Who were the Minoans?

The Minoans were a civilization that existed on the island
of Crete from around 3500 to around 1100 BC.  The Minoans were a forerunner of the
civilization on the Greek mainland that came later.

If you
are asking who the Minoans were in terms of what their ethnicity was, it is less clear. 
The Minoans appear to have been a fairly cosmopolitan people because of their geographic
location and the fact that they had contacts with peoples from around the Mediterranean
and beyond.  It is thought that the Minoans were probably not and Indo-European people
and were therefore not related by "blood" to the Greeks.  Their society, and presumably
their population, seemed to have a mix of influences from around the
region.

The Minoans, then, were a major Bronze Age
civilization that was centered on Crete and seems to have been rather diverse in terms
of its society.