Science and Tech

The ancient Minoans used to marry first cousins

Bronze Age Family Harvesting Grain.


Bronze Age Family Harvesting Grain. -NIKOLA NEVENOV

16 Jan. () –

The analysis of genetic material from Minoans and Mycenaeans from the Bronze Age has allowed us to demonstrate that it was customary to marry first cousins in these ancient cultures of the Island of Crete.

In addition, an international team led by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig (Germany) has managed to reconstruct for the first time the biological family tree of a Mycenaean family, as published in the journal ‘Nature Ecology & Evolution’.

When Heinrich Schliemann discovered the gold-rich shaft tombs of Mycenae, with their famous gold masks, over 100 years ago, he could only speculate about the parentage of the people buried in them. Now, with the help of analysis of ancient genomes, It has been possible for the first time to know the rules of kinship and marriage in Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece.

A research team from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA), together with an international team of collaborators, analyzed more than 100 genomes of Bronze Age Aegean peoples. “Without the great collaboration of our partners in Greece and around the world, this would not have been possible,” he says. it’s a statement archaeologist Philipp Stockhammer, one of the study’s lead authors.

Thanks to recent methodological advances in the production and evaluation of ancient genetic data sets, it has now been possible to produce extensive data even in regions with problematic DNA preservation due to climatic conditionslike Greece.

In the case of a Mycenaean village from the 16th century BC, it has even been possible to reconstruct the parentage of the inhabitants of the house: the first genetically reconstructed family tree so far for the entire ancient Mediterranean region.

It appears that some of the children continued to live in their parents’ village into adulthood. At least their children were buried in a tomb under the courtyard of the estate. One of the wives who married in the house incorporated her sister into the family, since his son was also buried in the same grave.

However, another find was completely unexpected: on Crete and the other Greek islands, as well as on the mainland, It was very common to marry first cousins ​​4,000 years ago.

“More than a thousand ancient genomes from different regions of the world have already been published, but it seems that such a strict system of marriage between relatives did not exist anywhere else in the ancient world,” said Eirini Skourtanioti, lead author of the study that conducted the analyses. –. This came as a complete surprise to all of us and raises many questions.”

The research team can only speculate on the explanation for this particular marriage rule. “Perhaps it was a way to prevent the inherited farmland from becoming more and more divided? In any case, it guaranteed a certain continuity of the family in one place, which is an important requirement for olive and wine cultivation , for example,” Stockhammer suspects.

“What is certain is that the analysis of ancient genomes will continue to provide us with fantastic and new insights into old family structures“adds Skourtanioti.

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