Haplogroup J2, Greeks, Phoenicians and Mesopotamians.

[RHAS]

Haplgroup J2, Greeks and Phoenicians.

"The ancient Greeks and Phoenicians were the main driving forces behind the spread of J2 around the western and southern Mediterranian."
Eupedia.com, 2013.
http://www.eupedia.com/europe/origins_haplogroups_europe.shtml

"Thus the most likely explanation is the emergence of J2f1 in the Aegean area, possibly during the population expansion phase also detected by Malaspina et al. (2001), and coincident with the expansion of the Greek world up to the European coast of the Black sea."
Phylogeography of Y Chromosomal haplogroups as reporters of Neolithic and post-Neolithic population processes in the Mediterranean area.
http://arheologija.ff.uni-lj.si/documenta/pdf35/novelletto35.pdf

 

[RHAS]

Haplogroup J2 and Mesopotamians.

"J-M172 can be classified as Greco-Anatolian, Mesopotamian and/or Caucasian and is linked to the earliest indigenous populations of Anatolia. It was carried by Bronze Age immigrants to Europe, and ultimately descends from the Cro-Magnon population (IJ-M429 Y-DNA) that emerged in Southwest Asia around 35,000 years ago."
Wikipedia.org - Haplogroup J2 M172.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_J-M172_(Y-DNA)

"Sumer (from Akkadian Šumeru; Sumerian ki-en-ĝir, approximately "land of the civilized kings" or "native land" was an ancient civilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia, modern Iraq, during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age. Although the earliest historical records in the region do not go back much further than c. 2900 BC, modern historians have asserted that Sumer was first permanently settled between c. 4500 and 4000 BC by a non-Semitic people who may or may not have spoken the Sumerian language (pointing to the names of cities, rivers, basic occupations, etc. as evidence). These conjectured, prehistoric people are now called "proto-Euphrateans" or "Ubaidians", and are theorized to have evolved from the Samarra culture of northern Mesopotamia (Assyria)."
Sumer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumer

 

[RHAS]

Haplogroup J2 and Greeks.

"It has been proposed that haplogroup subclade J-M410 was linked to populations on ancient Crete by examining the relationship between Anatolian, Cretan, and Greek populations from around early Neolithic sites in Crete."
Wikipedia.org - Haplogroup J2 M172.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_J-M172_(Y-DNA)

"The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes (Greek: Έλληνες [ˈelines]), are an ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus, Anatolia and other regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world. Greek colonies and communities have been historically established in most corners of the Mediterranean, but Greeks have always been centered around the Aegean Sea, where the Greek language has been spoken since antiquity. Until the early 20th century, Greeks were uniformly distributed between the Greek peninsula, the western coast of Asia Minor, Pontus, Egypt, Cyprus and Constantinople; many of these regions coincided to a large extent with the borders of the Byzantine Empire of the late 11th century and the Eastern Mediterranean areas of the ancient Greek colonization."
Greeks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeks

"The UEP diversity within J2 is lower in the Middle East compared to both Turkey and the European locations. In conclusion, the UEP diversity of J in Turkey and southern Europe does not seem to be a simple subset of that present in the area where this hapologroup first originated. This finding, also confirmed in the data by Semino et al. (2004), points to Turkey and the Aegean as a relevant source for the J diversity observed throughout Europe."
Phylogeography of Y Chromosomal haplogroups as reporters of Neolithic and post-Neolithic population processes in the Mediterranean area.
http://arheologija.ff.uni-lj.si/documenta/pdf35/novelletto35.pdf

 

[RHAS]

Haplogroup J2 Phoenicians and Greeks.

"The Neolithic control section shows nonsignificant results across all haplogroups, except for a significant J2 result in one test. The Phoenician-colony test results highlight only one haplogroup, J2, which consistently scores significantly in all three tests across the range of colonization sites. However, this haplogroup also scores significantly in Greek tests (as do some additional haplogroup...s), suggesting that the same haplogroup could have been spread by several expansions, which is unsurprising considering its frequency in the Eastern Mediterranean but implies that higher phylogenetic resolution is required for identification of Phoenician-specific signals."
Identifying Genetic Traces of Historical Expansions: Phoenician Footprints in the Mediterranean.
http://www.cell.com/AJHG/fulltext/S0002-9297(08)00547-8

 

[RHAS]

Haplogroup J2 and Phoenicians.

