DEEP DISCUSSION:
YOU TUBE VIDEOTHE SAME PEOPLE who I call the INVISIBLES are one long long empire... they constantly re-invent themselves... dna is not going to be anything "they" have not doctored deliberately
yOUTUBE :
I am an American of English descent. Imagine my surprise when my DNA shows that I have a common ancestor with 30 % of the men of Crete. Eight thousand years ago we were on Crete. Four hundred years ago we were in England. People seemed to move around more than I thought.
Indeed they did, and population molecular genetics shows that movement was from Asia Minor to Greece/Greek islands and into Europe. That is reflected in the (de)cline of DNA variability as we go from Greece to the rest of Europe. Not suprisingly, Greeks of today mainly derive from the Myceneans. Also, the Dorian invasion was not invasion at all; It is rather reflected in population movements from the Pindus mountains in Eprus, Greece to Thessaly and the Peloponnese. In fact, there are Greek tribes of today such as the so-called Sarakatsans who derive directly from the ancient Macedonians and other Greeks. In spite of population movements, endogamy is still prevalent!
Linear A still is a mystery, meanwhile Linear B was an early form of Greek. After the collapse with the arrival of «sea-people», a very Dark period in between, it lasts for four centuries. Then Greece start to flourish again.
@Dean Firnatine the writing system of the Minoans ( linear a) could be very well be developed by them, as you mentioned, they were an advanced civilization. I am referring to their language, that most likely is not greek, and could be related with other languages from the near east.. @johnsamu That would only be post Imperial Age, probably more Early Antiquity period. The Roman Republic really did not expand outside the Italian Peninsula and Sicily. Rome was at its height territory- wise in 117 AD. Before 200 BC, Rome still had not unified the entire Italian Peninsula as NW Italy was still not incorporated. Before the Imperial period, the Roman Army was made up of locals from what is modern Italy. About Homer -- he was the bridge between the Heroic Age and the Historical Age. The Heroic Age was denoted by a lack of writing, but the remembrance of history by stories and poems. Poetry of rhyme and meter were invented NOT for artistic reasons, but to assist in remembering and remembering accurately. They would choose bright children, very young, and then teach them their tales of the past. The Bible was an Heroic poem for centuries before it was written down. The Celts, even though literate, never wrote down their Druid religious teachings. So, as the last Druids died (killed?), the Druid religion was lost. I do NOT believe that Homer created the Iliad & Odyssey, but that he merely wrote down what he had been taught as a boy. Except for the infusion of Gods and mysticism, I think much of the events portrayed are true, especially about the war. Trojan horse? Maybe not, but Troy probably fell by stratagem. Just as Africanus defeated Cartagena by stratagem. Numbers of ships, probably exaggerated. So too, the length of the siege. Still, I believe the war happened. There was a Troy, and it was destroyed.
It was actually destroyed multiple times, and the Myceneans often quarelled with the Hittites on modern day mainland turkey. There's evidence the Myceneans tried to colonise Anatolia (turkey) and supported people there who wanted to revolt against the Hittites, and obviously the Hittites weren't amused by that. It's possible that Troy was one such city in the crossfire between the Hittites and the Myceneans.
Mycenaean greeks had writing, it was called Linear B by archaeologists.
@AMVM True. And so did the Egyptians. The line between the Heroic and Historic is not sharp. I think they lived side by side for awhile. Like the Celts who were literate, but the Druids passed their teaching orally. In Medieval Europe you had the bards, and the Irish had the Shenachie who kept local records in their head, and their knowledge existed along side the written local Church records.
@Snarf McDreary Remember the Trojians had the same Gods as the Greeks. Probably were Ionian Greeks. Half the Gods were with the Myceneas and the other half with Trojians. Troy was called Iliad. The original city destroy by earthquake. The Mscedonian Greeks rebuild the city and name it Troy. When Apostle Paul the angel told to cross over to Macedonia.Paul mention Troy and sail from Troy to Neapolis in Macedonia is where Kavala is today.
