Received: 3 May 2018
Revised: 10 February 2019
Accepted: 1 May 2019
DOI: 10.1111/ahg.12328
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Genetic history of the population of Crete
Petros Drineas1 ∗
Fotis Tsetsos2 ∗
Evangelia Yannaki5
Anna Razou6
Francisco Perez-Jimenez7
Katerina Kanaki6
Giustina De Silvestro8
John A. Stamatoyannopoulos10
Peristera Paschou2,13 †
Anna Plantinga3
Kenneth K Kidd11
Iosif Lazaridis4
Manolis Michalodimitrakis6
Maria C. Renda9
Brian L. Browning3,12
George Stamatoyannopoulos10 †
1 Department
of Computer Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
2 Department
of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Democritus University of Thrace, Alexandroupolis, Greece
3 Department
of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
4 Department
of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
5 Department
of Hematology, George Papanicolaou Hospital, Thessaloniki, Greece
6 Department
of Forensic Medicine, University of Crete, Heraklion, Crete, Greece
7 IMIBIC/Reina
8 Transfusion
9 Unita
Sofia University Hospital, University of Cordoba, Cordoba, Spain
Medicine Department, General Hospital-Padua University, Padova, Italy
di Ricerca P. Cutino, Ospedali Riunti Villa Sofia-Cervello, Palermo, Italy
10 Departments
of Medicine and Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
11 Department
of Genetics, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut
12 Department
of Medicine, Division of Medical Genetics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
13 Department
of Biological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
Correspondence
Peristera Paschou, Department of
Biological Sciences, Purdue University,
West Lafayette, IN 47907.
Email:
[email protected]
∗ These authors contributed equally to this
work.
† Co-senior authors.
Abstract
The medieval history of several populations often suffers from scarcity of contemporary records resulting in contradictory and sometimes biased interpretations by historians. This is the situation with the population of the island of Crete, which remained
relatively undisturbed until the Middle Ages when multiple wars, invasions, and occupations by foreigners took place. Historians have considered the effects of the occupation of Crete by the Arabs (in the 9th and 10th centuries C.E.) and the Venetians (in
the 13th to the 17th centuries C.E.) to the local population. To obtain insights on such
effects from a genetic perspective, we studied representative samples from 17 Cretan
districts using the Illumina 1 million or 2.5 million arrays and compared the Cretans
to the populations of origin of the medieval conquerors and settlers. Highlights of
our findings include (1) small genetic contributions from the Arab occupation to the
extant Cretan population, (2) low genetic contribution of the Venetians to the extant
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original
work is properly cited.
© 2019 The Authors. Annals of Human Genetics published by University College London (UCL) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Ann Hum Genet. 2019;83:373–388.
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ahg
373
DRINEAS ET AL.
374
Cretan population, and (3) evidence of a genetic relationship among the Cretans and
Central, Northern, and Eastern Europeans, which could be explained by the settlement
in the island of northern origin tribes during the medieval period. Our results show
how the interaction between genetics and the historical record can help shed light on
the historical record.
KEYWORDS
crete, greece, historical genetics, medieval history, population genetics, whole-genome
1
I N T RO D U C T I O N
The population history of Crete can be traced to the early
Neolithic when the island was colonized by farmers from
Anatolia who established in Knossos, at about 7000 B.C.E.,
one of the first Neolithic settlements in Europe (Evans, 1994);
other Neolithic settlements were subsequently established all
over Crete (Tomkins, 2008). These Neolithic settlers and subsequent waves of Neolithic migrants (Broodbank & Strasser,
1991; Cherry, 1981; Nowicki, 2008; Weinberg, 1965) established the first advanced European civilization, the Minoan
civilization, which flourished in Crete from 3000 to about
1450 B.C.E. (Evans, 1921). The island was subsequently conquered by the Myceneans of mainland Greece (Bennet, 2011;
Chadwick, 1976; deFidio, 2008) who ruled from around 1450
to 1100 B.C.E. Homer (1650) describes Crete as a populous
island with 90 cities inhabited by several tribes: the Achaeans,
who correspond to the people now called Myceneans
(Bennet, 2011; Schofield, 2007); the Pelasgians who were
the pre-Hellenic population of the Helladic space (Herodotus,
1999; Strabo, 2006); the Eteocretans (Cretans of the old
stock); the Kydonians; and the Dorians (Strabo, 2006). Eteocretans and Kydonians were considered to be autochthonous
Cretans while the other tribes originated from Greece (Strabo,
2006). There is little of significance coming from Crete during the classical times other than the frequent wars between
the city-states (Detorakis, 2015). Following the Hellenistic
period during which there is no record of population migrations to Crete, the island was conquered in 69 B.C.E. by the
Romans (Sanders, 1982). The almost 400 years of Roman
occupation was followed by about 500 years of relatively
peaceful rule by the Byzantines (Tsougarakis, 1988) until
Crete fell in 827 C.E. to Arab exiles from Andalusia (Brooks,
1913; Christides, 1984; Detorakis, 2015; Vassiliev, 1980).
The Arab Emirate of Crete was frequently raided the Aegean
and Eastern Mediterranean, but after 134 years of Arab rule,
the island was recaptured in 961 C.E. by the Byzantines
(Norwich, 1998; Vassiliev, 1980). The 243 years of the second Byzantine rule ended when the Byzantine Empire fell
to the Francs and the Venetians of the Fourth Crusade. The
Venetians purchased the island in 1204 C.E. from the crusader Boniface of Montferrat; they ruled Crete for 465 years
and established a feudal system that provoked several revolutions of the population (Detorakis, 2015; Xanthoudidis,
1939). From 1645 to 1669, Ottomans and Venetians fought
for 24 years over Crete and the island was captured by the
Ottomans who ruled for 267 years during which the Cretans revolted several times (Detorakis, 2015). The island
gained its autonomy in 1889 and was unified with Greece in
1913.
