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.

The Histories
by Herodotus
Book I -- Clio
tr by George Rawlinson
What the language of the Pelasgi was I cannot say with any certainty. If, however, we may form a conjecture from the tongue spoken by the Pelasgi of the present day -- those, for instance, who live at Creston above the Tyrrhenians, who formerly dwelt in the district named Thessaliotis, and were neighbours of the people now called the Dorians -- or those again who founded Placia and Scylace upon the Hellespont, who had previously dwelt for some time with the Athenians -- or those, in short, of any other of the cities which have dropped the name but are in fact Pelasgian; if, I say, we are to form a conjecture from any of these, we must pronounce that the Pelasgi spoke a barbarous language. If this were really so, and the entire Pelasgic race spoke the same tongue, the Athenians, who were certainly Pelasgi, must have changed their language at the same time that they passed into the Hellenic body; for it is a certain fact that the people of Creston speak a language unlike any of their neighbours, and the same is true of the Placianians, while the language spoken by these two people is the same; which shows that they both retain the idiom which they brought with them into the countries where they are now settled.

Now, of the above nations the Carians are a race who came into the mainland from the islands. In ancient times they were subjects of king Minos, and went by the name of Leleges, dwelling among the isles, and, so far as I have been able to push my inquiries, never liable to give tribute to any man. They served on board the ships of king Minos whenever he required; and thus, as he was a great conqueror and prospered in his wars, the Carians were in his day the most famous by far of all the nations of the earth. They likewise were the inventors of three things, the use of which was borrowed from them by the Greeks; they were the first to fasten crests on helmets and to put devices on shields, and they also invented handles for shields. In the earlier times shields were without handles, and their wearers managed them by the aid of a leathern thong, by which they were slung round the neck and left shoulder. Long after the time of Minos, the Carians were driven from the islands by the Ionians and Dorians, and so settled upon the mainland. The above is the account which the Cretans give of the Carians: the Carians themselves say very differently. They maintain that they are the aboriginal inhabitants of the part of the mainland where they now dwell, and never had any other name than that which they still bear; and in proof of this they show an ancient temple of Carian Jove in the country of the Mylasians, in which the Mysians and Lydians have the right of worshipping, as brother races to the Carians: for Lydus and Mysus, they say, were brothers of Car. These nations, therefore, have the aforesaid right; but such as are of a different race, even though they have come to use the Carian tongue, are excluded from this temple.

The Caunians, in my judgment, are aboriginals; but by their own account they came from Crete. In their language, either they have approximated to the Carians, or the Carians to them -- on this point I cannot speak with certainty. In their customs, however, they differ greatly from the Carians, and not only so, but from all other men. They think it a most honourable practice for friends or persons of the same age, whether they be men, women, or children, to meet together in large companies, for the purpose of drinking wine. Again, on one occasion they determined that they would no longer make use of the foreign temples which had been long established among them, but would worship their own old ancestral gods alone. Then their whole youth took arms, and striking the air with their spears, marched to the Calyndic frontier, declaring that they were driving out the foreign gods.
The Histories
by Herodotus
Book VIII -- Urania
tr by George Rawlinson
One thing which the Thebans declare to have happened at this time is to me very surprising. Mys, the European, they say, after he had gone about to all the oracles, came at last to the sacred precinct of Apollo Ptous. The place itself bears the name of Ptoum; it is in the country of the Thebans, and is situated on the mountain side overlooking Lake Copais, only a very little way from the town called Acraephia. Here Mys arrived, and entered the temple, followed by three Theban citizens -- picked men whom the state had appointed to take down whatever answer the god might give. No sooner was he entered than the prophet delivered him an oracle, but in a foreign tongue; so that his Theban attendants were astonished, hearing a strange language when they expected Greek, and did not know what to do. Mys, however, the European, snatched from their hands the tablet which they had brought with them, and wrote down what the prophet uttered. The reply, he told them, was in the Carian dialect. After this, Mys departed and returned to Thessaly.

Their findings just confirm what most were theorizing to begin with, that Neolithic farmers into Europe originated from Anatolia & the Near East, not sub-Sahara Africa. Here is the actual paper for anyone interested:

Differential Y-chromosome Anatolian Influences on the Greek and Cretan Neolithic
R. J. King11, S. S. Özcan22, T. Carter33, E. Kalfoğlu22, S. Atasoy22, C. Triantaphyllidis44, A. Kouvatsi44, A. A. Lin55, C-E. T. Chow55, L. A. Zhivotovsky66, M. Michalodimitrakis77 and P. A. Underhill5,*5
The earliest Neolithic sites of Europe are located in Crete and mainland Greece. A debate persists concerning whether these farmers originated in neighboring Anatolia and the role of maritime colonization. To address these issues 171 samples were collected from areas near three known early Neolithic settlements in Greece together with 193 samples from Crete. An analysis of Y-chromosome haplogroups determined that the samples from the Greek Neolithic sites showed strong affinity to Balkan data, while Crete shows affinity with central/Mediterranean Anatolia. Haplogroup J2b-M12 was frequent in Thessaly and Greek Macedonia while haplogroup J2a-M410 was scarce. Alternatively, Crete, like Anatolia showed a high frequency of J2a-M410 and a low frequency of J2b-M12. This dichotomy parallels archaeobotanical evidence, specifically that while bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) is known from Neolithic Anatolia, Crete and southern Italy; it is absent from earliest Neolithic Greece. The expansion time of YSTR variation for haplogroup E3b1a2-V13, in the Peloponnese was consistent with an indigenous Mesolithic presence. In turn, two distinctive haplogroups, J2a1h-M319 and J2a1b1-M92, have demographic properties consistent with Bronze Age expansions in Crete, arguably from NW/W Anatolia and Syro-Palestine, while a later mainland (Mycenaean) contribution to Crete is indicated by relative frequencies of V13.

Differential Y-chromosome Anatolian Influences on the Greek and Cretan Neolithic

"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 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 Afrocentric theory or Black Athina, which was presented by some scientists of questionable nature."

As for trying to decypher the Minoan language, I say good luck with that, there is even less we know about the ancient Anatolian languages now long lost, then we do of Minoan.

Anatolia (Greek: Ανατολία, Anatolía) (Turkish: Anadolu) is a geographic region bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean Sea to the west, and the bulk of the Asian mainland to the east. The name Anatolia comes from the Greek Aνατολή (Αnatolí), "(sun)Rise," or Ανατολία (Anatolía), "(land) of the sunrise" or simply the "East."[1] It likely dates back at least 3000 years, from the Ionian settlement period circa the 1st millennium BC. (See also Ionian League). Because of its strategic location at the intersection of Asia and Europe, Anatolia has been the center of many civilizations since prehistoric times.
Anatolia composite:NASA

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