"In 2004, two geneticists educated at Harvard University and leading scientists of the National Geographic Genographic Project, Dr. Pierre Zalloua and Dr. Spencer Wells, identified "the haplogroup of the Phoenicians" as haplogroup J2, with avenues open for future research."
Familypedia.com - Phoenicia.
http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Phoenicia

"The authors found a weak – but significant – genetic signature among their samples that could not be explained by chance. Many of the samples belonged to a very specific branch of haplogroup J2, which the authors believe points back to distinct migrations by Phoenician traders from the Middle East into Europe and North Africa more than 3,000 years ago."
Ripples in the Mediterranean: Tracing the Genetic Origins of the Phoenicians.
http://blog.23andme.com/ancestry/ri...acing-the-genetic-origins-of-the-phoenicians/

"Tyrian purple (Greek, πορφύρα, porphyra, Latin: purpura), also known as royal purple, imperial purple or imperial dye, is a reddish-purple natural dye, which is a secretion produced by a certain species of predatory sea snails in the family Muricidae, a type of rock snail by the name Murex. This dye was possibly first used by the ancient Phoenicians as early as 1570 BC. The dye was greatly prized in antiquity because the colour did not easily fade, but instead became brighter with weathering and sunlight. Tyrian purple was expensive: the 4th-century-BC historian Theopompus reported, "Purple for dyes fetched its weight in silver at Colophon" in Asia Minor. The expense meant that purple-dyed textiles became status symbols, and early sumptuary laws restricted their uses. The production of Tyrian purple was tightly controlled in Byzantium and was subsidized by the imperial court, which restricted its use for the colouring of imperial silks, so that a child born to a reigning emperor was porphyrogenitos, "born in the purple", although this term may also refer to the fact that the imperial birthing apartment was walled in the purple-red rock known as porphyry."
Tyrian Purple.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrian_purple

 

[RHAS]

Haplogroup J2 and Mesopotamians.

"While noting that multiple haplogroups are likely involved in the spread of languages through the middle east, Dr. King noted a correlation between very old Middle Eastern languages of uncertain origin and Haplogroup J2 while at the same time theorizing that Haplogroup J1 may have been involved in spreading Semitic languages through the region. These old languages possibly linked to J2 are known to have existed in Mesopotamia and the Northern Levant and this substratum is sometimes referred to as "Banana" languages due to their syllabic duplication."
M172 Blog - Neolithic Migrations in the Near East and Aegean, 2009.
http://m172.blogspot.nl/2009/07/neolithic-migrations-in-near-east-and.html

"Proto-Euphratean was considered by some Assyriologists (for example Samuel Noah Kramer), to be the substratum language of the people that introduced farming into Southern Iraq in the Early Ubaid period (5300-4700 BC). Benno Landsberger and other Assyriologists argued that by examining the structure of Sumerian names of occupations, as well as toponyms and hydronyms, one can suggest that there was once an earlier group of people in the region who spoke an entirely different language, often referred to as Proto-Euphratean. Terms for "farmer", "smith", "carpenter", and "date" (as in the fruit), also do not appear to have a Sumerian or Semitic origin. Post-Soviet linguists coined a different term, "banana languages," proposed by Igor Dyakonov and Vladislav Ardzinba, based on a characteristic feature of multiple personal names attested in Sumerian texts, namely reduplication of syllables (like in the word banana): Inanna, Zababa, Chuwawa, Bunene etc. The same feature was attested in some other unclassified Oriental languages, including Minoan language."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Euphratean_language

(Image: Inanna)

(Image: Asassara)

 

[RHAS]

Haplogroup J2 Sicily and Greeks. (Geographical map of Sicilian DNA Samples.)