Historians have for long debated the effects the medieval
historical events may have had on the Cretan population.
Ancient written sources are typically concise and noncontemporary, hence theories and interpretations of historians are
sometimes based on extrapolations or on a (perhaps subjective) synthesis of inadequate information. Population genetics analysis can complement historical approaches by detecting and quantifying changes in population structure as a result
of migrations and population admixture, but, to the best of
our knowledge, no Cretan genetic analyses based on wholegenome autosomal markers have appeared in prior work. A
number of studies have been conducted using Y DNA (Di
Giacomo et al., 2003; King et al., 2008; Malaspina et al., 2001;
Martinez et al., 2007; Voskarides et al., 2016) or mtDNA
(Hughey et al., 2013; Martinez, Mirabal, Luis, & Herrera,
2008), generating results that raised interesting points for
investigation, but with nondefinite conclusions, limited by the
amount of information that a small number of genetic loci can
provide. The earliest studies on Y DNA had shown considerable heterogeneity between the Cretans (Di Giacomo et al.,
2003; Malaspina et al., 2001), with later studies correlating
haplotypes from various areas of Crete with Balkan, Italian,
Anatolian, or even paleolithic populations (King et al., 2008;
Martinez et al., 2007; Voskarides et al., 2016). The study of
mtDNA initially supported the previous findings, especially
on the matter of paleolithic signatures, along with a Middle
Eastern component in the Cretan population (Martinez et al.,
2008). The study of ancient mtDNA from Crete identified
high genetic affinity of the ancient Cretans with modern Cretans and Neolithic Europeans (Hughey et al., 2013). Here we
ask whether population genetics can help provide insights on
the impact of various historical events on the genetic structure
of the population of Crete.
DRINEAS ET AL.
2
SUBJECTS AND METHODS
2.1 Design of the study and geographic
districts
The study has been reviewed by the appropriate committees of the University of Washington and the University of
Crete. All participants have signed informed consent for using
their DNA for molecular analysis including sequencing. We
focused on the rural population of Crete. The participants
were males or females 70 years or older (range of ages 70 to
94 years) who had paternal and maternal grandparents originating from villages located in the same district of Crete. With
this approach, we reconstructed the rural population of Crete
at the time of birth of the grandparents of the participants
(i.e., the population of the period 1850 to 1880). According
to the 1881 census, the Greek population of Crete consisted
of 205,000 individuals (Stratakis, 1890), 80% of whom were
living in 1,150 villages and hamlets. 131 individuals were
included in the study and their grandparents originated from
171 villages (Figure 1).
Crete was divided into 17 districts (Figure 1, Table S1) corresponding to the Health Centers through which health care
is provided to the rural population. The four cities (Chania,
Rethymno, Irakleio, Sitia) and their suburbs were excluded
from the study. The names of the 17 districts in the figures
and the supplemental tables correspond to the locations of the
Health Centers. The distribution of the Health Centers (and
of the associated centers of rural infirmaries in remote villages) agrees well with the distribution of the rural population of Crete. The 171 villages (and two small towns, Ayios
Nikolaos and Anoyia) of origin of the study participants are
distributed relatively evenly over rural Crete (Figure 1; see
375
supplementary text for a more detailed overview of the Cretan ethnogeography).
2.2
Datasets used for the analyses
To explore relationships beyond the regions of the Cretan
populations, we analyzed samples from published datasets
from populations from around the world (Figure S1). Samples from Greek subpopulations and populations from the
area of Cordoba in Andalusia, from Veneto and from Sicily
collected in the context of this study, are listed in Table S2.
Additionally, the refined identity by descent (IBD) analysis
included 185 Greek samples genotyped on the Illumina 2.5M
version 1.1 arrays. Table S2 also lists samples from the Human
Genome Diversity Project (http://www.hagsc.org/hgdp), the
1000 Genomes Project (http://www.1000genomes.org), and
other sources.
2.3
Merging genotypes from different sources
To merge datasets from the different sources described in
Table S2, we had to pay particular attention to strand information and properly align common single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). As such information was not always available, we chose to omit SNPs with alleles C/G and A/T to avoid
ambiguity.
2.4
Quality control
Despite the fact that the missing genotype rates in any of the
datasets that we analyzed in our work were quite low (invariably below 1%), we chose to perform an additional quality
control check and remove any SNP that had a missing rate
Locations of the origins of the grandparents of the participants of the study. Each of the 17 Cretan subpopulations is shown with a
different color. The origins of the grandparents represent fairly well the distribution of the rural population of Crete in the second half of the 19th
century [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
FIGURE 1
DRINEAS ET AL.
376
exceeding 20% in any of the populations under study when
merging datasets. Our objective was to remove SNPs that
might cause spurious artifacts in our analyses simply because
they had many missing genotypes in one of the studied
populations.
2.5
Principal Component Analysis (PCA)
We used Eigenstrat (Price et al., 2006) to perform PCA on the
available data (and subsets thereof). A detailed discussion of
PCA and its use in population genetics appears in Price et al.
(2006) and Paschou et al. (2007a, 2007b).
2.6
Estimating population admixture
We used the ADMIXTURE v1.22 software for all our admixture analyses. The parameter K (number of ancestral populations) ranged between two and eight in all our analyses. Prior
to running ADMIXTURE, we pruned the SNPs to remove
SNPs in high linkage disequilibrium (LD). Toward that end,
we used the PLINK software and pruned SNPs using a windowed approach and a value of r2 equal to 0.8. We used DISTRUCT v.1.1 and CLUMPP v.1.1.2 to visualize the output of
ADMIXTURE (Alexander, Novembre, & Lange, 2009). We
also used the meta-analysis technique developed in Stamatoyannopoulos et al. (2017) to perform a meta-analysis of the
ADMIXTURE output.
