Minoan civilization was made in Europe
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May 16, 2013, 1:32:13 PM5/16/13
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http://www.nature.com/news/minoan-civilization-was-made-in-europe-1.12990?goback=%2Egde_690807_member_240895350
Minoan civilization was made in Europe
DNA casts doubt on Egyptian origin for ancient Cretans.
Ewen Callaway
14 May 2013
Minoan artefacts are different from those of nearby Bronze-Age Greece
— but DNA studies suggest the civilization might be home-grown after
all.
When the British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans discovered the
4,000-year-old Palace of Minos on Crete in 1900, he saw the vestiges
of a long-lost civilization whose artefacts set it apart from later
Bronze-Age Greeks. The Minoans, as Evans named them, were refugees
from Northern Egypt who had been expelled by invaders from the South
about 5,000 years ago, he claimed.
Modern archaeologists have questioned that version of events, and now
ancient DNA recovered from Cretan caves suggests that the Minoan
civilization emerged from the early farmers who settled the island
thousands of years earlier.
The Minoans flourished on Crete for as many as 12 centuries until
about 1,500 bc, when it is thought to have been devastated by a
catastrophic eruption of the Mediterranean island volcano Santorini,
and a subsequent tsunami. They are widely recognized as one of
Europe's first 'high cultures', renowned for their pottery, metal-work
and colourful frescoes. Their civilization fuelled Greek myths such as
the story of the Minotaur, the half-man, half-bull creature who lived
in a labyrinth.
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Evans was among the first to explore Crete after it gained
independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1898. His team discovered the
4,000-year-old Palace of Minos, and uncovered artefacts very different
from those of Bronze Age Greece, including thick-walled circular tombs
that bore a resemblance to those of ancient North Africans, and
still-undeciphered scripts dubbed Linear A and Cretan hieroglyphs.
Others have suggested that the Minoans originated in the Middle East,
modern-day Turkey or the Mediterranean. Genetic studies of modern
Cretans have come to little consensus.
George Stamatoyannopoulos, a geneticist at the University of
Washington in Seattle who has been working on the problem for more
than a decade, hoped that he could settle the debate by looking at the
DNA of the long-dead Minoans. “One of my motivations when I started
the whole thing was to see whether Sir Arthur Evans was right or not,”
he says.
Stamatoyannopoulos's team assembled bone and tooth samples from more
than 100 individuals who lived on Crete between 4,900 and 3,800 years
ago. Of these, 37 yielded mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down in
the maternal line. The team analysed the samples in two different
laboratories — a quality-control method common in ancient DNA work.
Cultural exchange
The Minoan samples possessed 21 different mitochondrial DNA markers,
including 6 unique to Minoans and 15 common in modern, Bronze Age and
Neolithic European populations. None of the Minoans possessed
mitochondrial markers similar to those of present-day African
populations. The results are published online today in Nature
Communications1.
It is likely, says Stamatoyannopoulos, that the Minoans descended from
Neolithic populations that migrated to Europe from the Middle East and
Turkey. Archaeological excavations suggest that early farmers were
living in Crete by around 9,000 years ago, so these could be the
ancestors of the Minoans. Similarities between Minoan and Egyptian
artefacts were probably the result of cultural exchanges across the
navigable Mediterranean Sea, rather than wholesale migrations, he
adds.
Wolfgang Haak, a molecular archaeologist at the University of Adelaide
in Australia, thinks that Crete’s early history is probably more
complicated, with multiple Neolithic populations arriving at different
times. “It's nevertheless good to see some data — if authentic — from
this region of Europe contributing to the big and complex puzzle,” he
says.
Stamatoyannopoulos notes that his team’s findings are limited, because
mitochondrial DNA represents only a single maternal lineage for each
individual — a mother’s mother, and so on. With Johannes Krause, a
palaeogeneticist at the University of Tubingen in Germany, the team
now plans to sequence the nuclear genomes of Minoans and other
ancients to learn more about their history.
“For the last 30, 40 years there’s been a growing sense that Minoan
Crete was created by people indigenous to the island,” says Cyprian
Broodbank, a Mediterranean archaeologist at University College London.
He welcomes the latest line of support for this hypothesis. “It’s good
to have some of the old assumptions that Minoans migrated from some
other high culture scotched,” he says.
Nature doi:10.1038/nature.2013.12990
--
June Samaras
KALAMOS BOOKS
(For Books about Greece)
2020 Old Station Rd
Streetsville,Ontario
Canada L5M 2V1
Tel : 905-542-1877
E-mail : kalamo...@gmail.com
www.kalamosbooks.com
http://kalamosb.alibrisstore.com/
http://www.antiqbook.com/books/bookseller.phtml/kal
Minoan civilization was made in Europe
DNA casts doubt on Egyptian origin for ancient Cretans.