This validates what I thought all along. First, there were no stories of outright genocide, that I am aware.of. True, the Sea Peoples were likely locals that have been displaced by war or famine. Trade was disrupted. As disorder spread, so too, did famine and poverty. And, so the ranks of the marauding Sea Peoples increased The end of trade, and continued drought, brought the whole structure of the Bronze Age down.
DNA evidence showed that modern Greeks are on average 70 to 75% identical to the Mycenaeans and Minoans, the later Greek invasions of Ionians, Dorians and Aeolians as you mentioned did not result in the extermination of the Mycenaeans but their assimilation.
Arthur John Evans was born in England, yet is Welsh.There are some fine Mycenean pieces in a museum in Kotor, Montenegro
Why is it even surprising that ancient and modern Greeks are the same basic population? It seems natural that the first farmers would form the backbone of the population given that farmers can breed much faster and support a higher population density than hunter-gatherers or nomads. I would expect a certain amount of genetic input from later arrivals out of Asia such as the Slavs and Avars but not enough to significantly change the makeup of the general population. The Indo-Europeans who brought proto-Greek to the peninsula were probably not very numerous, but able to impose their language and culture because of their horse-based military supremacy, and they had centuries if not millennia to blend into the native population before forming kingdoms. Differences in language and culture do not always indicate differences in genetics.
dc4457 While Greek genome is mostly from the original Neolithic farmers’ DNA, from the Mycenaean Bronze Age the Greeks actually had about ~20% of their genome inherited from the Indo-European invaders from the Pontic steppe, although admittedly this ancestry is much higher in various parts of Northern Europe where the original indigenous populations appear to have been largely wiped out instead of being assimilated through intermarriage. The contrast is stark even in parts of Spain where it appears that the paternal Y-Chomosomal DNA is almost entirely Indo-European and the maternal lines are indigenous non-Indo-European, suggesting the native men were killed off and their women forced to produce offspring with the conquering invaders. As we can see, though, non-Indo-European cultures manages to survive, even the Basques to this day.
I did watch some of your videos. Keep doing the good job The term " Greek " was not in use until after 1000 AD. " Helenos" was the common term, and in my personal opinion the DNA test results have been covered because it could be offended by many today.
This is not really breaking. There are genetic studies in 2013, 2015, and the most conclusive one in 2017 that show the near identical genetic similarities of the Minoan Greeks 5000 years ago, the Mycenean Greeks 3500 years ago up to the modern Greeks today. And it's not so strange. Culturally it's one big continuity in many ways seen. In language, in cultural traditions, agricultural practices, cuisine, continuing from Minoans to Myceneans and picking up again in classical Greece and so on. To arts and so on. The worst period in Greece's history is possibly the Greek Dark ages to which 80% of the population may have died. Also all of the European farmers originate from Greece and Western Anatolia 7000 BCE.Also. Not to forget. Trade and civilization throughout Greece was extensive already in 7000 BCE. With many neolithic sites found dated to these dates in the last 10 years. An important aspect to note is that Obsidian was found even in the northern corners of Greece in Kastoria which shows trade in Greece, as Obsidian is found only on the island of Milos which is 600 km away from Kastoria. And since Greece is 80% mountains and then 6000 islands around the mainland, there are cultural deviations within the Greek geography, but the Minoans and Mycenean cases who come from the Greek islands and the other from the Greek mainland, they are of the same genetic stock.
Maybe Mycenean culture migrated from crete to greece? or perhaps it evolved from minoan to mycenean through the contact between crete and greece, yet coming initially from crete? I'm not too informed on the topic so i ask if anyone knows if mycenean culture is found in both locations how do we know it originates on the mainland? are mycenean artifacts and sites older there?
Crete already had the distinct, much older and sophisticated Minoan culture/civilization (from around 3000 BC). The Minoans were not Greeks (as in, they did not speak a hellenic/greek dialect). In fact, we don't know for sure if their language was even Indo-european.
The Myceneans in the mainland were linguistically Greek. The proto-Greeks seem to have entered the peninsula from the north/north-west (modern-day Albania) around 2000 BC or a bit earlier, subjugated/mixed with the natives (called Pelasgians by the classical Greeks) and established the so-called Mycenean civilization, which really came to flourish around 1600 BC.