2.7
Identity by descent (IBD)
Two datasets were used in the IBD analyses. The first dataset
included 759 samples from Crete, the Peloponnese, Greece,
and parts of southern Europe (Sicily, Serbia, Veneto, Tuscany,
Andalusia, Basque, Iberia, Italy, and Sardinia), with 619,756
SNPs in common prior to processing. The second dataset
included 1,882 samples with 275,180 SNPs in common. A
map of the origins of the samples in this second dataset is
shown in Figure S1 with a corresponding list of populations
in Table S2.
Allele strand, reference, and alternate alleles were aligned
with the 1000 Genomes European populations (CEU, GBR,
TSI, FIN, and IBS), using the conform-gt Beagle Utility
(http://faculty.washington.edu/browning/conform-gt.html)
prior to running Beagle. 566 and 590 markers, respectively,
were excluded because of an inability to confirm the strand
orientation. Of the remaining markers, any with minor allele
frequency less than 1%, Hardy–Weinberg P-values less
than 10−6 , or containing more than 2% missing data were
excluded. Thus 560,891 SNPs were included for the dataset
with 759 individuals, and 257,945 SNPs were included for
the dataset with 1,882 individuals.
We used the Refined IBD algorithm implemented in
Beagle 4.1 (Browning & Browning, 2013) to phase the data
and infer IBD segments. Default values were used for all of
the parameters except that we set niterations to 160. Per the
software recommendations, the ibdtrim parameter was set to
the average number of markers in 120 kb, which was 22 for
the dataset with 749 individuals and 10 for the dataset with
1,882 individuals. We used the HapMap genetic map. We
excluded IBD segments with length <2 cM, as Refined IBD
has been shown to have a low false-positive rate when using
this threshold (Browning & Browning, 2013). We required
a logarithm-of-odds (LOD) score of 3 when inferring IBD
segments, which means that the probability of the observed
genotype data for a pair of samples in the inferred IBD
segment is at least 1,000 times greater under an IBD model
than under a non-IBD model.
R Core Team (2014; http://www.R-project.org) was used
to generate plots and summarize IBD distributions. The heat
maps summarize average pairwise IBD between chromosomes from different individuals in the populations being
compared. Specifically, we calculated the sum of the lengths
of IBD segments shared between a pair of individuals in the
two populations (or within a population), then divided by the
number of unique pairs of individuals in the two populations
(or within a population) and by four times the genome length
(for the four ways to pair chromosomes between two people).
We excluded pairs of individuals with more than 40% IBD
sharing. This threshold excludes half siblings, full siblings,
and avuncular pairs.
For the bootstrap analyses, we sampled individuals with
replacement from each of the populations being compared,
up to the original sample size of that population. We then
recalculated the average IBD sharing as described above. We
repeated this procedure for 500 bootstrap samples and calculated the mean and 95% confidence interval for the average
pairwise IBD between the populations.
2.8
Network analysis
To better understand the connection between populations
included in our study, we performed a network analysis on the
results of PCA, following the lines of our prior work (Paschou
et al., 2014). To form the networks, we identified the top few
nearest neighbors of each sample by representing each sample with respect to the top K coefficients returned by PCA
and then computing the distance of each sample to all other
samples, under the additional constraint that these neighbors
should not belong to the same population of origin as the sample itself. Once a network whose nodes correspond to populations and whose edges correspond to connections between
populations, as described above, is formed, we visualize it
using the Cytoscape software package (see Paschou et al.,
2014 for details).
DRINEAS ET AL.
2.9
ChromoPainter and FineSTRUCTURE
To further investigate the connections between Cretan populations, as well as their connections to their Southern European neighbors, we used the ChromoPainter and FineSTRUCTURE (Lawson, Hellenthal, Myers, & Falush, 2012) pipeline
to analyze population structure within Crete as well as a combined dataset including Cretan data and Southern European
populations. More specifically, our first dataset in this analysis
included all Cretan populations, while our second dataset in
this analysis included Sardinia, Sicily, Italy, Tuscany, Veneto,
Basque, Andalusian, Iberia, and all Cretan samples. For visualization purposes only, the Cretan samples were split in eastern Crete, central Crete, and western Crete, based on geography. ChromoPainter and FineSTRUCTURE are methods that
use inferred haplotypes to depict haplotypic sharing through a
chromosome painting method. We used SHAPEIT (Delaneau,
Marchini, & Zagury, 2012) to infer haplotypes from genomewide markers on the studied populations. The resulting haplotypes were then used as input to the ChromoPainter and
FineSTRUCTURE pipeline to achieve a detailed representation of the shared haplotypic chunks. ChromoPainter utilizes
a method of haplotypic painting that depicts the shared haplotypic segments between individuals given a shared ancestral
donor via a Hidden Markov Model. It calculates the effective population size, the mutation rate, and the effective number of chunks. FineSTRUCTURE was used in two independent Markov Chain Monte Carlo runs, using 100,000 total
iterations (50,000 for the Markov Chain Monte Carlo burnin step and 50,000 for the actual random walk). The painted
chromosomes are combined using the chromo-combine step.
The derived co-ancestry matrix is then used for a hierarchical clustering tree based on the Markov Chain Monte Carlo
step. We plotted the results using a combination of Python
plotting scripts and the native R scripts provided by the
authors.
3
RESULTS
3.1 Genetic characterization of the Cretan
populations
The Cretan population sample consisted of 129 individuals
originating from 17 rural districts (Figure 1; Table S1). The
subjects were at least 70 years old with all four grandparents
originating from villages of the same rural district. The subjects were genotyped with the Illumina 1M or 2.5M arrays and
compared with the populations listed in Table S2.
