The Greek FTDNA project wants to complete my Y-full test
Shortly after the new genetic study on the Minoans and Mycenaeans came out I was contacted by one of the administrators of the Greek genetic project on FTDNA. Apparently, my particular branch of j2-M319 shares no similarities with the other branches and could suggest a link with the Minoan samples. He really wants a y-full to be performed on my results, and so far one donor is willing to contribute $100 to the test. Im thinking of doing it but want to see if any other donors are willing to fund it.
Part of his email below...
"You are an excellent candidate for a very very early branch of J-M319*, and possibly even a "match" for the Minoans (although the chip used only looked for known SNPs, so only coincidentally may have captured one or two novel SNPs, or not).
We would like to do a Big Y for your sequence, since the Big Y is on sale for $395 until the end of the month.
if you are in a new basal branch of J-M319, or in an existing branch but with a tMRCA of over 8600 BP, then it's a good sign that at least some branches of J-M319 were present in the Peloponnese during the Mesolithic.
Your result may be important for J2a-L26 in general, because the earlier major branch of J2a-L558 also has J-M67, which is primarily found in Southern Iran. (25% of Isfahan in one study, for example.) Since the tMRCA of J-L558 according to YFull is exactly at 14,700 BP, the exact time of the Bolling Interstadial (aka "The End of the Ice Age"), it may be that some hunter-gatherers "wandered in" along the Mediterranean coast from much further east, like others in R1b1 apparently did at the same time. The Peloponnese Mycenaean result in J2a-L26* (apparently negative for all known subgroups) may be a sign of this as well. This Minoan and Mycenaean ancient DNA study was the very first one to find any J2a-L26, aside from the highly-derived Late Bronze Age BR2 J2a-CTS900 in Hungary from c. 1100 BCE.
As we can now see, the "Mycenaean" of Apatheia, which lies ca. 3 kms west of the town of Galatas, south of the road leading from Galatas to Troezen, in the northeastern Peloponnese, only 36 km east of Franchthi Cave, was J2a-L26* so even the "prototypical Greek" Mycenaeans surely had an important "Pelasgian" component of their population, just like Homer and the legends said they did.
Your result may even help explain the spread of J-M319 to other areas of Greek and specifically Spartan colonization around the Mediterranean. We also don't know anything about possible pre-Greek Minoan Bronze Age colonization of the Mediterranean, .although there are some hints about this taking place in areas that had significant copper resources, like Andalusia.
The idea of "purely Indo-European" in regard to Greece is not quite what it seems. Greek of course contains a substantial percentage of its vocabulary from a Pre-Indo-European substrate language.
Of course, if we're really lucky, at some point we might discover that you share a few SNPs with these Minoans - or rather, with any others sequenced through whole genome sequencing in the future.
So about getting a Big Y, we already have someone who is willing to contribute $100 toward the cost. We can also try to get others to contribute as well. (Again, we will do this anonymously, and even just say "a highly divergent J-M319 without reference to your specific ancestral location if that's what you want. in that case, we would just say "Greek".
What are your opinions on this? Should I order the y-full test now or wait for new possible donors?
