" Sir Arthur Evans, named the people who built this civilization ‘Minoans’ after the legendary Minos, the King of Knossos. Evans also suggested that the founders of the Minoan civilization were refugees from the Delta region of Egypt when North Egypt was conquered by the Southern king Narmer (Menes of ancient historians) at about 5,000 YBP7, 8; his evidence were the similarities between Minoan and Egyptian art and elements he was considering Libyan in origin, such as the cod piece worn by Bronze Age Cretans and the circular tombs of the early inhabitants of Southern Crete that were similar to tombs built by the Libyans7, 8. Based on a variety of archaeological finds, other archaeologists have argued for Cycladic9, Anatolian9, 10, Syrian or Palestinian11, 12 migrations or for an autochthonous development of the Minoan civilization from the initial inhabitants of Crete13. ... Following the application of a series of strict authentication criteria, we use for our comparisons the DNAs of only 37 Minoans whose remains were well preserved in a cave ossuary located in the Lassithi plateau of east-central Crete. We determine mtDNA polymorphisms using two different methods applied in two different laboratories. Our calculations of genetic distances, haplotype sharing and principal component analysis (PCA) exclude a North African origin of the Minoans. Instead, we find that the highest genetic affinity of the Minoans is with Neolithic and modern European populations. We conclude that the most likely origin of the Minoans is the Neolithic population that migrated to Europe about 9,000 YBP. We propose that the Minoan civilization most likely was developed by the autochthonous population of the Bronze Age Crete."
Posted on: Wed, 03 Jul 2013 00:53:06 +0000
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