Several subpopulations known for their distinct cultural
characteristics and contributions to the Cretan history can be
discerned when we observe the results of the PCA analysis. The population of Sfakia in western Crete, with a history
of multiple revolutions against conquerors (Detorakis, 2015),
377
shows a clustering of its individuals in Figures 2a and S2. Lassithi plateau in Mount Dicte is a geographic isolate inhabited
continuously since the Neolithic; it has several ancient defense
sites (Nowicki, 2000) and served as a refugium at times of
upheaval throughout the Cretan history. Some clustering of
individuals of the populations of Lassithi Plateau can be seen
in Figures 2a and S2. Other subpopulations that are at least
partially separated by PCA are Anoyia and Perama (Figures 2a
and S2) in the northern slopes of Mount Ida, the Eastern-most
population of Sitia (Figure S2) and the Western-most populations of Kissamos and Kandanos (Figure S2). Several of
these subpopulations could also be (at least partially) distinguished by ADMIXTURE (Figure S3). The findings of ChromoPainter and FineSTRUCTURE are broadly in agreement
with PCA and ADMIXTURE analyses, as shown in the dendrogram of Figure S3b. Indeed, in the dendrogram, populations are clustered mostly based on relative latitude and there
is no co-clustering of populations at the two latitudinal ends
of Crete.
Another feature of the Cretan genetic diversity is an eastto-west gradient in gene frequencies shown in the PCA plot of
Figure S2a and in the correlation between longitude and the
top principal component of Figure 2b. A pronounced east-towest gradient is also apparent in the ADMIXTURE analysis
of Figure S3a (K = 2, K = 3) and in the IBD sharing heat-plot
of Figure 2c. This is in contrast to the north-to-south axis,
which is not captured well by PCA (Figure S4). This is not
surprising given the geography of the Cretan island and how
narrow the north-to-south axis of the island is.
The east-to-west gradient could represent ancient population settlement patterns. It is known that the Minoan settlements concentrated in central and eastern Crete (Branigan,
1970) while the Myceneans (likely of Peloponnesean origin)
dominated the central and the western parts of the island
(deFidio, 2008). The Kydonians inhabited western Crete and
the Eteocretans inhabited southern (Strabo, 2006) and eastern
Crete (Duhoux, 1982). Eastern Crete received waves of new
immigrants from the Anatolian coast through the Dodecanese
in the Final Neolithic/Early Minoan (around 3,500 to 3,000
B.C.E.) (Nowicki, 2002, 2008). It was thus possible that the
east-to-west gradient reflected these old population distributions that had been preserved by the geography of the island.
Compatible with population movements between Crete, Peloponnese, and Dodecanese are the findings of IBD analysis
(Figure S5) showing high IBD sharing between Peloponnese
and west Crete and similarly high between Dodecanese and
east Crete. Another explanation of the east-to-the west gradient, supported by the Cretan mountainous geography, is isolation by distance. Future analyses might help clarify this issue.
To explore the genetic relationships between Cretans and
the European and Near Eastern populations, we employed
IBD analysis and PCA. In IBD analysis, our primary measure of relatedness was mean pairwise IBD, that is, the
DRINEAS ET AL.
378
Genetic differentiation of the Cretan
populations. (a) Results of principal component analysis (PCA)
analysis of the 17 Cretan subpopulations. Notice that the
individuals of the study are not distributed randomly but they form
clusters distinguishing several subpopulations. Also notice that the
eastern and the western subpopulations are placed on the opposite
sites of the graph. Anoyia, Lassithi, Sitia, Sfakia, and Kisamos are
clearly separated in the top three principal components. Some
overlap exists between the remaining populations. (b) Correlation
between geographic coordinates (longitude) and the top principal
component. Notice that the east-to-west axis of the Cretan island is
captured extremely well by the top principal component
demonstrating the east-to-west gradient in gene frequencies. There
is essentially no correlation between latitude and the second top
component (r2 is approximately 0.15). (c) Heat map of the log of
the average proportion of genome shared identity by descent (IBD)
between a pair of individuals in the specified districts of Crete.
Higher values (less negative; toward the red end of the color scale)
indicate higher IBD sharing. The populations are placed
sequentially according to their location on the island from the east
to the west. Notice that they form three clusters: an eastern, a
central, and a western. Noticeable also in the central cluster is a
subcluster formed by the populations of Anoyia and Perama
[Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
FIGURE 2
DRINEAS ET AL.
Heat maps of the log of the average proportion
of genome shared identity by descent (IBD) between a pair of
individuals in the specified populations. Higher values (less
negative; toward the red end of the color scale) indicate higher IBD
sharing. (a) Relationships among Crete, Europe, the Caucasus, and
the Near East. Europe includes Belarusians, Estonians, Germans,
Lithuanians, Orcadians, Poles, and Swedes. Caucasus includes
Georgians, Armenians, Abhkasians, and the Adygei. The Near East
includes Bedouins, Druze, Jordanians, Palestinians, Samaritans,
and Syrians. (b) Relationships between Crete and the Eastern,
Central, Northern and Western regions of Europe. Eastern Europe
includes Chuvash and Russia. Central Europe includes Hungary
and Ukraine. South Europe includes Sicily, Peloponnese, Serbia,
Veneto, Tuscany, Andalusia, Basque, Iberia, Italy, and Sardinia.
Northern Europe includes Denmark, Finland, and Ireland. Western
Europe includes just France. (c) Relationships between Crete and
specified European populations. Notice that Crete shares higher
IBD relationships with the Eastern and Central European
populations [Colour figure can be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
FIGURE 3
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380
average amount of detected IBD (in segments >2 cM) shared
between individuals in two populations (Tables S3 and S4).
The heat map in Figure 3a shows the average amount of IBD
shared between individuals in Crete, Europe, the Caucasus,
and the Near East. All three regions of Crete are most strongly
related to Europe. Bootstrap analyses confirm that the Crete–
Europe relationship is significantly stronger than either Crete–
Caucasus or Crete–Near East (Figure S6).