"Haplogroups common both to the European and Eurasian populations are present in Sicily. The most represented are R1b1c-M269 (24.58%), J2-M172 (15.25%) and E3b1a-M78 (11.44%). The co-occurrence of the Berber E3b1b-M81 (2.12%) and of the Mid-Eastern J1-M267 (3.81%) Hgs together with the presence of E3b1a1-V12, E3b1a3-V22, E3b1a4-V65 (5.5%) support the hypo...thesis of intrusion of North African genes."
Differential Greek and northern African migrations to Sicily are supported by genetic evidence from the Y chromosome.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2985948/

"Sicily has one of the highest frequencies of Haplogroup J2 (M172) in the mediterranean. J2-M172 made up 33% of the Y chromosome signatures on the island and was non-randomly distributed occurring at higher frequencies in the eastern areas of the island. This distinction was evident in the subclades, M67 and M92, which have previously been linked to Greek and proto-greek colonization. Both M67 and M92 were twice as frequent on the eastern portion of Sicily which displays more archaelogical traces from the Greek classic era. Even the paragroup of undistinguished J2 haplotypes (M172) was more than twice as frequent in Eastern Sicily."
M172 Blog - Y Chromosomes of Sicily, 2008.
http://m172.blogspot.nl/2008/11/y-chromosomes-of-sicily.html

(Image: The geographical map of the nine Sicilian samples is shown. Their latitude (N), longitude (E) and sample size are: (1) Trapani (TP) 38°07′, 12°07′, 33; (2) Mazara del Vallo (MZ) 37°65′, 12°58′, 18; (3) Santa Ninfa (SN) 37°77′, 12°88′, 31; (4) Alcamo (AL) 37°97′, 12°97′, 24; (5) Caccamo (CA) 37°93′, 13°07′, 16; (6) Sciacca (SC) 37°05′, 13°07′, 28; (7) Piazza Armerina (PZ) 37°38′, 14°37′, 28; (8) Troina (TR) 37°78′, 14°60′, 30; (9) Ragusa (RG) 36°93′, 14°75′, 28. The histogram plots the frequencies of the main haplogroups in the eastern and the western sides of the island.)

 

[RHAS]

"Attempts to ascertain Sicilian "ethnic" origins should be undertaken with caution because haplogroups do not correspond precisely to medieval or modern conceptions of nationality. At best, they are approximate. For example, J2 is identified with Greeks but also with some Germans. Speaking very broadly, the most frequent Y haplogroups of the world's most conquered island may be correlated most probably (albeit imprecisely) to the following peoples: • J2 - Greeks, Romans, Jews, Spaniards,"
Best of Sicily - Genetics.
http://www.bestofsicily.com/genetics.htm

"Sicily is an island which had well-documented and not insignificant settlements by both Greeks and Phoenicians. Moreover, these settlements were geographically divided: Greeks in the East, Phoenicians in the West. It is in the East that J2 has its highest frequency, and not in the Phoenician West."
Dienekes Anthropology Blog, 2008.
http://dienekes.blogspot.nl/2008/10/phoenician-y-chromosomes.html

 

[RHAS]

Haplogroup J2 and Greeks.

Greco-Roman spheres of influence.

(Left: The geographic space over which Classical Greek and Latin served as a lingua franca in antiquity. Right: Y-DNA Haplogroup Frequency map of J2-M172.)

"Romans surely helped spread haplogroup J2 across its borders, judging from the distribution of J2 within Europe (frequency over 5%) wich bears an uncanny resemblance to the borders of the Roman Empire."
Eupedia.com, 2013.

"The propagation of J2b and E V-13 correspond roughly to the ancient Greek and Roman spheres of influence."
Eupedia.com, 2013.

"The ancient Greeks and Phoenicians were the main driving forces behind the spread of J2 around the western and southern Mediterranian"
Eupedia.com, 2013.

"Di Giacomo stressed the role of post-Neolithic migratory phenomenon, specifically that of the Ancient Greeks, as also being important in the dispersal of haplogroup J-M172."
Wikipedia.org - Haplogroup J2-M172, 2013.

 

[RHAS]

Haplogroup J2 and Greeks.

Empire of Alexander the Great, 323 B.C.