From then on, they started to expand across the Aegean, gradually colonizing the islands (including Crete) as well as the coasts of Asia Minor (the Trojan War of the Iliad being one of the ensuing conflicts). This was no doubt facilitated by the apocalyptic Thera explosion that greatly weakened the Cycladic and Minoan civilizations (Minoan Crete had dominated the Aegean until that point). Mycenean culture was, by comparison, much cruder and warrior-like and presents many similarities with the cultures developed by later Indo-european (Celtic, Germanic, Slavic) invasions of/ migrations to Europe from the eastern steppes. Minoan Cretan culture on the other hand had significant Egyptian and Levantine influences.
Well done mate, great content! You seem to know a lot of things, the only thing you missed is that sir Arthur Evans in his work Scripta Minoa, he clearly proves that Linear A is the parent of the Phoenician alphabet. A lot of other scientists agree with him.
This is maybe the most interesting field of modern science that everyone could experience himself. The thorough examination of my own DNA showed a much more interesting and much more diverse journey of my ancestors past. People leaving the shores of Scandinavia (and yes, that came unexpected), others riding over the steppes of the Eurasian grass belt, maybe some helped building the ruins I look at in awe today, another one may sailed through the Mediterranean, or the girl playing in a cave somewhere in todays Russia ten thousands of years ago and yet another on walked through the mountains of the Pamir range. And there are even more, strange, things to be found - still even more mysterious to me.All those theories about "race" are complete nonsense and I, more and more, don't get why people still cling to them like frightened small children to their parents.I really hope that more of the ancient DNA samples get uploaded to sites like Gedmatch so that we can compare our DNA with those people of the past. And rewrite history forever.
@Moto Mass Thank you for seconding me. I thought the first reaction would be from angry racists telling me otherwise and bullying me. It wouldn't be the first time. It´s always good to read from people like you. Thank you.And thanks for the book tips - I read the first one but the second one is new to me.
Linear B proves that the Mycenaens spoke an archaic type of Greek.But, language use is not always proof of origin. Most who speak English and Spanish today did not originate from the UK or Spain.The biggest clue here (and that's been common knowledge for over 100 years) is burial customs.The Myceneans buried; those who came after cremated.
Ok so if i understand right. The myceneans are Minoans that did not reach Krete so the stayed at mainland greece? And if the myceneans are greeks and the myceneans are also Minoans that means that Minoans were also Greeks?
James Aron Same. I always thought that the Minoans were their own group of people that went extinct from a volcano eruption that happened in santorini and then eventually gotten taken over by the Myceneans. But if we go by the theory that the video shows us, it might have been that the myceneans were aware to what was happening to the minoans and wanted to help their own people but were too late so when they arrived at krete, noone was really left from them.
Herodotus stated that the island of Crete was first inhabited by Carians or Cilicians from Asia Minor- can't remember which. Then they were pushed out of the island by Greeks whether they were Myceneans that later were renamed Minoans by modern historians. I'm not sure since I know that got their modern name from their legendary King Minos. After that Herodotus states that after the Trojan War the island population was decimated by a plague then repopulated a 3rd time, maybe Dorians, who knows.
@ZEUS 07 If Herodotus is correct then the DNA tested must have been from the second wave of colonizers that followed the Asia Minor population. I doubt tribes from Asia Minor would show that close a genetic relation but I guess anything is possible.
Not necessarily.If 'indigenous' Mycenaeans and Minoans shared some DNA, it does not stand to to reason that they were 'Greek', or even Indo-European speakers. They may have arrived in their respective locations from Anatolia or ever further afield, and possibly at very different times.What we do know is that by the time of 'classical' militant Bronze Age Mycenae, the Mycenaeans themselves were speaking an Indo-European language expressed in Linear B - the earliest record of the Greek language. This could well be the result of a new arrival of settlers on the the Greek mainland coalescing with an older people with a pre-existing culture to form the earliest 'Greek' civilization. If this hypothesis were true, then we still do not know who the earlier people were and what language they spoke.
To draw a parallel, the contemporary kingdom of Mittani was an admixture of a newly arrived chariot-wielding, Indo-European speaking warrior elite and an older, non-Indo-European speaking Hurrian civilization.
