Minoan civilization originated in Anatolia!

 

Edited by Seko - 14-Jan-2010 at 20:14

That doesn't mean anything, and there's nothing that indicates they originated in Anatolia. If anything this just means they mixed a lot with Turks. Greeks aren't native to Anatolia, they were colonizers.


Edited by kafkas - 02-Apr-2008 at 16:05

What I meant is that the Minoans were possibly wiped out by the Myceneans. At those ages it was common to kill most of the enemy's population and Crete's archaic history is full of wars. If my memory serves me right, from the Dorian invasion to the Roman times the island was at war between its major cities.

I know Cyprus had other influences as well but if you look at the Eteocypriot language, the anatolian character is strong. Just an example:

    Ana matori umiesai Mukulai lasana Aristonose Arto wanaks okose
    kera keretulose.

    The city of the Amathusans honored the king/noble Ariston son of Aristonax.

Flipper wrote: This is nothing new...Basically, this theory was already expressed back in the 50s. Now at least we seem to have genetic evidence. I'm not surprised at all.  Have a look at Greek placenames for example. There's a huge amount having Anatolian possesive forms on words of unknown etymology. However, a respectfull amount of placenames are known Hittite/Luwian/etc words in possesive form. Just an example: Parnassos --> Parna (Luwian for "House", masculin) + -ssos (anatolian plural possesive form for masculin words), Melissa(gk. Bee) --> Melit (Luwian for honey) + -ssa (plural possestive form for feminine words).

Hittites and Luvian speakers were native Anatolians, not Greeks however.

I don't see how one can jump to such a conclusion from such an unscientific bit of news.

I was always fascinated by the prehistoric era of Greece. Those times are very interesting.

Do you guys know any decent sites? (Not the ones claiming everything was Greek since the dawn of time, it seems they are the only ones I stumble upon :D)

I found a press release about it in Greek. The translation is probably crappy but just for the record i will post it.

Thessaloniki 2/4/2008

"The origins of the Neolithic people of Greece" is the title of the research conducted by professor Konstantinos Triantafilidis of the Aristotelean University of Thessaloniki in cooperation with the university of Crete and universities in the USA, Canada, Russia and Turkey. In the research 193 blood samples were collected from men living in Crete and 171 from men living in the Greek mainland, near to known neolithic settlements. Specifically from New Nicomedia (Veria, Makedonia), Sesklo and Dimini (Thessaly), Phracti  and Lerni (Kranidi, Argolis).

The results of the research were compared to researches made in Europe, Anatolia and Africa.

The absence of the genetic markers J2b-M12 in the inhabitants of the neighbouring areas of Bosporus, shows that those neolithic people came to Greece through sea.  

The Y-Chomosome results of the Cretan population showed that it is grouped together with the people of Anatolia. The samples of the Greek mainland are paritaly grouped with the palaiobalkanic cultures. This cocludes that the neolithic people of Crete came from Anatolia. Ofcourse the other genetic markers of the Greek mainland show that a part of those neolithic people came from Anatolia as well.  

It is worth to mention that the case of the samples from the Phracti cave in Peloponesus, show relation to the populations of Crete. This fact probably prooves the geographic ifluence between Crete, Peloponesus and Anatolia. Also, it should be mentioned that the later settlements in crete around 1100BC are from people of the mainland and is represented by the V13 genetic marker.  This marker appered in a frequency of 35% in Thessaly and Peloponesus while in Crete it reached 7% and therefore shows the genetic effect the those people produced. The wider genetic effect of the mainland in Crete reached 20%.

The dating of the halogroup J2a1h-M319 in Crete is placed at 3100BC. The importance of these results in archeology is very valuable for the historians, since it marks the limits between the Neolithic and the broze age in Crete, which is related to a sequence of important changes in the organization of the social services, the demographics, the material culture, the technology, the iconography and the burial rites. Many researchers suggested that the arrival of the new settlers was responsible for those changes; a social/cultural ressurection from which the famous Minoan civilization rised. Those new impressive characteristics that are connected with the early bronze age in crete have been previously proposed to originate from Egypt, Libya, Syra, Palestine, eastern Aegean an Anatolia. Contrary to the theory that the minoan civilization was a result of settlers from Egypt and Libya, the majority of the halogroups e3b1-m78 is characterized from the monocleuid marker V13, in Crete and equally in the mainland of Greece. In the samples however from Egypt this marker was not found. This shows that there was no recent genetic contact between Egypt and Crete/Greek Mainland. In other words, the Helladic area was not invaded by Egyptian populations as the DNA analysis show, but by settlers from Anatolia. Those results disprove the Aphrocentric theory or Black Athina, which was presented by some scientists of questionable nature. According to that theory the Greek civilization was a result of africans.

It is worth to mention that the study of the mitochondrial DNA and the Y-Chomosome, showed that the 80% of the inhabitatnts of Europe have palaiolithic origins. It is also known that the oldest neolithic settlements in europe are found in Greece. The scientific research of the origins of those people is done based on the findings provided by different scientific fields e.g archeology, linguistics, genetics; while many discussions are held about how, when and from where those people can from in the neolithic period in south eastern europe.

In order to answer those questions, the DNA of the chromosome Y was studied. The markers of the Y-Chromosome are inherited and unaltered from father to son, from generation to generation and therefore create paternal genetic trees. This gives us the chance to understand the origins of human populations.

Leonidas wrote: kafkas wrote: Flipper wrote: This is nothing new...Basically, this theory was already expressed back in the 50s. Now at least we seem to have genetic evidence. I'm not surprised at all.  Have a look at Greek placenames for example. There's a huge amount having Anatolian possesive forms on words of unknown etymology. However, a respectfull amount of placenames are known Hittite/Luwian/etc words in possesive form. Just an example: Parnassos --> Parna (Luwian for "House", masculin) + -ssos (anatolian plural possesive form for masculin words), Melissa(gk. Bee) --> Melit (Luwian for honey) + -ssa (plural possestive form for feminine words). Hittites and Luvian speakers were native Anatolians, not Greeks however. I don't see how one can jump to such a conclusion from such an unscientific bit of news. you needs to read a little closer and not jump on the defensive so easily.    the people that lived in Greece, before the greeks speakers came, mainly originated from anadolia. population movements between the aegean and anodolia have been a constant situation from pre-historic time until last century. Our countries share many genes Kavkas   This Minion peice of news just confirms this and is unsuprising

Like you said Turkey and Greece share much of the same genes (although the Greeks are probably much more genetically consistent), but I think this is all it proves. I just don't think the test can be applied to the question at hand due to the few thousand year time difference.

kafkas wrote: Like you said Turkey and Greece share much of the same genes (although the Greeks are probably much more genetically consistent), but I think this is all it proves. I just don't think the test can be applied to the question at hand due to the few thousand year time difference.

Yes sure, actually I believe the people of Anatolia are our common link. I don't believe the Hittites vanished for example nor the Phrygians (who were identifiable at least until the 6th century AD). They just passed and embodied to different nations from time to time.

However, on your last sentence, please have a look on what the press release says about the examination of the Y-Chomosome. This was used cause it passes unaltered from father to son which means the timeframe can not easily distort the results.

Now, It would be interresting to know which university in Turkey participated and see the report it has released, if any available in public yet.


Edited by Flipper - 08-Apr-2008 at 18:51

Flipper wrote:

Edited by Epikoureios - 12-Apr-2008 at 11:24