[Renfield]

The title of this article is actually a bit misleading. From later in the article:

"...It is likely, says Stamatoyannopoulos, that the Minoans descended from Neolithic populations that migrated to Europe from the Middle East and Turkey...."

[Renfield]

Ping.

[BenLurkin]

Interesting!

[Theoria]

[PapaBear3625]

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.

If the island had been long-settled by that time, a major migration from Egypt would have been unwelcome, but a few skilled craftsmen would have been accepted. They would have changed Minoan technology while not affecting Minoan genetics to a significant degree.

[Chainmail]

Ping for later

[apro]

From the study:

The PCA analysis also highlights the high affinity of the Minoans to the current inhabitants of the Lassithi plateau as well as Greece. Among the top 10 nearest neighbours to our Minoan population sample, four are Greek populations and two of these from Lassithi prefecture (Fig. 5). The close relationship of the Minoans to modern Cretans is also apparent, when analysis is restricted to populations originating from Greece (Fig. 6b). Particularly in respect to the first PCA (capturing 92% of the variance of this particular subset of the data), the Minoans are extremely close to the modern Lassithi population, the populations from the islands of Chios and Euboea, as well as the populations of Argolis and Lakonia (Southern Greece ) (Fig. 6b). Thus, the modern inhabitants of the Lassithi plateau still carry the maternal genetic signatures of their ancient predecessors of the Minoan population.

The Minoan mtDNA haplotypes resembled those of the European populations (Figs 2b, 3a and 4; Supplementary Figs S1–S3). The majority of Minoans were classified in haplogroups H (43.2%), T (18.9%), K (16.2%) and I (8.1%). Haplogroups U5A, W, J2, U, X and J were each identified in a single individual. The greatest percentage of shared Minoan haplotypes was observed with European populations. Notably, in Fig. 4, a gradient can be observed, with the lowest affinity for Minoans found with Northern African populations and the percentage of haplotype sharing increasing as we move through the Middle East, Caucasus and the Mediterranean islands, southern Europe and mainland Europe (Fig. 4a). Of notice also is the high percentage of haplotype sharing with Bronze Age (Fig. 4c) and Neolithic (Fig. 4d) European populations.