"Both E-V13 and J-M12 have also been used in studies seeking to find evidence of a remaining Greek presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, going back to the time of Alexander the Great."
Wikipedia.org - Haplogroup E V-68.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_E-V68_(Y-DNA)

"The Saluja’s have been a dynamic and mobile group of business people and professionals from North India. They hail from the region north of the river Jhelum, that divides the Jhelum & Gujrat districts, an area along the Salt mines (now in Pakistan). Historical records indicate that Alexander the Great of Macedonia came to India (326 B.C) crossing the Khyber Pass to Taxila near Rawalpindi. Alexander advanced to the northwest bank of the river Jhelum to the village of Haranpur, where allegedly the Macedonians set up their base camp prior to the battle with King Porus. It is quite conceivable that people from that area of North India particularly Haranpur, Jalalpur & surroundings to have Genes of people from Greece. In fact, DNA Analysis suggests that Saluja’s belong to the DNA Haplogroup J2b, which has its origin in Greece. J2b (M12, M314, M221, M102), and is mainly found in the Balkans, Greece, Italy, and India (possibly from Neolithic Greeks)*****J2b1 (M205) - formerly J2b1b. The Saluja family history can be traced directly to this historical melting pot."
Migration of Indians Across Continents spanning generations: A Case History of the Saluja Family.
http://www.amazon.com/Migration-Indians-Continents-spanning-generations/dp/0615469035

"J2a is also present in Egypt which was conquered by Macedonian Greeks, as well as Iran, but drops to a small frequency in India, and is there limited to the upper castes. This may reflect its presence in the ancient Indo-Aryans and its survival in the Brahmin caste, or alternatively may be the result of intermarriage between the Bactrian Greek aristocracy and high-class Hindus"
Dienekes Anthropology Blog, 2005.
http://dienekes.blogspot.nl/2005/12/did-haplogroup-j2a1-originate-in.html

"In which country did Mr. J2b2 live? Did Mr. J2b2 live in the Balkans and then his descendants move to India. Or was was it that Mr. J2b2 lived in India and then his descendants moved to the Balkans. One of the theories is that Mr. J2b2's descendant were part of Alexander the Greats army which made itself all the way to India."
Barr-Kumarakulasinghe’s and other families.
http://barrkumar.com/dna/whats_j2b2.html

 

[RHAS]

 

[Sile]

Haplgroup J2, Greeks and Phoenicians.

"The ancient Greeks and Phoenicians were the main driving forces behind the spread of J2 around the western and southern Mediterranian."
Eupedia.com, 2013.
http://www.eupedia.com/europe/origins_haplogroups_europe.shtml

"Thus the most likely explanation is the emergence of J2f1 in the Aegean area, possibly during the population expansion phase also detected by Malaspina et al. (2001), and coincident with the expansion of the Greek world up to the European coast of the Black sea."
Phylogeography of Y Chromosomal haplogroups as reporters of Neolithic and post-Neolithic population processes in the Mediterranean area.
http://arheologija.ff.uni-lj.si/documenta/pdf35/novelletto35.pdf

@ adamo

this is a part of you and maybe me...........as T , following J2

as per Albanians........my relatives where taught that albanians where a mix of dorians from greek cyrene ,( as they say a Macedonia of people , which means a mixed fruit desert).........then again school teach you what the governments WANT to teach you, be it true or sometimes distorted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_(food)

 

[Bardhyl]

Judging based on dna italy is a mixed of fruit with a cherry on top

 

[Angela]

Judging based on dna italy is a mixed of fruit with a cherry on top

Contrary to expectations, a remarkably stable mixture for at least the last 2500 years or so if the research in Ralph and Coop et al, 2013 holds up. Only the populations of the Iberian peninsula and France seem to have been similarly relatively unaffected by the migrations after the fall of Rome.
http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001555

Even the Saracen invasions of southern Italy would appear to have had only a minimal effect, although given the source of the Ralph and Coop data, the results might change a bit with broader sampling.

That's not to deny its internal diversity, of course, a diversity which falls along a south/north cline, or, if Boattini et al are correct, a southeast to northwest cline.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0065441

Also, there seems to be more homogeneity in southern Italy than there is in the north, which I think is probably in part attributable to the political divisions there since the fall of the empire, with the south, on the other hand, being ruled for long periods of time as a unit that roughly correlates to the territory of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. At least that seems to be the case from autosomal results, including those from 23andme,

As to the y dna specifically, the more studies that are done, in Italy as elsewhere, the clearer it seems to me that the modern distribution of the y haplogroups, especially for countries like Italy, that have been at the crossroads of European history, is only imperfectly a guide to the autosomal composition of the people in any given area.

