Dear geveN,

Thank you so much for your kind words.

The three main publications to look at are:

The Early Minoan Colonization of Spain
The Origin of the Sea Peoples
The Minoan Catastrophe: The Pyroclastic Surge Theory

"The Early Minoan Colonization of Spain" starts with the first archaeological evidence (before 9000 BC) for human sea travel in the Mediteranean and discusses the development of the technologies and motivations that led to the settlements of the Aegean Minoans in Iberia.

I'm currently doing research for a major expansion of the article "The Origin of the Sea Peoples" which will include very compelling archaeological evidence from the Levant that clarifies what really happened at the end of the Bronze Age.

And, yes, it appears that ancient people from the Aegean and Anatolia are definitely a genetic component of the current European population. I hope that future differential Y-chromosome and other genetic studies will put this in a more definitive light.

Very Best Regards,

W. Sheppard Baird

Dear TheLedge,

Thank you very much for the recognition.

I have received about six GPS coordinate corrections from my associates in Crete since I last published the dataset. Is there a way of inserting just the new updated dataset without deleting the whole post?

Best Regards,

W. Sheppard Baird

Add the new placemarks to the file, save it to your PC as a .kmz file, then just edit your post, and in the preview screen, you can browse and "Choose" the new version of the file. Submit that, and it will replace the previous version in the post.

Hello W Sheppard Baird,

Your research and erudition are superb, concise and very informative What particularly also impressed me is your new information of cities before Jericho!!! , in your extensive introduction to the first publication-Early Minoan Colo. of Spain.

I wish you would write in similar way of the Beaker peoples and other prehistoric peoples of Eurasia, I have read some material on this but it has left me more confused.

What I understand is that those huge migration of various tribal and ethnic groups over Eurasia took place in various millenia since 15000 B.C. through the Neolithic and then Bronze ages and finally the Indo-European migrations, then the Celtic, Hunnic, Germanic, whatever, groups that then shaped today's profile of peoples accross this vast region.

Why I asked you about the genetic make-up of these Aegean peoples is because, elsewhere, the DNA profiles dont explain the "change" of and evolution of peoples, even as "recently" as 3000 B.C. For example, the Pharonic depiction of faces etc seem to indicate they had strong Nubian features-look at the profiles of Nefretiti, a classic example of Nubian features. By contrast, the present population is largely Arab-African.

Similarly, In ancient (not so ancient!!!!) Pre-Islamic Persia, on which I read extensively, the DNA components do not explain how the present population has links with the Indo- European Aryans, with the huge influx of Arab, then Turkic, Mongloid,Hunnic, again Turkic migrations (some of them very sudden!!!) there.

geveN

Hi geveN,

Thank you for your very kind words on my publications. I have a special interest in the Beaker peoples and have looked at a good deal of the evidence, but my research is still ongoing and incomplete. I plan on writing a piece on the �Iberian Maritime Bell Beaker Package� in the near future.

Your questions on the genetic character of the peopling of Eurasia in the last several millennia are excellent. But, this is currently beyond my expertise mainly because of the scarcity of definitive DNA analytical studies of the actual human remains found in the graves and tombs of Eurasian prehistory. For instance, I would love to see some rigorous comparative DNA studies of the human remains found in the Early Bronze Age Mesara tholos tombs on Crete and among the Millarens in Iberia, but to the best of my knowledge none have ever been published.

Best Regards,

Sheppard

Hi Sheppard,

where best can one get a somewhat full overview of the migrations of peoples through Eurasia?

I have never given much effort to finding out what material is available in our local civic libraries in Auckland, but what little I have searched has proved very unsatisfactory. Besides the internet is a good place.......wikipedia, for example?

look at this very interesting map of Europe of the middle neolithic period from wikpedia.



do look at this wikipedia-prehistoric Europe and the related links within the extensive writeup.

Geve

Hi Geve,

That's another great question. When I first started researching Eurasian prehistory I took a look at Wikipedia and found it to be a decent broad overview but not good enough to be considered definitive.

The more I delved into the scholarly literature the more I realized that the only way for me to discover some semblance of the overall truth was to study the archaeological evidence on a case by case basis. It was quite a bit of work.

I think a good place to start for the Neolithic is "Europe's First Farmers" by Price and take a look at some of the other publications in the bibliography for my "Early Minoan Colonization of Spain" article. I hope this helps.

Sheppard

Hi Sheppard,

I am sorry I took time replying; this is because my favorite topics list is not working as it is supposed to.

When you leave a post in favorites, any further response is supposed to show up by the post "shifting" to the bottom of the list and a flag displaying "new" .....................this does not happen.............perhaps this is some wrong conclusion by me. Anyways, I just happened to open this post today and was pleasantly surprised to see your latest reply.

Actually I am looking for a ................whats the right word?................a summarised and pictoral analysis, perhaps some sort of linear dated and detailed timeline that gives the movements of peoples accross Eurasia from neolithic times (or earlier) to around 1000 A.D................something that led, for one example, to the eventual evolement of the centum and satem branches of Indo-European languages.

For example, by the first millenium B.C. the peoples of Spain are supposed to have got a huge "input" of Asian migrations........the Alans joined the ostro-Goths(???)(my memory does not live up to my requirements!!!) ............the Alans from central Asia joined up with the ostro-Goths(?) or Vandals(??) in eastern Europe and then migrated slowly west, to finally settle in Spain.

I am not getting enough time because I also do some reading on India, pre-Islamic Persia, and browsing the GEC forums.a jack of all trades.

Geve

Hi geveN,

I just returned from a long overdue vacation to find your post. The movement of peoples from the Neolithic through prehistory is a topic of great interest to me. I have tried a variety of approaches to find the most credible information possible from what is available.

I have come to the point where I believe the only truly accurate method of filling in the timeline you desire is through the systematic DNA analysis of the human remains recovered from the tombs and graves of prehistory. No DNA study based on the genetic sampling of modern populations will EVER be considered defintive when applied to the actual populations of prehistory. The true story awaits the genetic analysis of the bones stored in the museums and universities around the world.

This work is only just beginning and will take many years to complete. One word of hope is that the problem with the contamination of ancient bones by modern DNA has apparently been overcome. Please refer to the following:

Abigail S. Bouwman, Elizabeth R. Chilvers, Keri A. Brown, and Terence A. Brown, "Identification of the Authentic Ancient DNA Sequence in a Human Bone Contaminated with Modern DNA", American Journal of Physical Anthropology 131 (2006) 428-431.

Also, I will be releasing the latest version of the "Archaeological Sites of the Aegean Minoans in the next week or two. Google Earth has significantly increased its high resolution coverage of Crete and the Aegean and many additional sites have been pinpointed with great accuracy.

Very Best Regards,

W. Sheppard Baird

hi Sheppard,

hope you thoroughly enjoyed your vacation!!

from what you say in your above reply, the National Geographic Genographic project would not give the right clues because they are compiling and analysing DNA of moderns.

How would you rate those DNA profile chaps who for US $ 150 send you a kit where one has to "collect" and return DNA samples from the mouth and they send back a profile of your ancestry ?

Best Wishes,

Geve