Within Europe, Crete is most closely related to Central
and Eastern Europe (Figure 3b and 3c; Tables S3 and S4).
However, the difference between Southern, Central, and Eastern Europe is borderline statistically significant (Figure S7).
Among the non-Greek populations of Table S4, east Crete
shares the highest IBD with Ukraine (proportion of pairs with
IBD 41.6% and mean pairwise IBD 1.39 cM) and Poland
(proportion of pairs with IBD 39.5% and mean pairwise IBD
1.29 cM). West Crete (Table S3) shares the highest proportion
of pairs with IBD and mean pairwise IBD with Poland (42%
and 1.48 cM) and Ukraine (39.9% and 1.37 cM). None of the
Southern European populations share high levels of IBD with
Crete (Figures 3c and S8). However, most differences in mean
pairwise IBD between Crete and individual European populations are not statistically significant (Figures S9 and S10).
In contrast to the IBD data, PCA comparisons of Crete with
the European populations distinguish the Cretans from Central, Northern, and Eastern Europeans (Figures 4a and S11a).
PCA plots specifically show a clear separation of the Cretans from the Polish, Ukrainians, Russians, and Belarussians
(Figures 4b and S11b). They are also clearly distinguished
from Western and Northwestern Europe (Figures 4a and
S11b). ADMIXTURE plots confirm the PCA findings (Figures S12 and S13).
The differences in the results of PCA and IBD analysis
probably reflect differences in time frames. The genomeaverage coalescent time for pairs of samples determines the
locations of samples in PCA space (McVean, 2009). Coalescent time at loci with discordant alleles can be very old.
In contrast IBD analysis detects recent coalescent events,
with the approximate time frame determined by the minimum
length threshold for detected IBD segments. Ralph and Coop
(2013) estimate that almost all IBD segments >2 cM length
in Europeans date from a common ancestor within the past
4,000 years, and most of this sharing derives from common
ancestors 1,500–2,500 years ago.
To determine the time frame when the IBD relationships between Crete and Eastern and Central Europe
were developed, we applied ALDER (http://groups.csail.
mit.edu/cb/alder), a method that uses the decay of admixture LD to estimate the time of a single pulse of admixture
and quantify its proportion, using the Cretan population as
the mixed population and varying the source population. In
Table S5, we list the source populations that provided the
strongest evidence of admixture (exponential amplitude and
decay more than four standard errors higher than zero). A
series of populations from western (CEU), northern (CEU,
Estonian), and Eastern (Ukrainian, Russian) Europe produce
admixture estimates of approximately 17%–28% dating to the
medieval period.
Both PCA and ADMIXTURE point to the strong genetic
similarities between Cretans and Southern Europeans, especially the Sicilians (Figures 4a, 4c, and S11c). This genetic
relationship is also demonstrated by network analysis of the
European populations (Figure S14). Sicily has also been
previously placed next to Crete using phylogenetic trees
and tree mix analysis (Paschou et al., 2014). These results
might reflect the common genetic history of Crete and Sicily
rather than gene flow between the two islands. Sicily was
heavily colonized by Greeks starting in the eight century BC
(Freeman, 1891; Thucydides, 1986). Dorian Greeks colonized the South and the Southeast coast of Sicily while
the Ionian Greeks colonized the North and Northeast coast.
Sicily continued to be Hellenized in medieval times but under
the Norman domination the usage of the Greek language was
discouraged and it was eventually replaced by Italian. Southern Italy was also colonized by Ionian, Achaean, and Dorian
Greeks, and these colonies, together with Sicily, composed the
Greek-dominated part of Italy, which the Latin speakers called
Magna Graecia (Burry, 1963; Ceserani, 2012). The PCA
(Figure 4a and 4c) and ADMIXTURE (Figure S15) data show
that the historic bonds between Greece (including Crete) and
Sicily were not simply cultural but genetic as well. The above
findings were broadly confirmed by our ChromoPainter/
FineSTRUCTURE analysis (Figure S16a and S16b).
In the PCA of Crete vs Europe, the Cretans overlap with
three populations: the Peloponneseans, the Sicilians and the
Ashkenazi Jews (see Figures 4a, S17, and S18). Southern
European and Mediterranean ancestry of the Ashkenazi Jews
has also been demonstrated before (Atzmon et al., 2010;
Behar et al., 2010; Bauchet et al., 2007; Price et al., 2008;
Seldin et al., 2006; Tian et al., 2008). Furthermore, we find
in both PCA and ADMIXTURE analysis, that the Ashkenazi
are more similar to the Cretans than to the two Levantine
Semitic populations. One possible explanation is that this relation might reveal a common Mediterranean ancestry that the
Cretan and Ashkenazi populations share.
3.2
Genetic effects of medieval historic events
Three medieval events had major impact on Crete: the conquest of the island by the Andalusian Arabs; the violent recapture of Crete by the Byzantines; and the four and half centuries of rule and colonization by the Venetians. To obtain
insights we compared the Cretans with the extant populations
of origins of the conquerors and settlers assuming that these
populations represent reasonably well the populations who
settled in Crete during medieval times.
