A new archaeological study characterizes the trend documented in favor of endogamy in ancient Greece, especially in insular Greece, where marriage between cousins ​​was not only allowed but encouraged, in order to preserve property within the family, as an unparalleled DNA archive on a global scale.

According to an extensive scientific report published in the respected journal Nature and signed by an international team of scientists led by Irini Skourtaniotis of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, chromosome control from 102 bodies of ancient Greeks on mainland and insular Greece allows for many conclusions about lifestyle before the Homeric era.

The central conclusion is the establishment of a common origin of the Cretans with the inhabitants of mainland Greece from the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, despite the admixtures that arose later from the peoples of the East.

“Recently, we analyzed whole genome data from 102 ancient people from Crete, mainland Greece and the Aegean islands, from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. We found that the first farmers from Crete had the same origins as other modern Neolithic Aegeans. On the contrary, the end of the Neolithic period and the following Early Bronze Age were marked by an “eastern gene flow” that was predominantly of eastern origin in Crete.

“Confirming previous findings of additional Central Eastern European origins on the Greek mainland since the Middle Bronze Age, we also see that such genetic traces appeared in Crete gradually from the 17th to the 12th century BC, during a period when mainland influence on island has increased,” the study says.

“Our results highlight the potential of archaeogenomic approaches in the Aegean to reveal the interactions of genetic admixtures, marital and other cultural practices,” the study says.

The scientists also note that “the biological and cultural interconnectedness in the Aegean is also supported by the discovery of high-frequency inbreeding, unprecedented in the global record of ancient DNA.” As the archaeologists and biologists involved in this study explain, marriages between relatives, especially first cousins, were a common practice aimed at protecting real estate from usurpers.

Archeology professor Philip Stockhammer, one of the study’s lead authors, told CNN that about half of those who live on the islands of the Aegean have married their cousins, while on the mainland the figure is about a third, which is also significant.

An unprecedented scientific discovery

“Scientists have studied thousands of hereditary genomes, and there is almost no evidence of past marriages between cousins. From a historical point of view, this is a really special event,” he added.

Evidence shows that in areas such as Agios Charalambos in eastern Crete, where valuable archaeological finds have been found for evolutionary biologists, of the total DNA evidence showing marriages between cousins, 80% were first cousins ​​and 20% – second cousins.

The reasons for this social practice seem primarily economic: “The whole motivation was to keep the land in the family. If you look at what people grew, it was grapes and olives for olive oil, but both grapes and olives meant that the same people had to be in a certain place for decades. “If you marry into your family, that means you are focused on staying in the same area,” Stockhammer explained.

Scientists also emphasize that if mainland Greece experienced a decline at the end of the third and beginning of the second millennium BC, then Crete experienced continuous progress. “With the advent of the first palaces in the 19th century BC. during the Middle Minoan, the island’s societies developed with previously unknown complexity in art, architecture, and social practices.

Source: Nature, CNN.