While we are waiting G25 data we already can have some conclusion.

 While we are waiting G25 data we already can have some conclusion. Early Iron Age preceding Urartu from the village Beniamin in Shirak are mostly identic to those samples we already have from other regions in ancient Republic of Armenia. So we can assume that this type of population that we usually call here Etiuni was present from Syunik to Shirak and almost certainly in adjacent regions like Kars , Artsakh , Utik' etc. We have no data from Erzurum region so I will not speculate on that matter.

According to this paper modern Armenians have some 50% of ancestry from this Etiuni pop. The paper has a typographic error claiming 50% of Steppe. That's an error.

The resting 50% is almost certainly from southern regions of historic Armenia. Which remain unsampled. When sampled in most likelihood we will symmetric changes in South also during the Urartian rule.

So South and North were living side by side but between 772-403 BC they merged and a new pop formed which is practically identic to modern Armenia. This interval without much doubt falls in to Urartian period. So something very important occured in Urartian period in Armenia which deeply affected the genetics, the social structure, language and everything else.

So understanding what was Urartu becomes quite crucial to understand how Armenian nation formed evolving from tribes and tribal federation into a more cohesive identity.

Notice I don't mean here the language solely, which obviously was present prior Urartu. But a shift from tribal or tribal federation identity to a larger national centralised identity.

Update. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Ethnogenesis.of.Armenians/permalink/1354368874968525/

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