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381
Principal component analysis (PCA) plots for the Cretan and European populations. The first two principal components are shown
in all plots. (a) Cretans and European populations: there is a clear north-to-south cline along the first eigenvector, with the north appearing on the left
side and the south on the right side of the plot. Highlighted in blue are the labels of the Greek populations of Crete and Peloponnese. The second
eigenvector captures some of the east-to-west cline and also shows the genetic distance of the Cretans from the Armenians and the Adygei, two
populations from the region of Caucasus. The Sardinians and the Basque are located outside the European cluster in the first eigenvector, while the
Chuvash are outside the cluster in the second eigenvector. The Cretans are located near the rightmost part of the plot, overlapping with the
Peloponnesian, the Sicilian, and the Ashkenazi populations. (b) PCA results for the Cretan and the Slavic populations. The heterogeneity of the Slavs
dominates the plot. The first eigenvector captures the genetic distance between the Cretans and the Slavs. The second eigenvector shows the
difference between the Slavic populations, with Russians being the most diverse population along the eigenvector. (c) PCA results for Cretans and
Sicily. There is a complete overlap among many of the Sicilian and the Cretan samples. (d) PCA results for Cretans, Ashkenazi, Druze, and
Palestinians. When compared by PCA to the Palestinian and the Druze, Cretans and Ashkenazi overlap and they both separate from these Near
Eastern Semitic populations [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
FIGURE 4
DRINEAS ET AL.
382
3.2.1 The genetic effects of the Arab
occupation
Religious strife and a failed revolution in Arabic Andalusia
in the beginning of the 9th century resulted in the exile of a
large segment of the population of the area of Cordoba (Dozy,
1913). About 15,000 exiles settled in Morocco (Dozy, 1913;
Levi-Provencal, 1938; Ostrogorsky, 1969) and 12,000, in 827
CE, conquered Crete, established there a piratical state and
ruled the island for 134 years (Christides, 1984; Ostrogorsky,
1969; Vassiliev, 1980). Historians refer to that period of Cretan history as “Arab occupation” although the majority of
the conquerors were indigenous Andalusians whose ancestors
had converted to Islam (Christides, 1984; Dozy, 1913); the
term “Arab occupation” will also be used here. The Andalusians were joined by North African Arabs (Cannard, 1986;
Dozy, 1913; McVean, 2009) and Moslems from the Near East
settled in the island during the 134 years of the Arab rule. To
obtain insights on the effects of the Arab occupation we compared the Cretans with Andalusians, North African and Near
Eastern populations.
PCA (Figures 5a and S19a) clearly separated the Cretan
from the Andalusian sample. ADMIXTURE (Figures 6a and
S20) further supports the PCA findings. Cretans are also
clearly separated by North Africans and Near Eastern populations as shown both by PCA and ADMIXTURE (Figures 5b,
S19b, 6b, and S21). Figures 6c and S22 show a gradient from
the Cretans toward the Kurds, the Syrians, the Lebanese, and
the Jordanians (this is especially striking for K = 2)._ Overall, the PCA and ADMIXTURE analyses did not provide evidence that the Arab occupation of Crete resulted in the levels
of admixture that would have been recognized by our techniques.
3.2.2 Population settlements by the
Byzantines
The 134 years of the Arab rule ended when the army of the
Byzantine general Nicephorus Phokas conquered Crete after
a year-long hard-fought campaign (Panayotakis, 1960; Talbot
& Sullivan, 2005). The Byzantines slaughtered or enslaved
the Andalusians and the Arabs and perhaps many converts to
Islam. The Arab fourteen century historian Nuwayri estimates
that 200,000 Moslems perished in Crete (Gaspar, 1904), but
this number is considered an exaggeration (Christides, 1984).
The extinction of Andalusians, Arabs and Moslems should
have created a population void in the island. There is a five
words-long sentence in the book of Leo the Deacon (Talbot
& Sullivan, 2005), the contemporary historian who recorded
the re-capture of Crete by the Byzantines, which indicates that
the Byzantines tried to fill this void with new settlers. Leo
writes that after the extermination of the Arabs, Nicephorus
Phokas, settled in Crete “Romans and Armenians and men
from other tribes” (Talbot & Sullivan, 2005). The meaning
of this statement has been debated; does it refer to the settlement of veterans from the army of Nicephorus Phokas, an
event of minor population significance? Or, it refers to settlement to Crete of Byzantine populations from other areas of
the Empire, an event that could have had a major impact on
the structure of the Cretan population. Re-settlements of large
population groups for political and strategic reasons have
been frequently practiced by the Byzantine administration
(Charanis, 1961). By “Romans” Leo refers to all the populations of the Byzantine Empire which at that period extended
from the Balkans to Syria; we can only speculate what the
population origin of these “Romans and other tribes” would
have been. Settlements of Armenians most likely occurred
and have left traces recognized today in the names of villages
(Tomadakis, 1939). Comparison of Cretans and Armenians
by PCA and ADMIXTURE showed a clear separation of the
two populations (Figures S23 and S24). Armenians shared
with the Cretans the lowest proportion of pairs with IBD and
mean pairwise IBD (0.20 cM) of all populations of Tables S3
and S4. We conclude that there is no evidence for significant
Armenian ancestry in the Cretan rural population.
3.2.3 The genetic effects of the venetian
occupation
The Venetians ruled Crete for 435 years, built cities, settled
colonists, admixed with the locals and contributed to the creation of a characteristic Cretan cultural renaissance. We compared the Cretans with Italian populations and a population
sample from the area of Veneto which includes Venice and
the surrounding areas. Figures 5d and S19d show a gradient from the Cretan populations, on the left side of the plot,
toward Tuscans, Venetians, and Italians at the right side of
the plot. ADMIXTURE analyses (Figures 6d and S25) support the PCA findings; as shown in Figure S25, even for K =
2, the gradient from the Cretans to the Tuscans, the Venetians,
and eventually the Italians is quite pronounced.
4
DIS CUS S IO N
Historians strive hard to reconstruct the history of populations
on the basis of often limited sources. Problems are magnified
when critical events have not been documented by contemporary writers but they have reached historians by chronologically removed sources. In such cases, historians attempt to
assess the impact of events on the basis of perhaps inadequate
information and, in doing so, they might be influenced by factors such as political philosophy, ethnicity, etc. This explains
the fact that there often exist different interpretations of the
same event by different historians. Population genetics can
provide relatively unbiased insights on the population effects
of historical events (assuming appropriate sample collection
DRINEAS ET AL.
