The analysis also showed a high degree of sharing with the current population of the Lassithi plateau and Greece.
The highest percentage of shared Minoan mitochondrial DNA variation was found with Neolithic populations from Southern Europe. When plotted geographically, shared Minoan mitochondrial DNA variation was lowest in North Africa and increased progressively across the Middle East, Caucasus, Mediterranean islands, Southern Europe, and mainland Europe. The Minoan shared the greatest percentage of their mitochondrial DNA variation with European populations, especially those in Northern and Western Europe. None of the Minoans carried mitochondrial DNA variations characteristic of African populations.įurther analysis showed that the Minoans were only distantly related to Egyptian, Libyan, and other North African populations. The Minoan samples revealed 21 distinct mitochondrial DNA variations, of which six were unique to the Minoans and 15 were shared with modern and ancient populations. Stamatoyannopoulos and his research team analyzed samples from 37 skeletons found in a cave in Crete’s Lassithi plateau and compared them with mitochondrial DNA sequences from 135 modern and ancient human populations. “Our study underscores the importance of DNA not only in helping us to have healthier futures, but also to understand our past.” “Genetic analyses are playing in increasingly important role and predicting and protecting human health,” Stamatoyannopoulos adds. “Our data suggest that the Neolithic population that gave rise to the Minoans also migrated into Europe and gave rise to modern European peoples.” “These results suggest the Minoan civilization arose 5,000 years ago in Crete from an ancestral Neolithic population that had arrived in the region about 4,000 years earlier,” he says. “Our mitochondrial DNA analysis shows that the Minoan’s strongest genetic relationships are with these Neolithic humans, as well as with ancient and modern Europeans,” he explains. At the same time, the first Neolithic inhabitants reached Crete.” “About 9,000 years ago,” he notes, “there was an extensive migration of Neolithic humans from the regions of Anatolia that today comprise parts of Turkey and the Middle East. He believes that the data highlight the importance of DNA analysis as a tool for understanding human history. George Stamatoyannopoulos, University of Washington professor of medicine and genome sciences, is the paper’s senior author. The findings indicate that these people probably were descendents of the first humans to reach Crete about 9,000 years ago, and that they have the greatest genetic similarity with modern European populations. Results published in Nature Communications suggest that the Minoan civilization arose from the population already living in Bronze Age Crete. Because mitochondrial DNA is passed down from mothers to their children via the human egg, it contains information about maternal ancestry. Mitochondria, the energy powerhouses of cells, contain their own DNA, or genetic code. Now, a team of researchers in the United States and Greece has used mitochondrial DNA analysis of Minoan skeletal remains to determine the likely ancestors of these ancient people. Since then, however, other archaeologists have suggested that the Minoans may have come from other regions, possibly Turkey, the Balkans, or the Middle East. Knossos was the major civil center of the Minoans. One of the buildings in Knossos restored by British archeologist Sir Arthur Evans.