 

[Nobody1]

Judging based on dna italy is a mixed of fruit with a cherry on top

Judging based on DNA there is no such thing as an/one Italy;
Only a North, a Tuscan/Central, a South/Sicily and a Sardinia;
All distinctive and specific to each other; Acc to the PCA from Lazaridis et al 2013 Albanians and Tuscans are rather close;

Also, there seems to be more homogeneity in southern Italy than there is in the north, which I think is probably in part attributable to the political divisions there since the fall of the empire, with the south, on the other hand, being ruled for long periods of time as a unit that roughly correlates to the territory of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. At least that seems to be the case from autosomal results, including those from 23andme,

I noticed that to;
But i think the diversity (to each other) within North Italy is due to the pre-Roman era;
Two separate stocks of Indo-Europeans (Umbrians/Veneti) and two separate stocks of pre-Indo-Europeans (Ligures/Raeti) - whereas the south was uniformly Pelasgian (Oenotrian) with Umbrian (Sabine) incursions;

 

[Angela]

Judging based on DNA there is no such thing as an/one Italy;
Only a North, a Tuscan/Central, a South/Sicily and a Sardinia;
All distinctive and specific to each other;



I noticed that to;
But i think the diversity (to each other) within North Italy is due to the pre-Roman era;
Two separate stocks of Indo-Europeans (Umbrians/Veneti) and two separate stocks of pre-Indo-Europeans (Ligures/Raeti) - whereas the south was uniformly Pelasgian (Oenotrian) with Umbrian (Sabine) incursions;

Yet all of us cluster together (except the Sardinians perhaps) and apart from other ethnic groups on any PCA I've ever seen, European or global, owing in no small part, I believe, to the high population density created during the Neolithic and maintained since then, and the isolation imposed by the Alps and to a lesser extent by the Mediterranean.

As for the forces that created the cline in Italy and the relative diversity of the area north of Rome versus that south of Rome, I certainly think that pre-historical as well as historical processes influenced the outcome. If I understand you correctly, I don't necessarily agree that the Ligures and the Raeti were not "Indo-European" peoples, whatever that turns out to mean, but that's a discussion for another thread perhaps.

 

[Sile]

Yet all of us cluster together (except the Sardinians perhaps) and apart from other ethnic groups on any PCA I've ever seen, European or global, owing in no small part, I believe, to the high population density created during the Neolithic and maintained since then, and the isolation imposed by the Alps and to a lesser extent by the Mediterranean.

As for the forces that created the cline in Italy and the relative diversity of the area north of Rome versus that south of Rome, I certainly think that pre-historical as well as historical processes influenced the outcome. If I understand you correctly, I don't necessarily agree that the Ligures and the Raeti were not "Indo-European" peoples, whatever that turns out to mean, but that's a discussion for another thread perhaps.

the incline is that J2 as per being part of Greece would influence southern Italy more so than northern Italy, especially since the greeks are practically neighbours.

The old maps in Italian I send you clearly brackets liguri and raeti people together. If they are similar or the same, they would be pre-indo-europeans.

 

[Nobody1]

Yet all of us cluster together (except the Sardinians perhaps) and apart from other ethnic groups on any PCA I've ever seen, European or global, owing in no small part, I believe, to the high population density created during the Neolithic and maintained since then, and the isolation imposed by the Alps and to a lesser extent by the Mediterranean.

Really?
The PCA plots (like the latest) Lazaridis et al 2013; once again shows the North Italians being one cluster, the Tuscans being one cluster and the Sicilians being one cluster all separated from another - and Sardinians clustering in a world of there own and closest to the Neolithic pops.;

'Stuttgart clusters with other Neolithic Europeans and present-day Sardinians'

But it is true that the Tuscans and North Italians (always) cluster close to each other and closer than to any other pop. (but in the vicinity of South/SouthEast Euro) and that isolation is prob. due to what you already illustrated with Coop & Ralph et al 2013 in post#14;

 

[RHAS]

Haplogroup J2 and the Spread of the Alphabet. (Greek and Phoenician)

The Abduction of Europa: mosaic, Byblos, 3rd century A.D . National Museum of Beirut Collection. According to the Greek legend Europa’s brother Cadmus went looking for his kidnapped sister who is depicted on the mosaic being whisked away on the back of Zeus disguised as a bull. The story goes that in his search for Europe Cadmos transmitted the Phoenician alphabet to the Hellenes.