383
Results of principal component analysis (PCA) comparing Cretans with the populations of origin of the conquerors and settlers of
Crete during the medieval period. The top two principal components are shown in all plots. (a) The Cretans are compared with Andalusians who
conquered and settled in Crete in the 10th century. The top eigenvector shows a clear distinction between the Cretans, and the Andalusians. Basque
and French are also included in the figure. (b) North Africans, especially Tunisians and Moroccans, were prevalent among the Andalusian Arabs who
conquered Crete. Notice that the Cretans are clearly distinguished from these North African populations. (c) Medieval Arab sources mention that
Crete received settlers from Syria during the Arab occupation. The top eigenvector differentiates the Cretans from the Near Eastern populations.
Closer, but clearly separated from the Cretans, are the Kurds and the Syrians. (d) Comparison of the Cretans with the Venetians who occupied and
settled Crete for four and a half centuries. Both the first and the second eigenvector separate the Cretans from the Venetians [Colour figure can be
viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
FIGURE 5
and extensive statistical analyses). We attempted to provide
such insights regarding the effects of various historical events
on the genetics of the population of Crete.
Historians have attempted to analyze the population effects
of the Arab occupation of Crete on the basis of a relatively
inadequate written record. Except for the campaign of the
Byzantine general Nicephorus Phocas to Crete (which has
been recorded in detail), little written record exists on the
134 years of Arab occupation. It has been suggested that
the Arab occupation had a dramatic effect on the composition of the Cretan population (Sefakas, 1939; Treadgold,
1988). During the Arab rule, the Christian population of the
island was largely converted to Islam while Arabs settled in
Crete and Cretans sought refuge in lands under the control
384
DRINEAS ET AL.
ADMIXTURE analysis for the Cretans and the Andalusians, North Africans, Near Eastern populations, and the Venetians. Results
are shown for K equal to four, five, and six hypothetical ancestral populations. (a) A possible shared component can be observed between the
Andalusian and the Cretans, especially the western populations (Kissamos, Kandanos), especially for K equal to six. (b) The North African
populations are genetically distinct from the Cretans, except for a small amount of shared ancestry between Tunisians and the Anoyia subpopulation
for K equal to six. (c) A possible shared component can be observed between the Near East to the Cretans for K equal to four or five. (d) Cretans and
the Venetian populations appear completely distinct with only very minor shared ancestry. We can also observe a possible shared component between
the Italian populations and the Cretan subpopulations [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
FIGURE 6
DRINEAS ET AL.
of the Byzantines. Arab sources have claimed that the whole
Christian population of the island was expelled and replaced
by Muslims. Comments in Byzantine sources (Bekkerus,
1840; Ceserani, 2012; Panayotakis, 1960; Talbot & Sullivan, 2005) point to population changes but they might refer
to changes in religion rather than ethnicity. Opposing views
have been presented by historians who claim that the very
scant archaeological record left behind by the Arabs (Miles,
1964), the very small number of Arabic toponyms in the island
(Detorakis, 2015; Tomadakis, 1960–1961), and the lack of
Arabic additions to the Cretan dialect are all evidence of a
rather limited impact of Arab occupation on the population of
Crete (Christides, 1984; Tomadakis, 1960–1961).
A similar controversy exists on the impact of the
435 years of the Venetian rule. The Venetians were accomplished bureaucrats and left a good record of their administration of the colony. According to those sources, approximately
2,000 feudalists initially colonized Crete in the 13th century.
However, many other Venetian and Italian merchants, soldiers, and artisans settled in the urban centers (McKee, 2000)
later. Even though marriages between Venetians and Cretans
were initially discouraged, there is considerable evidence for
admixture between Latins and Cretans (McKee, 1993, 2000;
Maltezou, 1995). The cultural and physical admixture was
so extensive that even the notion of Greek ethnicity of the
Cretans of that era has been challenged (McKee, 2000). Other
historians, however, have argued that in spite of the extensive
cultural impact, the influence of the Venetians was mostly
on the populations of the major cities (Gasparis, 1998, 2005;
Tomadakis, 1960–1961) and that the foreigners who came to
Crete did not penetrate into the countryside until much later
and, even then, on a limited scale (Gasparis, 1998, 2005).
Our genetic analysis provides further evidence to address
such historical controversies. Our statistical analyses included
PCA, ADMIXTURE, IBD, ALDER, and the ChromoPainter/
FineSTRUCTURE pipeline. All results from those statistical
tools seem to be (broadly) in agreement. That being said, overinterpretation of statistical analyses is a common pitfall (especially when it comes to the ADMIXTURE and PCA) and further analyses using larger sample sizes, more sophisticated
statistical tools, and ancient DNA might shed further light on
the historical controversies surrounding Crete.
The genetic impact of the Andalusian and the Near Eastern Arabs seems minimal; similarly, the genetic contribution
of the Venetians to Cretans is low Tables S6–S8. This might
be explained by the geography of Crete, which has many
poorly accessible regions, as well as its agricultural and pastoral economy, which is sustained by a large number of small
villages and hamlets spread all over the island. The Arab and
Venetian conquerors settled mostly in the coastal urban centers and left the rural population intact.
An unexpected insight in the history of Crete was provided by the IBD analysis. The results showed that the Cre-
385
tans share high IBD with Western (CEU), Central (German,
Polish), Northern (CEU, Scandinavian), and Eastern (Ukranian, Russian) European populations. Indeed, in previous
studies, there has been an excess of IBD sharing reported
between Eastern Europe and the Greeks, while an admixture event has been inferred using Poland as a representative
population of the eastern component in the Greek population
(Hellenthal et al., 2014; Ralph & Coop, 2013). Especially the
results of Hellenthal et al. (2014) used GLOBETROTTER
to infer (under a pulse-admixture model that has the same
assumptions as ALDER) that Greek DNA could be described
as the mixture of 37% DNA from a Polish-like source and
63% from a Cypriot-like source occurring sometime between
718–1138 C.E.; our analyses here support these findings.
