The sculptor Michalis Kassis, one of the most famous Maniots in the world
A genetic analysis of the Maniots living in the southern Peloponnese region of Greece has revealed a cohesive and patriarchal community, with roots in the… Bronze Age.
A group of people living in the southernmost reaches of the Peloponnese Peninsula, in Greece, has been genetically isolated for more than a millennium and, therefore, a new study, in Communications Biologythis Wednesday, managed trace its origins to the Bronze Age.
The genetic study shows that this group, known as Handcuffsdescends, through the paternal line, from ancient Greeks and Romans from the Byzantine era.
Prolonged genetic isolation and strict patriarchal clans may have contributed to the unique genetics over the last 1,400 years.
As Live Science writes, in ancient times, the Mani Peninsula was part of the Laconia region, which was dominated by the city-state of Sparta in the 7th century BC. Much of the Greek Peloponnese region suffered demographic disruption when Slavic peoples invaded in the 6th century AD. However, the Mani Peninsula was spared, and the Maniots living in the southernmost part of the peninsula became geographically and culturally isolated from the rest of Greece.
The new DNA analysis focused on more than 100 living “Deep Maniots” and found that they represent a “genetic island” due to prolonged isolation.
“Our results show that historical isolation left a clear genetic signature”stated in the study’s lead author, Leonidas-Romanos Davranoglouzoologist at the Natural History Museum at the University of Oxford.
“The Maniots preserve a portrait of the genetic landscape of southern Greece before the demographic disturbances of the early Middle Ages,” he added.
Maniots immune to major invasions
During Europe’s Migration Period (about 300 to 700 AD), various groups of people—including Germanic tribes, the Visigoths, the Huns, and the early Slavs—moved across the continent.
This resulted in numerous waves of migration. Research into ancient DNA has begun to uncover these population waves from the Migration Period. However these movements do not appear to have affected the Deep Maniots.
DNA analysis has revealed that Maniots have an extremely high frequency of one rare paternal lineage that originated in the Caucasus region around 28,000 years ago.
When compared with the DNA of present-day continental Greeks, the DNA of the Maniots showed no evidence of common lineages originating from Germanic and Slavic peoples during the Migration Period.
This island of paternal ancestry is rooted in the ancient Balkans and Western Asia and is strongly linked to Greek-speaking populations of the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman periods.
In 2024, the sculptor Michalis Kassisone of the most famous Maniots in the world was the protagonist of a film about life in Mani, survival in times of war, education, the resistance of man in the countryside and the lasting influence of Antiquity, the Middle Ages and modern times on his instincts.