Ewen Callaway
14 May 2013
Minoan artefacts are different from those of nearby Bronze-Age Greece
— but DNA studies suggest the civilization might be home-grown after
all.
When the British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans discovered the
4,000-year-old Palace of Minos on Crete in 1900, he saw the vestiges
of a long-lost civilization whose artefacts set it apart from later
Bronze-Age Greeks. The Minoans, as Evans named them, were refugees
from Northern Egypt who had been expelled by invaders from the South
about 5,000 years ago, he claimed.
Modern archaeologists have questioned that version of events, and now
ancient DNA recovered from Cretan caves suggests that the Minoan
civilization emerged from the early farmers who settled the island
thousands of years earlier.
The Minoans flourished on Crete for as many as 12 centuries until
about 1,500 bc, when it is thought to have been devastated by a
catastrophic eruption of the Mediterranean island volcano Santorini,
and a subsequent tsunami. They are widely recognized as one of
Europe's first 'high cultures', renowned for their pottery, metal-work
and colourful frescoes. Their civilization fuelled Greek myths such as
the story of the Minotaur, the half-man, half-bull creature who lived
in a labyrinth.
Related stories
Ancient Swedish farmer came from the Mediterranean
Underwater archaeology: Hunt for the ancient mariner
Trading Bronze Age technology
More related stories
Evans was among the first to explore Crete after it gained
independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1898. His team discovered the
4,000-year-old Palace of Minos, and uncovered artefacts very different
from those of Bronze Age Greece, including thick-walled circular tombs
that bore a resemblance to those of ancient North Africans, and
still-undeciphered scripts dubbed Linear A and Cretan hieroglyphs.
Others have suggested that the Minoans originated in the Middle East,
modern-day Turkey or the Mediterranean. Genetic studies of modern
Cretans have come to little consensus.
George Stamatoyannopoulos, a geneticist at the University of
Washington in Seattle who has been working on the problem for more
than a decade, hoped that he could settle the debate by looking at the
DNA of the long-dead Minoans. “One of my motivations when I started
the whole thing was to see whether Sir Arthur Evans was right or not,”
he says.
Stamatoyannopoulos's team assembled bone and tooth samples from more
than 100 individuals who lived on Crete between 4,900 and 3,800 years
ago. Of these, 37 yielded mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down in
the maternal line. The team analysed the samples in two different
laboratories — a quality-control method common in ancient DNA work.
Cultural exchange
The Minoan samples possessed 21 different mitochondrial DNA markers,
including 6 unique to Minoans and 15 common in modern, Bronze Age and
Neolithic European populations. None of the Minoans possessed
mitochondrial markers similar to those of present-day African
populations. The results are published online today in Nature
Communications1.
It is likely, says Stamatoyannopoulos, that the Minoans descended from
Neolithic populations that migrated to Europe from the Middle East and
Turkey. Archaeological excavations suggest that early farmers were
living in Crete by around 9,000 years ago, so these could be the
ancestors of the Minoans. Similarities between Minoan and Egyptian
artefacts were probably the result of cultural exchanges across the
navigable Mediterranean Sea, rather than wholesale migrations, he
adds.
Wolfgang Haak, a molecular archaeologist at the University of Adelaide
in Australia, thinks that Crete’s early history is probably more
complicated, with multiple Neolithic populations arriving at different
times. “It's nevertheless good to see some data — if authentic — from
this region of Europe contributing to the big and complex puzzle,” he
says.
Stamatoyannopoulos notes that his team’s findings are limited, because
mitochondrial DNA represents only a single maternal lineage for each
individual — a mother’s mother, and so on. With Johannes Krause, a
palaeogeneticist at the University of Tubingen in Germany, the team
now plans to sequence the nuclear genomes of Minoans and other
ancients to learn more about their history.
“For the last 30, 40 years there’s been a growing sense that Minoan
Crete was created by people indigenous to the island,” says Cyprian
Broodbank, a Mediterranean archaeologist at University College London.
He welcomes the latest line of support for this hypothesis. “It’s good
to have some of the old assumptions that Minoans migrated from some
other high culture scotched,” he says.
Nature doi:10.1038/nature.2013.12990
--
June Samaras
KALAMOS BOOKS
(For Books about Greece)
2020 Old Station Rd
Streetsville,Ontario
Canada L5M 2V1
Tel : 905-542-1877
E-mail : kalamo...@gmail.com
www.kalamosbooks.com
http://kalamosb.alibrisstore.com/
http://www.antiqbook.com/books/bookseller.phtml/kal
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