We also obviously know that the Mycenaeans later expanded into Crete because their Linear B script is found there in the very late Minoan period. This might also partially explain the genetic link between Mycenae and Crete.However we still don't know what language the Minoan Linear A script was capturing - hence we don't even know if we're dealing with an Indo-European people, let alone a proto-Greek one. So it is premature, and quite possibly wildly inaccurate to conclude that Minoan = Mycenaean and Mycenaean = Greek therefore Minoans = Greeks.
@Lac4 What you said does not contradict what I said in any way.I never said that the Minoans became extinct. I said that we do not know that they spoke an Indo-European language prior to the Mycenaean takeover. And we still don't.What the research suggests in that there was a lot of genetic similarity between the populations of Bronze Age Crete, Greece and Anatolia. This is not altogether surprising. This does NOT mean that we are talking about Indo-Europeans though. The earliest evidence we have of Indo-European writing comes from the Hittites and the Mitanni, and they are much further east. More importantly they are both known cases where an indigenous culture was fused with an Indo-European warrior caste. It's quite possible that the same thing happened in Greece, spawning the Mycenaeans, or the proto-Greeks.I'll give you a modern comparison. Hungarian people share the overwhelming majority of their DNA with their European neighbours, yet they speak a non Indo-European language - this is because an alien outside group (the Magyars) fused with Indo-European peoples in the Carpathian Basin over the course of many centuries. Yet if Hungarian was written in a non-decipherable script, by your logic people one million years from now could say "well, we can't read their writing and no longer know about their language, but we know that Hungarians must have been Indo-Europeans because of their DNA". Yet it is well known that the Magyars were a Finno-Ugric people originally, not Indo-European.We know now that the peoples in the area around the Agean shared a lot of common DNA. And we know that Mycenaean and late Minoan culture later became fused. But we do not know that we are talking about a specifically Indo-European gene pool, or more pointedly Indo-European speaking peoples. The Mycenaeans eventually incorporated an Indo-European element and ended up using an Indo-European language (written in a script most likely borrowed from the Minoans, which means nothing in terms of proving what language the Minoans spoke) - that much is certain. Beyond that we do not know.
The fact that Mycenaeans and Anatolians had additional DNA traits from elsewhere that the Minoans did not share means that it's eminently possible that the original populations of Crete, Greece and Anatolia were not even Indo-European, let alone Greek.
Minoan culture evolved independently, as island civilizations often do, and such that it was influenced was probably done as much from Egypt and the Levant as anywhere. Mycenaean culture borrowed much from Minoan culture, including their script. Later they conquered and assimilated it. We know that the Mycenaeans spoke an early form of Greek in the late Bronze Age. We know no such thing of the Minoans for 1.500 years of their history. It's ridiculous to look at the culture of the Greek mainland in 2000 BCE and call it 'basically Minoan' - it wasn't!You cannot synthesise two completely distinct civilizations, one of which was clearly much older and deeply influenced the younger, and call them the same thing. The Sumerians influenced Mesopotamian civilization for centuries after they disappeared, but that doesn't make the Babylonians and Sumerians one and the same.
So your argument is that the Minoans were Greek because ''you can't prove that the Minoans did not speak Greek"? And to suggest that pointing out the logical fallacy in this argument is "offensive"?Crete has shared a lot of history with the Greek mainland ever since the time of the late Mycenaean age. Classical Greece. The Byzantine Empire. Modern Greece. But this only dates back to such time as the very late Minoan period. A time when the Minoan culture was known to have made a deep impression upon the Mycenaeans. A time when the Mycenaeans conquered the Minoans and assimilated into their culture. Minoan culture lasted 1500 years, and yet you're only focusing upon the last couple of centuries - why is this? Where is the cultural affinity in the years before 1500 BCE? Yes Minoan culture impressed the Mycenaeans - it also impressed other ancient civilizations, including the Egyptians. There's a chance that the original Minoan hieroglyphs were inspired by the Egyptian writing system - does this mean that the Minoans were Egyptians then? Yes there was a lot of of cultural borrowing between the Minoans and Mycenaeans in the Late Bronze Age, but this was mostly one way traffic, until such point as the students conquered their teachers.This does not mean that the Minoans were Greek, any more than it means that the Sumerians who influenced the Semitic speaking world of Mesopotamia and the Levant were Semites (their language suggests that they were not).The fact that you take the study of ancient civilizations so personally, and imply that a 'non Greek person cannot understand' doesn't really say much for your ability to approach this subject rationally. Which is ironic really, as the emphasis on thinking logically and rationally is supposed to be one of the gifts of Greek civilization to the world. @Lac4 "Absence of evidence does not mean that absence is evident" - but I'm not the one declaring a certitude!! You've got it backwards. You're saying that God exists because I cannot prove that He doesn't exist. I never said that it's impossible that the Minoans might be closely related to the Mycenaeans, or the oldest Indo-European civilization that we know about.
