DNA Sheds Light On Minoans

Kathimerini ^ | 4-4-2008

[blam]

DNA sheds light on Minoans

Crete’s fabled Minoan civilization was built by people from Anatolia, according to a new study by Greek and foreign scientists that disputes an earlier theory that said the Minoans’ forefathers had come from Africa.

The new study – a collaboration by experts in Greece, the USA, Canada, Russia and Turkey – drew its conclusions from the DNA analysis of 193 men from Crete and another 171 from former neolithic colonies in central and northern Greece.

The results show that the country’s neolithic population came to Greece by sea from Anatolia – modern-day Iran, Iraq and Syria – and not from Africa as maintained by US scholar Martin Bernal.

The DNA analysis indicates that the arrival of neolithic man in Greece from Anatolia coincided with the social and cultural upsurge that led to the birth of the Minoan civilization, Constantinos Triantafyllidis of Thessaloniki’s Aristotle University told Kathimerini.

“Until now we only had the archaeological evidence – now we have genetic data too and we can date the DNA,” he said.

[blam]

GGG Ping.

[Verginius Rufus]

Martin Bernal is an English Marxist (born in London) whose real specialty is China, not the Bronze Age Aegean. No reputable Minoan scholars have gone along with his African theory of Minoan origins.

There have been earlier suggestions that the Minoans are related to people in western Asia Minor. There are some similar place names in Crete (words with -ss- like Tylissos) to places in Asia Minor (e.g. Halicarnassus).

[chesley]

Martin Bernal? Wasn't he the author of “Black Athena”. I read 2 volumes of that.

I didn't have the expertise to evaluate most of what he wrote, but what I did have the knowledge to evaluate was all wrong, completely. So I made my judgment on what I did know. What a load of steaming crap!!

[sdillard]

Martin Bernal is an Afrocentrist, and therefore a hack.

He insists that the civilization of Ancient Greece came from Africa, as did Ancient Egypt and just about any other advanced ancient civilzation.

In academics, Afrocentric history is the equivalent of being a flat earth proponet or a 9-11 Troofer.

He is not serious and is not taken seriously by anyone except the most extreme liberal hacks in academia.

Even at Berkeley, where I am, he’s not taken seriously by anyone in the History or Classics departments.

I don’t know what they think over at Black Studies. I only deal with real subjects.

[Boblo]

I don’t know what they think over at Black Studies. I only deal with real subjects.

Now that was not a nice thing to say!!!!!

How is Berkeley? I left in 1972.

[Boblo]

I thought Anatolia was mostly Turkey?

[VanShuyten]

Someone - Buy this guy an atlas, quick.

"Anatolia – modern-day Iran, Iraq and Syria"

[blam]

Ancient Maps Of Anatolia

[MrBambaLaMamba]

SSSHHHHH!

Don't point out Neo-Meccan revisionism, you'll enrage the Irani-Syrian-(Trying to incite Iraqi) jihadi fronts

EVERYONE KNOWS ANATOLIA INCLUDED MODERN DAY IRAN, SYRIA and IRAQ!

[SunkenCiv]

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	Thanks Blam. Crete's fabled Minoan civilization was built by people from Anatolia, according to a new study by Greek and foreign scientists that disputes an earlier theory that said the Minoans' forefathers had come from Africa. Bravo! A toast to Herodotus, and another to Barry Fell! To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are Blam, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

Anatolia? You’d have to stretch that a tad, to include Iraq, Iran and Syria. I suppose a small overlap could be argued but at best the writer is confusing things.

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

Perhaps nailing down the geographic origin will help scholars decipher the Minoan language.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Martin Bernal is an English Marxist (born in London) whose real specialty is China, not the Bronze Age Aegean. No reputable Minoan scholars have gone along with his African theory of Minoan origins.

Thanks for the clarification. I had never heard that Minoans came from Africa before.

[Little Bill]

I have thought that the Minoan of the Palace period is related to Luuvian and the fact that to get to Greece from Southern Anatolia you have to go West to go North, Currents.

[colorado tanker]

Yep. He lost me with that cockeyed definition of Anatolia.

[Verginius Rufus]

Bernal plays fast and loose with myths and supposed linguistic evidence. There is a story in Greek mythology of someone coming from Egypt to Greece (but I think that person had earlier ancestors in Greece) and that becomes a memory of Egyptians coming to Greece and bringing civilization with them. It's a little more sophisticated than the usual Afrocentrist theories but equally far from the evidence.

Bernal likes to accuse his opponents of racism--he constructs what he calls an "Aryan Model" of conventional views, insinuating it's somehow linked to Nazi ideas, and has no hesitation about smearing very honorable scholars with baseless allegations. It's all essentially agitprop--tearing down "bourgeois" scholarship in the name of socialism.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Does he go to Trinity United Church of Christ?

[Verginius Rufus]

He is a professor emeritus at Cornell...not sure if he still lives in Ithaca but pretty sure he doesn’t attend TUCC. In fact, I’d be surprised if he attends any church.

[SunkenCiv]

The Prehistoric Archaeology of the Aegean
Lesson 18: The Nature and Extent of
Neopalatial Minoan Influence
in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean Worlds
Aegean Connections With Egypt
In The Amarna Period (ca. 1360-1340 B.C.)
Trustees of Dartmouth College
revised Friday, March 18, 2000

During the reign of the heretical pharoah Akhenaten (= Amenhotep IV), the capital of Egypt was moved downstream from Thebes to the new city of Akhetaten (= modern Tell el-Amarna). This city was only occupied from ca. 1352-1338 B.C., and the large quantities of Mycenaean pottery found within it are therefore supplied with a fairly precise absolute date. The almost complete absence of Minoan pottery at Amarna is one indication of Mycenaean mercantile dominance within the Aegean at this time. More significant is the Mycenaean character of the settlements which have by this time replaced sites characterized until the end of the LM IB period (ca. 1500 B.C.) by Minoan cultural remains at Trianda on Rhodes, Ayia Irini on Keos, Phylakopi on Melos, and Miletus and Iasos in Asia Minor.