It was “usual” for cousins to marry in the Aegean Bronze Age, according to a team of archaeologists studying ancient social customs. Cousin marriage is defined as a legal union between two people who share a common ancestor. While this practice of marriage was common in earlier times, it is still practiced in some societies today. “Worldwide, more than 10% of marriages are between first or second cousins,” a 2009 allegation states. The New York Times Article.
A research team from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) in Leipzig, Germany, has presented new archaeological data that offer “exciting insights” into the social system of the Aegean Bronze Age. Minoans And Mycenaeans. By analyzing 4,000-year-old genetic material from Bronze Age human bones, scientists have “for the first time” reconstructed a biological Mechanic material. family tree . Furthermore, they find out that it is “custom” to marry a first cousin.
Representative image of a genetic research laboratory. In this latest study, archaeologists concluded that cousins usually married in the Aegean Bronze Age based on analysis of ancient genomes. ( Gorodenkov / Adobe Stock)
Celebrating Genes First: A Study Reveals Cousins Marrying in the Aegean Bronze Age
The results of this new genetic study have been published in the journal nature and its evolution . In an article posted on EurekaAlert The lead author of the new study, archaeologist Philipp Stockhammer of MPI-EVA, said that with the help of ancient genome analysis, it was possible “for the first time” to gain insights into the rules of kinship and marriage in Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece.
The researcher says recent methodological advances in producing and evaluating ancient genetic data sets have made it possible for his team of geneticists to produce such comprehensive historical data. Stockhammer added that the genetic data was even derived from regions where DNA preservation has been hampered by climatic conditions, such as in Greece.
A chart of lives, marriages, and deaths in ancient Greece
The new study focused on DNA collected from human remains found in a Mycenaean settlement in the 16th century BC. Thus, it was the samples loaded with high-quality ancient genes that enabled the researchers to reconstruct the first gene- family tree ever using samples from The Mediterranean Sea Area.
Because some of the children of the family were found buried in a grave under a courtyard, it is likely that they were still living in the house as adults. Furthermore, the sister of one of the daughters-in-law is buried in the same family grave. What no one in the research team expected was clear genetic evidence that it was customary to marry a cousin some 4,000 years ago.
A well-known figure of a Minoan goddess, she was artistically personalized and depicted carrying strands of DNA in place of snakes. The picture represents the Mycenaean family tree in order to depict the frequency of cousin marriages. (Eva Scortanioti / nature)
Understand why ancient Minoan and Mycenaean cousins married
Not only was one’s cousin marriage secular to this estate, but cousin marriage around 4,000 years ago was common “throughout mainland Greece, in Crete and all the other Greek islands.” Irini Skortanioti, an author of the study who performed the genetic analyses, explained that while more than a thousand ancient genomes have been published from different regions of the world, “such a strict system of relatives marriage They did not exist anywhere else in the ancient world.”
So why did so many cousins marry in the ancient Mediterranean world? Although he was not sure why, Stockhammer said that marrying a cousin might have “prevented the patrimonial farmland from being divided more and more, by ensuring a certain continuity of a family in one place”. He explained that this is particularly important in the cultivation of olives and wine.
Olive picking in the Aegean Bronze Age. The new study posits that the cousins married to protect their farmland. (Nikola Nevinov / nature)
Genetic bet to save profitable real estate
While scholars do not mention this term, marrying one’s cousin to preserve an estate is known as the “alliance theory” or the “general theory of exchanges.” The “marriage alliance” hypothesis refers to the necessary interdependence between different families and lineages marriage It is a form of communication. Essentially, alliance theory attempts to understand the relationships between individuals within a society.
Opinions around the world vary widely regarding the benefits Cousin marriage It is because children of fathers who are first cousins have a significantly increased risk of having an autosomal recessive condition Genetic disorders . According to a 2012 study published in Journal of Community Genetics However, this risk is higher in populations that are already ethnically similar, as it was in ancient Greece. So while ancient Greek cultures married cousins to secure real estate, each of these marriages brought the family one step closer to the genes. disaster.
Top photo: A Bronze Age Minoan family harvesting grain. The new study posits that the cousins married to protect their farmland. Source: Nikola Nevinov / nature
Written by Ashley Coe