What I said is that we do not know who the Minoans were. We know that their civilization developed over at least 1,500 years. We know that in the last couple of centuries of their civilization that they deeply influenced the Mycenaeans. We know that the Mycenaeans later conquered their civilization. And we know that the Mycenaeans in the very Late Bronze Age were speaking the earliest form of Greek that we know of.
But this DOES NOT MEAN that the Minoans were Greek speakers. This does not mean that the cultures of Mycenae and Crete were similar before the very late Bronze Age.
You will not find a reputable archaeologist who will attest to these things. Is it possible? Yes. Is it probable? No, not on the basis of evidence so far - and that includes the DNA study. As for the rest of what you wrote... sounds like you're quibbling semantics. The 'act of creating a unique cultural road' that you point to happened to the Minoans BEFORE any record of Mycenaean civilization - well before. It may be that the classical Greeks were 'heirs' of sorts to the Mycenaean culture, who were in turn the closest thing to 'heirs' of the Minoan culture that we know of. But the Greeks were also heirs to some aspects of Phoenician civilization in some ways. And the Romans were heirs of sorts to the culture of the Greeks. And the Christian world were heirs of sorts to the culture of the Romans (although they were also heirs of sorts to Levantine, Mesopotamian and Egyptian culture, if you really get right down to it). And modern Britain would consider itself as some sort of heir to the the cultures of Christendom and Rome. And so thus I could consider myself, as a multiple generation Australian with distant Scottish lineage, as an 'heir' to Minoan, Mycenaean, Greek, Roman, Phoenician, Levantine, Mesopotamian and Egyptian culture - but I don't, because it's rather silly. Probably 75% of the world's population can consider themselves heirs to this extended succession of cultures, so why should I claim that I'm special, and that it's 'my own legacy'? Be proud of the legacy of the Greeks, go right ahead. But don't be presumptuous and claim an ancient civilization as 'Greek' when it has not yet been proven to be thus.
@Son of Skeletor only true way of knowing if the minoas were indoeuropean is by decyphering their language , which is impossible unfortunalty with the findings so far.
@Dimitrios Ioannis Genovezos Yeah I know mate, Linear A has still never been cracked. Which is precisely my point - we don't know who these people were. They may have been from a long standing indigenous population - we'll call them South West Anatolians for convenience - or it's possible that they may have been Indo Europeans, although Minoan civilization began a full 1,000 years before we have the earliest historical record of Indo-Europeans, those being the Hittites. I'd say the former theory is far more likely, but until their script is deciphered we'll never know for certain.Of course we know now that the Mycenaean population also had a base component of the 'mystery race' - most likely SW Anatolians, and we have long known that the Mycenaeans were speaking an Indo European language, an early form of Greek, in the late Bronze Age when they conquered the Minoans. We also now know that the Mycenaeans had an additional DNA influx from elsewhere, hypothesised as a newly arrived Indo-European influx, although we cannot be certain about that. All this is very interesting, but it's far too premature to draw the conclusion that Minoans were basically Mycenaeans, and that Mycenaeans were basically Greek, therefore Minoans were basically early Greeks. The time periods were vastly different, the languages may have been completely different, and the DNA was still 25% different - there are still many gaps in the archaeological records to fill.