These results might reflect past settlements to Crete from
Europe. Indeed, Crete was invaded from the North by the
Myceneans and the Dorians in prehistoric or early historic
times. These were Greek tribes which, together with the
Minoans and other prehistoric inhabitants of the island,
shaped the genetic structure of the Cretan population. The
origin of the Greeks has been debated (see, for example,
Drews, 1988; Hooker, 1999; Renfrew, 1987; Wyatt, 1970)
and their Indo-European homelands have been placed in Anatolia (Renfrew, 1987) or in the steppes of Ukraine and Russia
(Gimbutas, 1970). Since Crete, Sicily, and Cyprus have been
colonized by Greeks in prehistoric or historic times, we
investigated whether Sicily and Cyprus also shared higher
IBD with European populations; indeed, they both do (Tables
S9–S10). A possible interpretation of the IBD results is that
they reveal the ancient Greek ancestry of the populations of
the three islands. Another interpretation is that the IBD results
in the three islands reflect unrelated historical events: the IBD
sharing between Sicily and Northern/Eastern Europe may
reflect the century-long occupation of medieval Sicily by the
Normans, even though there is no record of extensive Norman
settlement in Sicily (Burry, 1963). The IBD sharing between
Cyprus and Northern/Eastern Europeans could be explained
if, as a result of the expansion in Asia Minor of Turkish states
in 12th–13th centuries C.E., Byzantine populations, which
included Scythians and Slavs, migrated to Cyprus.
In the fourth to sixth centuries C.E., the Goths invaded
the Balkans, settled in Thrace and Moesia (central and northern Balkans) and in areas of Asia Minor, attacked the islands
including Crete and Cyprus, devastated Greece under Alaric,
and eventually attained considerable Germanic influence on
the affairs of the 5th and 6th century Byzantine Empire
(Vassiliev, 1980). There is no record by contemporary or later
historians of Gothic settlements in Crete. In the sixth and seventh centuries C.E., the Slavs migrated to the Balkans and settled in several areas including parts of the interior of the Greek
mainland, less in the coastal regions and in the islands. There
is no record by contemporary or later Byzantine or Latin historians of Slavic settlements in Crete. However, an eighth
DRINEAS ET AL.
386
century Arabic manuscript contains a single sentence stating
that “the year 934 of the Seleucid era (623 C.E.) Crete and several islands were raided by the Slavs” (Krinov, 1995). Also, as
mentioned in this section, one ambiguous sentence in the text
of a contemporary historian suggests that following the recapture of Crete from the Arabs in the 10th century C.E., a resettlement policy of various tribes in the depopulated island was
instituted by the Byzantines. If the “tribes” that moved to the
depopulated Crete included Hellenized Goths (Gothogreeks;
Ostrogorsky, 1969; Turtledove, 1982) and Hellenized Slavs
(Charanis, 1961) from Asia Minor, the IBD data could be
explained.
The results of the ALDER analysis suggest that settlers
from the North reached Crete between the third and the 13th
centuries C.E. This time frame is compatible with either the
Goths reaching Crete in the fourth to sixth centuries or the
Slavs in the seventh century or with Byzantines resettling populations on the island the 10th century C.E. We caution, however, that the pulse model of admixture may not capture the
history well and does not exclude the possibility of earlier
migrations from the north that would be in better agreement
with the historical record. Present-day Greeks have ancestry from the Eurasian steppe at a lower rate than those from
Northern Europe (Haak et al., 2015). Our results suggest that
at least some of this ancestry may have been introduced not
directly from Bronze Age steppe migrations, with historical
migrations during the medieval period, long after the first
appearance of the Greek language in the Aegean basin. While
ancient DNA from the Aegean has not yet been extracted, it
is possible that early populations of the region would resemble the genetically homogeneous but geographically dispersed
early Neolithic farmers from Anatolia, Central Europe, and
Iberia (Haak et al., 2015; Mathieson et al., 2015). Future studies of ancient DNA may provide new insights on how and
when the present-day population of Crete was formed.
ACKNOW LEDGMENTS
We thank Dr. Nick Paterson for contributing to the analysis
of the data and helpful comments on the manuscript, A.
Papadopoulou, N. Psatha, and N. Zogas for technical assistance, and R. Alexandraki, E. Athanasakis, N. Antonakis,
S. Vlassidis, I. Christoforidis, N. Drakonakis, G. Grinakis,
K. Heretis, A. Kampitaki, E. Lianna, E. Makronikolakis, K.
Nanakis, N. Papadakis, I. Petrakis, S. Sasarolis, A. Tsikala,
and E. Vitorakis for their assistance during the field studies
in the 17 districts. The study was supported by grants
from the Lucille P. Markey Charitable Trust and Sangamo
Biosciences to G.S., National Science Foundation grants to
P.D., ARISTEIA II Programme NSRF 2007–2013 to P.P.,
and National Institutes of Health (NIH) Grants HG008359
and GM099568 to B.L.B. A.P. was supported by the National
Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship
Program DGE-1256082.
O RC I D
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5521-846X
Fotis Tsetsos
Anna Plantinga
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6281-7727
Peristera Paschou
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9783-1024
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S U P P O RT I NG IN FO R M AT I O N
Additional supporting information may be found online in the
Supporting Information section at the end of the article.
How to cite this article: Drineas P, Tsetsos F,
Plantinga A, et al. Genetic History of the population of Crete. Ann Hum Genet. 2019;83:373–388.
https://doi.org/10.1111/ahg.12328