Muh Iliad and muh Agamemnon :) New studies on ancient Greece.

[Kyriakos]

Finally, something good from Germany?

The German-American team of geneticists seems to have disproved that theory. The 10 skeletons from Minoan Crete owe about three-quarters of their genes to the European “first farmers” of the Neolithic, with the rest coming from an influx of people thought to have wandered over from Iran and the Caucasus in 4000BC or so.


More importantly, they are closely related to the later Mycenaeans, who differ only in about a tenth of their DNA, which may derive from a Eurasian steppe tribe that flooded down into Greece at the end of the Bronze Age.


Alissa Mittnik, a molecular biologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, one of the paper’s authors, said there was evidence of a strong continuity between both civilisations and today’s Greeks. “Modern Greek people are very closely related to the Mycenaeans and Minoans,” she said. “That was one of the very interesting findings.”

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...s/news-story/1d5ff80bde3dac9cc715bfc820639f32

Researchers also observed genetic links between the Mycenaeans and modern inhabitants of Greece, “with some dilution of the early Neolithic ancestry,” the authors of the study write. The team posits that their findings “support the idea of continuity but not isolation in the history of populations of the Aegean.”
As Gibbons points out, the study’s findings are particularly nifty because ancient Greeks believed that they hailed from the early inhabitants of the Aegean. Homer’s account of the Trojan War, for instance, tells of an epic battle waged by Agamemnon—king of Mycenae and leader of the Greek troops. The heroes of ancient mythology were fictional, of course, but the genetic connections between successive Greek cultures may have been very real indeed.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart...-mysterious-origins-ancient-greeks-180964314/

Of course it makes sense. Personally i am a direct descendant of Zeno of Elea, and later on a few byzantine emperors

What do you think of the new studies, lowly barbarians?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

*Valka sticks her nose in the air*

On another forum I'm the Queen of one realm and regent for the Empress of another realm, and am therefore sufficiently royal, thankyouverymuch.


Kyriakos, have you ever read Up the Line, by Robert Silverberg?

 

[Kyriakos]

No, i haven't

 

[Valka D'Ur]

You should give it a try. It's a science fiction time travel novel that takes place in "now-time" of the mid-21st century (2058-2060) and many other millennia. The main character is a young Time Courier, whose job it is to escort groups of tourists on one or two-week holidays into Byzantium's past. The tourists get to see royal coronations, races in the Hippodrome, various wars, conquests, wander around among the markets (there are approved little souvenirs they can buy as mementos of the trip), watch various famous buildings either being constructed or destroyed, the Crusaders show up at some point...

The main character is Judson Daniel Elliot - who is Greek on his mother's side, although he was born in the US. If the book had ever been optioned for a movie, I imagine Jud could have been played by Joaquin Phoenix (as he appeared in Gladiator) and a younger Lou Gossett Jr. would have been perfect to play Jud's best friend, Sam (the veteran Courier who persuades Jud to apply to join the Time Service).

Jud meets an assortment of other couriers, all of whom are rough-talking, hard-working, hard-playing men who conduct time tours and have their own ideas about what's safe and moral to do "up the line" and what to avoid (one conversation they have concerns whether or not it's moral to engage in affairs with one's own female ancestors; since male birth control is 100% effective in this story, they don't need to worry about becoming their own ancestors, so the question becomes one of morality rather than genetics).

Anyway, I just thought to mention it. If you had the chance to check out your own ancestors, talk to them, and construct an accurate family tree, you would, right?

 

[Hygro]

I'm happy for your validated heritage Kyriakos my dude

 

[Arakhor]

Anyway, I just thought to mention it. If you had the chance to check out your own ancestors, talk to them, and construct an accurate family tree, you would, right?

I'd like to know how back in my mother's line the family eccentricity goes.

 

[Kyriakos]

I'm happy for your validated heritage Kyriakos my dude

Oh come on At least allow for some positive info, if in the midst of general collapse here.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I'd like to know how back in my mother's line the family eccentricity goes.

I didn't have to look any farther than my mother, to know that I'm really not interested in learning more about that side of the family. And apparently I've got distant (in both senses of the word) family in the U.S., as I found out in my grandmother's - mom's mother's - obituary that she was originally born in Wyoming.

I'd just like to connect with my dad's side of the family, and see how much truth there is to some of the things I heard over the decades. My dad told me how much fun he had hanging out with his grandfather. I never got to meet my great-grandfather, since he died several years before I was born.

But of course anyone with a working time machine would have all sorts of other ideas of where to go and when...

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I don't see how this is "positive" as opposed to just "interesting". I remember when I found out that a grand-grand uncle of mine was a famous botanist, travelled to Japan and was influential enough to have a university named after him. A simple Wiki search revealed that he supported the NSDAP even in its earliest inceptions. I didn't think that was inherently "negative", if im honest I don't think it doesn't have jack to do with me. We're probably all related to Atilla and Genghis, who gives a f about heritage anymore? Finding out this guy was a bleeding-heart Nazi honestly did nothing for me.

However I do feel some degree of smugness, or pride? reading about the Max Planck institute pioneering pivotal research. I'm feeling really good about the state of humanities, and science in general, in Germany. So at least I got my kick off this thread, too I was thinking about making some comment about how I never doubted that the people receiving illegal pensions or other aides for dead relatives for decades were the same as the ancient Greek philosophers, but it probably wouldn't have been very funny :>

 

[Kyriakos]

We're probably all related to Atilla and Genghis, who gives a f about heritage anymore?

Northerners? Yes. But i am not

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Northerners? Yes. But i am not

You come from the same primordial goop the rest of us do... distant cousin.

 

[Kyriakos]

Maybe some of us come from Nibiru - as in the theory you are aware of

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Maybe some of us come from Nibiru - as in the theory you are aware of

Shh. He might hear you.