@Son of Skeletor myceneans spoke greek we still use many mycenean greek words today in Greek which I find fascinating . Words surviving for 3500 years in a language that has evolved so much is mindblowing. The fact they spoke greek almost certainly makes them of indoeuropean origin. Linear A will most propably never be deciphered , unless something extraordinary happens , like finding a billinguar text or somethin. We were always taught here in Greece for nationalistic reasons obviously that the Minoans were proto-greeks. It's obvious if do a little research that they were propably pre-greeks. This DNA crap , I hate it to be honest , it only makes things more complicated most of the times and creates more questions than the ones it solves. I prefer classic arcaiology to be honest
It's probably likely that the first Minoans were indigenous - and not directly related to any outside group - such as the Basques. However, because of their position in the Mediterranean, the isolation would not last once discovered - including their genetic isolation. Whatever the case, the Minoans readily adapted to the outside world and prospered for nearly 2,000 years. Which is a very good run. The unfortunate thing is that we know so little about how the Minoans saw themselves in relation to the world around them.
@Dimitrios Ioannis Genovezos Yeah I know the Mycenaeans spoke proto-Greek mate, the question is how long had they been speaking an Indo-European language? We only know that Greek/Indo European reached 'Europe' at the very end of the Bronze Age, because the late Bronze Age Mycenaeans left their Linear B records then. But we don't know anything about the preceding 1,000 years. It is noteworthy though that the Hittite and Mitanni Indo European language records began just a little earlier, and from further east. The location of the IE homeland and the IE language spread is an empirical question, to be settled by the data. In the absence of writing, it is not directly known whether the neolithic farmers of Greece spoke proto-Greek, or whether the neolithic people of Anatolia spoke proto-IE. We must rely on the interpretation of indirect evidence. The general methodology should be one of eliminating the families of theories, associated with a mother hypothesis (paradigme), by showing there is no possible interpretation of data consistent with that paradigme. In our case, the paradigms are the Anatolian hypothesis, and the Kurgan hypothesis. The problem of establishing rules of interpretation is far from trivial. We might weaken logical inconsistency requirement to probabilistic inconsistency. But this in turn might require us to waken the concept of probability. Moreover, it may be the case that insufficient data exists to settle the question. Nonetheless it is fun to discuss it.I take it that the pit graves argument, rests on the claim that pit graves are exclusive, to the Kurgan culture. Is this so?I would like to see a reference for the evidence that Linear A is based Phonocian. I am no expert, but as far as I know Linear a is a syllabary, whereas Phoenician is an alphabetic system. Linear A and B also share some characters, suggesting that Linear B is derived from Linear A, as a writing system. The languages need not be the same, they may not even be closely related. The difficulting in deciphering Linear maybe due to the language being unrelated to Greek, maybe even an isolate. The linguistic affiliations of Linear A may be of little relevance to the Kurgan Anatolian controversy.The eastern European genetic component in the Greek population is consistent with the Kurgan hypothesis, but this need not make it inconsistent with the Anatolian hypothesis. So much depends on how the IE tree is constructed!I know I have an aversion to kings and generals history. The neolithic revolution is such a tempting mechanism for spreading the IE languages.
@Jack Broughton The Phoenician culture arose in the second millenium BCE. The beginnings of agriculture (neolithic) in mainland Greece is about 6800 BCE (seventh millenium BCE.). You cannot assume the people of neolithic Anatolia were semites. I know of no cases of an alphabetic script (of 20 to 30 glyphs) such as Phoenician; developing into a syllabary such as Linear A with several hundred glyphs.
John Kelly yes sir we are in agreement, the Linear A is not Phoenician or Semitic.
A little more help. The route of Trojan migrants is included in the historical description. First Meotis and then Pannonia named the Romans a part of Hungary. Seed founded the city of Sycambria, and then France founded the city of Paris here. Had he not shown up, the Trojans had Med's dress. They were Medes and called themselves Pannons.
Your video is very interesting to watch but I am pretty sure that indigenous people existed in Europe as well between 10.000-8.000 BC. So the current Europeans do not originate only from dispersed Mesopotamians, as the picture shows on 11:14, but from a mix between the latter and the indigenous tribes of Europe. The language, culture and characteristics of Europeans is very different for example from the ones of the Sumerians.
Lewis Leonard
1 year ago