Potwierdza się to co piszemy tutaj na łamach naszego blogu oraz to co zawiera Księga Ruty – genetycy wykonali badania dzięki którym ustalono, że cywilizacja minojska była cywilizacją indoeuropejską. Stwierdzono to na podstawie badań żeńskiego haplotypu mtDNA. Czekamy na potwierdzenie udziału w tej cywilizacji naszych przodków po linii męskiej, o haplogrupie Y-DNA R1a1.
CB
Mysterious Minoans were European, DNA finds
The conclusion was drawn by comparing DNA from Minoan skeletons with genetic material from people living throughout Europe and Africa.
By
Tia Ghose, LiveScience
Tue, May 14 2013 at 11:40 AM
Photo: Andrei Nekrassov/Shutterstock
The Minoans, the builders of Europe’s first advanced civilization, really were European, new research suggests.
The conclusion, published today (May 14) in the journal Nature Communications, was drawn by comparing DNA from 4,000-year-old Minoan skeletons with genetic material from people living throughout Europe and Africa in the past and today.
“We now know that the founders of the first advanced European civilization were European,” said study co-author George Stamatoyannopoulos, a human geneticist at the University of Washington. “They were very similar to Neolithic Europeans and very similar to present day-Cretans,” residents of the Mediterranean island of Crete.
While that may sound intuitive, the findings challenge a long-held theory that the ancient Minoans came from Egypt.
First European Civilization
The Minoan culture emerged on Crete, which is now part of Greece, and flourished from about 2,700 B.C. to 1,420 B.C. Some believe that a massive eruption from the Volcano Thera on the island of Santorini doomed the Bronze Age civilization, while others argue that invading Mycenaeans toppled the once-great power.
Nowadays, the Minoans may be most famous for the myth of the minotaur, a half-man, half-bull that was fabled to lived within a labyrinth in Crete. [10 Beasts & Dragons: How Reality Made Myth]
When British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans discovered the Minoan palace of Knossos more than 100 years ago, he was dumbstruck by its beauty. He also noticed an eerie similarity between Minoan and Egyptian art, and didn’t believe that the culture was homegrown.
“That’s why Evans postulated the civilization was imported from Egypt or Libya,” Stamatoyannopoulos told LiveScience.
Genetic clues
To test that idea, the research team analyzed DNA from ancient Minoan skeletons that were sealed in a cave in Crete’s Lassithi Plateau between 3,700 and 4,400 years ago. They then compared the skeletal mitochondrial DNA, which is stored in the energy powerhouses of cells and passed on through the maternal line, with that found in a sample of 135 modern and ancient populations from around Europe and Africa.
The researchers found that the Minoan skeletons were genetically very similar to modern-day Europeans — and especially close to modern-day Cretans, particularly those from the Lassithi Plateau. They were also genetically similar to Neolithic Europeans, but distinct from Egyptian or Libyan populations.
The findings argue against Evan’s hypothesis and suggest that locals, not African expats, developed the Minoan culture.
“It was a period of excitement around the Mediterranean,” so although the Minoans definitely had contact with their African neighbors across the Mediterranean, any similarities in art were probably the result of cultural exchange, Stamatoyannopoulos said.
Ancient language?
The findings suggest that the ancient Minoans were likely descended from a branch of agriculturalists in Anatolia (what is now modern-day Turkey and Iraq) that fanned out into Europe about 9,000 years ago. If so, the Minoans may have spoken a proto-Indo-European language derived from the one possibly spoken by those Anatolian farmers, the researchers speculate.
Knowing that the Minoan language has Indo-European roots could help archaeologists decipher a mysterious Minoan writing system, known as Linear A, Stamatoyannopoulos said.
The prevailing theories hold that Minoan was a separate language family.
The analysis of DNA from the Lassithi cave is a “valuable contribution,” said Colin Renfrew, an archaeologist from the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge, who was not involved in the study.
However, to make a clearer connection to the Anatolian migration, the researchers should have compared the Minoan DNA with more DNA samples from modern and ancient Anatolia, he said.
This story was originally written for LiveScience and is republished with permission here. Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company.
Starożytną kultura minojska na Krecie była z pewnością cywilizacją europejską. Powstała około 3000 p.n.e. a upadła omkoło 1500 p.n.e. Ostatnie ustalenia wskazują, że cywilizacja ta powstała w wyniku kolonizacji wyspy przez Europejczyków w późnej epoce kamiennej. Dotychczas uważano, że główny udział w jej formowaniu mieli uchodźcy z Egiptu i Libii.
Kultura minojska została odkryta wraz z Knossos przez brytyjskiego archeologa Arthura Evansa w roku 1900. W kolejnych latach, naukowcy odkryli w pałacach Knossos ślady tajemniczej cywilizacji. Posiadała cechy obydwu kultur Egiptu i Libii, a także narodów z Bałkanów. To odkrycie wywołało wiele kontrowersji wśród archeologów i podzieliło środowisko naukowe na zwolenników wersji “europejskiej” i “afrykańskiej”.
Naukowcy zajmujący się paleogenetyką pracujący pod kierownictwem George’a Stamatoyannopoulosa z University of Washington w Seattle podważyli afrykańską teorię pochodzenia Minojczyków . Dokonano tego porównując fragmenty genomu dawnych mieszkańców Krety. Badacze byli w stanie wyodrębnić DNA z fragmentów kości z osób żyjących w epoce minojskiej. Po przeanalizowaniu ich struktury, udało im się odtworzyć mitochondrialne DNA. Jest ono przenoszone z matki na dzieci, co pozwala na prześledzenie powiązań rodzinnych między ludźmi poprzez analizy mutacji w mtDNA.
Według naukowców, żaden z żeńskich haplotypów kreteńskich nie należał do haplogrupy L, która jest charakterystyczna dla Egipcjan i Libijczyków, a także innych narodów Afryki Północnej. W większości przypadków mtDNA Minojczyków było podobne do genomu mieszkańców Bałkanów i Azji Mniejszej (Anatolia). Uczeni opublikowali na ten temat artykuł w periodyku naukowym Nature Communications .
