New DNA research confirmed that modern Greeks — direct descendants of the Mycenaeanswho ruled mainland Greece and the Aegean Sea during the Bronze Age.
Genetic study published successful diary Natureconfirmed: The Greeks are so descendants of the Mycenaeansa civilization that ruled mainland Greece and the Aegean portion from 1600 to 1200 BC. e.
Scientists person studied dental DNA from nineteen people from archaeological sites successful Greece and Crete, including ten Minoans (2900–1700 BC), 4 Mycenaeans (1700–1200 BC) and 5 representatives of earlier Bronze and Neolithic cultures.
Genetic transportation implicit thousands of years
The results of the study showed that about 75–80% of the Mycenaean DNA is the aforesaid arsenic the Minoansand modern Greeks transportation within themselves 70–80% of the aforesaid familial code. This means that the familial ground of the Greek radical was formed successful the Bronze Age.
According to a geneticist George Stamatoyanopoulos from the University of Washington, “the continuity betwixt the Mycenaeans and modern Greeks is particularly striking fixed that the Aegean portion has been a crossroads of civilizations for thousands of years.”
Scientists noted that the migration of the archetypal farmers from Anatolia determined the familial “skeleton” of not lone the Greeks, but besides astir Europeans. Archaeologist Colin Renfrew from Cambridge explained: “It was the spread of cultivation crops that became the decisive infinitesimal successful the enactment of the Greek people.”
Minoans and Mycenaeans: two branches of 1 civilization
Mycenaean fresco depicting a woman. Source: Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain
The study besides confirmed that The Mycenaeans were intimately related to the Minoansdespite differences successful connection and culture. Both civilizations inherited genes brown eyes and acheronian hair and were descended from the aboriginal farmers of Greece and southwestern Anatolia.
Scientists besides recovered successful the DNA of the Mycenaeans an admixture of genes from the regions of the eastbound Caucasus and Iran, which indicates ancient migrations from the East. However, the main quality betwixt the Mycenaeans was proportion of bluish humor (4–16%)who came from Eastern Europe oregon Siberia – these migrants did not scope Crete, but settled connected the mainland, becoming the founders of the Mycenaean elite.
Continuity of the Greek gene
The study recovered that humanities influences – Roman, Byzantine, Slavic and Ottoman – did not alteration the basal familial code Greeks The basal DNA structure passed down from the Mycenaeans has remained astir unchanged.
Swedish archaeologist Christian Christiansen from the University of Gothenburg noted: “These results unfastened a caller section successful the familial past of western Eurasia and the full Bronze Age Mediterranean.”
Thus, genetics confirmed what the Greeks ever knew intuitively: modern Hellenes are nonstop descendants of the Mycenaeansthe radical who built the archetypal palaces, legends and individuality of Europe.
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