856G->A (J2a1g),L207.1:6753448A->G and L24:14286528G->A (J2a1h), L88.2:17595842T->C andL198:17595861A->C (J2a1i). He could thus be designated as J2a1x(J2a1a, J2a1b1, J2a1b2, J2a1c,J2a1e, J2a1g, J2a1h, J2a1i)."

 

[IronSide]

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread1184514/pg1

Well I'm not blind, they certainly seemed to like it (like me maybe :grin, at least the author(s) of the Illiad and Odyssey did.

These need not be mutually exclusive with the results of the study you know. Its a fallacay and an old belief to equate blond hair with Indo-European elites.

When Arabs describe other Arabs they don't say "black haired Osman".

 

[Dianatomia]

The whole story about Mycenaean is that they are pre Hellenistic stock mostly. Hellenistic art, culture, and science was mostly done by non Hellene people of classical Greece, who by virtue of coexistence were Hellenize later. There is no other explanation to genetic similarity between Albanians, Mycenaean's. There already was there tremendous civilization before Hellenes. Minoans for instance are a pre Hellenic civilization with their writing system, their art and culture etc. What could Hellenes been brought is a more advanced schooling system that recorded sequences of history and made us believe it was Hellenes.
So had Hellenes been a people distinct from others in our region, there should not have been similarities genetically speaking with Toscans, Albanians, Southern Italy where Hellenes did not settle.The existence of similarity shows Hellenes were a minority who had a writing system and unfairly whole civilization of that time is attributed to them.

Not sure what you mean by this. But I think that for you Hellenes are a separate body of IE tribes perhaps who brought the IE element to Greece.

In fact, Hellenes were the Ancient Greeks as we know them. They are the Mycenaeans and what came after. They are the sum of the Greek gene-pool. All the people who spoke the Hellenic language and belonged to a certain culture. If the Tucsans and Albanians are also similar to Mycenaeans, this simply means they are also similar to Hellenes. It just turns out that these Hellenes had mostly indigenous non-IE ancestors.

But either way, I don't really understand you point.

 

[Jovialis]

Nah sorry Angela, they were ordinary people
https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/sites/reich.hms.harvard.edu/files/inline-files/nature23310-s1_0.pdf

The elite Mycenaean actually came from Peristeria, on the west side of the Peloponnese I believe.

Regardless, 4 out of 5 samples tested were J, and the other being G2 from southwest Anatolia. Nevertheless, the Mycenaean and Minoan males were all J.

Plus they were all genetically similar.

 

[Angela]

Good catch, Ironsides. It was a woman who was in the elite burial, yes? I keep mixing that up. Regardless, the autosomal mixture was the same in lords and commoners alike.

The "steppe" impact was 4-16% or 13-18% depending on the method used. That makes sense because wherever the origin, there would have been dilution all along the way. (The only exception is the woman from very late in Crete who had about 30%, but the author has stated that's a very bad sample in terms of quality.)

So, the actual number of Greek speakers would have been higher than that, which you would expect for language change.

Slightly off topic, but modern Greeks have about 20% steppe, and that's after the Slavic Migrations, so it looks like the Slavic speaking peoples who made it to Greece were already very mixed themselves.

As for the phenotypic data, they were slightly darker in skin tone than modern Greeks, a few percent carried the blue-eye gene, but not a single blond. More samples may find more occurrences, of course. Part of this, in terms of the descriptions in ancient Greek literature, may be that Southern Europeans often call light brown haired people "biondo" or "bionda", where they're actually not blonde at all. Also, in a sea of brown or black haired people, a light haired person stands out and is worthy of comment, whereas the majority are not. I know people have speculated that the Dorians brought more light haired genes to Greece, but we need to get a Dorian sample to figure it out. The modern people of the Peloponnese are not particularly fair as Greeks go.

Neither do I think that Indo-European elites in other areas of Europe were necessarily all fair. After all, Corded Ware is still seen as 75% Yamnaya, isn't it, and the Yamnaya people were darker than all modern Europeans. I believe there was quite a stir when preliminary phenotypic results came out for an elite "Indo-European" burial in Poland, and he also came out darker than modern Europeans.

There's an awful lot of silly mythology still out there which some people refuse to let go.

@DuPidh,
I don't understand what you're trying to say.

 

[davef]

^^ we can have the most comprehensive DNA study about the origins of (insert ancient population here) that leaves nothing untouched that also contradicts everything that internet anthro forum t-rolls were pushing and praying for but in the end they'll just end up calling the researchers stupid.

 

[Jovialis]

@ Angela,

It was indeed a woman in the elite burial in Peristeria.

This is from Jean Manco's page:

http://www.ancestraljourneys.org/copperbronzeagedna.shtml

 

[Pratt]

The whole story about Mycenaean is that they are pre Hellenistic stock mostly. Hellenistic art, culture, and science was mostly done by non Hellene people of classical Greece, who by virtue of coexistence were Hellenize later. There is no other explanation to genetic similarity between Albanians, Mycenaean's. There already was there tremendous civilization before Hellenes. Minoans for instance are a pre Hellenic civilization with their writing system, their art and culture etc. What could Hellenes been brought is a more advanced schooling system that recorded sequences of history and made us believe it was Hellenes.
So had Hellenes been a people distinct from others in our region, there should not have been similarities genetically speaking with Toscans, Albanians, Southern Italy where Hellenes did not settle.The existence of similarity shows Hellenes were a minority who had a writing system and unfairly whole civilization of that time is attributed to them.

The four Mycenaeans are different from each other, to begin with. And Mycenaeans are no more similar to Albanians or the Tuscans or the southern Italians than to Greeks or Greek islanders. This similarity is exaggerated, because the Mycenaeans remain distinct from modern populations. And in any case, this similarity does not mean a genetic legacy of the Mycenaeans in modern populations.