"Cadmus or Kadmos (Ancient Greek: Κάδμος), in Greek mythology, was a Phoenician prince, the son of king Agenor and queen Telephassa of Tyre and the brother of Phoenix, Cilix and Europa. He was originally sent by his royal parents to seek out and escort his sister Europa back to Tyre after she was abducted from the shores of Phoenicia by Zeus. Cadmus founded the Greek city of Thebes, the acropolis of which was originally named Cadmeia in his honour. Cadmus was credited by the ancient Greeks (Herodotus is an example) with introducing the original Alphabet or Phoenician alphabet -- phoinikeia grammata, "Phoenician letters"—to the Greeks, who adapted it to form their Greek alphabet."
Cadmus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmus

"The authors found a weak – but significant – genetic signature among their samples that could not be explained by chance. Many of the samples belonged to a very specific branch of haplogroup J2, which the authors believe points back to distinct migrations by Phoenician traders from the Middle East into Europe and North Africa more than 3,000 years ago."
Ripples in the Mediterranean: Tracing the Genetic Origins of the Phoenicians.
http://blog.23andme.com/ancestry/rip...e-phoenicians/

"The ancient Greeks and Phoenicians were the main driving forces behind the spread of J2 around the western and southern Mediterranian."
Eupedia.com, 2013.
http://www.eupedia.com/europe/origin...s_europe.shtml

"In 2004, two geneticists educated at Harvard University and leading scientists of the National Geographic Genographic Project, Dr. Pierre Zalloua and Dr. Spencer Wells, identified "the haplogroup of the Phoenicians" as haplogroup J2, with avenues open for future research."
Familypedia.com - Phoenicia.
http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Phoenicia

"Occurrence of J2-M172 Y-chromosomes in Tuscany has been related to the Etruscan heritage of the region."
Uniparental Markers of Contemporary Italian Population Reveals Details on Its Pre-Roman Heritage.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:...l.pone.0050794

"There is a distinct association of ancient J2 civilisations with bull worship."
Eupedia.com, 2011.
http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_J2_Y-DNA.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_alphabet

"Phoenician became one of the most widely used writing systems, spread by Phoenician merchants across the Mediterranean world, where it was assimilated by many other cultures and evolved."
Phoenician Alphabet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet

"The Greek alphabet was developed by a Greek with first-hand experience of contemporary Phoenician script and, almost as quickly as it was established in the Greek mainland was rapidly re-exported, eastwards to Phrygia, where a similar script was devised, and westwards with Euboean or West Greek traders, where the Etruscans adapted the Greek alphabet to their own language."
History of the Greek Alphabet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...Greek_alphabet

"The Latin alphabet is the main writing system in use in the Western world and is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world. It is the standard script of the English language and is often referred to simply as "the alphabet" in English. It is a true alphabet which originated in the 7th century BC in Italy and has changed continually over the last 2500 years. It has roots in the Semitic alphabet and its offshoot alphabets, the Phoenician, Greek, and Etruscan."
History of the Latin Alphabet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...Latin_alphabet

 

[RHAS]

"One extraordinary group carried their traditions and their chromosomes into the Mediterranean frontier. Were they the Atlantis superheroes of science fiction? No. They do appear to have been more intellectually and artistically advanced than anyone around them in the same time period. Where they settled, they made an impact. Their descendants survived through the ages with aspects of their original ancient identity largely intact until time and assimilation finally absorbed them -- as Sea Peoples and Temple-Builders, later as Minoans and Etruscans, and still later in the great civilizations of Classical Greece and Rome. Original ancestral families of settlers who make up a bridge into civilization are the people we are identifying as The Mediterraneans."
http://www.ancientmed.org/TheMediterraneans.htm