I am following for years the controversy about African genes in the original Greek population, which is rather common in contemporary Greek and Southern Italian populations. The controversy has political meaning, as the Greek Republic does not recognize Macedonia as the "real" Macedonia of Alexander The Great, but a late Slavic settlement. Another issue is that the Ancient Greeks created - almost from nothing - the first real civilization and rational political system, an amazing explosion of intelligence that emerges from the dark animal past of humanity. The Nazi race "scientists" tried to attribute this miracle to the Dorian "Nordic" invasion, since Greeks speak an Arian language. They attributed the late dullness of Greeks to mixing with Blacks. But the picture is much more complicated.The Greeks themselves thought they came from upper Egypt - Ethiopia. The idea that they should have arrived from the cold North never passed by their minds, as they considered the Northern peoples savage Barbarians. Greeks themselves were not Nordic looking at all, but swarthy and black haired, as self-reported on the illustration above. HLA genes in Macedonians and the sub-Saharan origin of the Greeks (2001) was a study conducted by Dr. Arniaz and other scholars in a top flying Spanish University. This study uses HLA genes to establish the African dimension of the roots of ancient Greece.
According to the Arniaz study, …..Greeks are found to have a substantial relatedness to sub-Saharan (Ethiopian) people, which separate them from other Mediterranean groups. Both Greeks and Ethiopians share quasi-specific DRB1 alleles, such as *0305, *0307, *0411, *0413, *0416, *0417, *0420, *1110, *1112, *1304 and *1310. Genetic distances are closer between Greeks and Ethiopian/sub-Saharan groups than to any other Mediterranean group and finally Greeks cluster with Ethiopians/sub-Saharans in both neighbour joining dendrograms and correspondence analyses. The time period when these relationships might have occurred was ancient but uncertain and might be related to the displacement of Egyptian-Ethiopian people living in pharaonic Egypt. See Arnaiz-Villena A,et.al: HLA genes in Macedonians and the sub-Saharan origin of the Greeks. Tissue Antigens. 2001 Feb;57(2):118-27
Conclusion: We are all Africans, as the modern human race came out of Africa, Ethiopia to be precise, some 70,000 years ago. In that sense, ancient Greeks were right; moreover, they had no racial neurosis about it. They were a very notable people. Ultimately, we are all from Africa. The rest of the story is strives within the family.
9 comments:
That's quite interesting, but as you must already know, one study doesn't prove anything. Every geneticist "proves" his theory. And if this turns out to be true, that hardly proves that today's Africans are "family." If the Greeks are related to Africans, that only means that they advanced, and other branches of the family didn't.
Of course there are many supporting studies, and the frequency of sickle cell genes in Greek and Italian Greek colonized areas is well known. This issue seems to be very emotional for Dienekes Pontikos and other people. I am not emotionally invested in this thing. Anyway, if you walk today in Athens, you see a mixed population with many recent African immigrants. So the presence of Africans is Greece is a controversy on timing, not if.
"So the presence of Africans in Greece is a controversy on timing, not if."
Yes, that's exactly why this topic is so emotionally loaded. If it were only about science, one would say, how interesting, I want to know more. But if people who have a pro-immigration agenda use this as a reason for more immigration, because, after all, we're related anyway, that's where the resistance comes from. There are plenty of Africans, I mean pre-Greeks, where I live, and oddly enough, they don't seem at all related to Greek or any other type of civilization.
Latte,
I dont think Greeks are trying to immigrate to Macedonia, now vice versa. They are disputing the notional genealogy of Alexander the Great. Or he legitimacy of their claim to the country. Which I consider ridiculous. The land is none's, we are all travellers on this Earth.
Truth be said, proto-Greeks or pre-Greeks never immigrated to America. Africans were brought over there by force.
Salut!
Pardon,I'm not African,not psychically,not mentally :)
In Baltic we to have Chinese,Turkish graves,and maybe some 500 years in future,when people at "We are all One" will again deteriorated and begun to grow will find the graves and say' Ancient Balts we're Asiatic.
Over mythologist to say that we've come from and originated in North India!
Ancient Greeks was ancient Greeks (R.I.P) ,not west,north Europeans,and sub-saharan Africans.
"...as the modern human race came out of Africa, Ethiopia to be precise, some 70,000 years ago."
Yes, only,my ancestors have evolved further;)
נתראה
The thing is, while Ethiopians are technically sub-Saharan Africans, so are the Khoisan. When people say "sub-Saharan African", they usually mean Congoid people, or even Bantus in specific. In my country, most of the blacks claiming close kinship with Mediterranean civilizations are much more closely related to Bantus than to Ethiopians. That explains my initial reaction that this was more "black Cleopatra!" pseudo-anthropology.
It is quite plausible that the Ethiopians are the black Africans who are closest to the Armenian / Arab / Berber / Mediterranean whites.
"Genetic distances are closer between Greeks and Ethiopian/sub-Saharan groups than to any other Mediterranean group ..."
Is this to say that Greeks are closer to Ethiopians than Greeks are to Italians? If so, that's a pretty big surprise, but I've never seen any numbers on genetic distance that include Greeks and Ethiopians.
As to the picture on the vase ... do you consider Lady R's skin color on that vase to be realistic? I don't. It looks like they were approximating Caucasoid skin using the materials available to them at the time. In my mind that casts doubt on the notion that the blacks are being portrayed realistically.
But you're right, going 70,000 years or so, there is only one human race, and we don't exactly what they were like, but they were probably fairly dark to adapt to the sunny climate of East Africa.
Slightly off topic, and somewhat offensive to the readers here but read this then this.
More likely then not-Greeks and related Mediterraneans traveled into Ethiopia. This is why Ethiopians share specific genes with Greeks.
This paper is nothing more then politic and pseudo 'science'. Greeks don't cluster close to 'Ethiopians' nor 'sub-Saharan Africans. All independent studies conducted by genetic scientists very clearly show Greeks genetically cluster with all other European groups and EXPOSE Arnaiz-Villena's paper to be nothing more then pseudoscience can be seen in all independent studies and world LEADING experts in genetics such as Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Alberto Piazza, Neil Risch, Ayub et al. 2003, Ss. Kiril and Metodij et. al 2004, AND the genetic study conducted by leading genetic research iGenea Pazos et al. 2008 that proves ONCE AGAIN Greeks cluster with other Europeans not with African populations as Arnaiz-Villena's dubious paper wrongly claims.
"The Ancient Macedonians were the first known inhabitants of current Macedonia [region] and were not only genetically close to Greeks but also socially.
Current studies however, assume that the Macedonians from mountenous regions and isolated areas still have the genetic material of ancient Macedonians.... The genetic profile of these Macedonians from mountenous regions ---> SHOWS A VERY STRONG DIFFERENCES <--- from the rest of Macedonians (FYROM residents). Whereby the former show a strong similarity with the Greeks.
The Illyrians differentiate more strongly with the Greeks then the Greeks do with the Macedonians.****----> Trying to differentiate between the **** Macedonians and Greeks **** was more difficult, since these people were not only *** genetically *** very close, but also social and cultural. <----****" ~ iGenea Pazos et al. 2008
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