Here is an excerpt from Ilse Wegner's book about Hurrian language.

 Here is an excerpt from Ilse Wegner's book about Hurrian language. Alalakh is listed as an important site where numerous Hurrian names are found.

I post this because I noticed that in some DNA platforms Alalakh samples are marked as exclusively Amorite. For instance in MyTrueancestry. Semites obviously were present in Alalakh, which is visible in the Y dna. But Hurrians also had a large presence. Also occasionally Aryan names are attested in Alalakh which is confirmed by ancient DNA.

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The difference between scaled and unscaled in Vahaduo/G25.

 The difference between scaled and unscaled in Vahaduo/G25.

When using G25 coordinates one important thing to keep in mind is that the G25 is not directly working on any alleles. G25 zips any ancient DNA into 25 numbers. Which are coordinates in a virtual 25 dimension PCA.

The application that makes them creates unscaled coordinates first. Unscaled "humanity" is much closer to each other than the scaled one. As You can see in unscaled mode Turks and Azerbaijani are quite close to Armenians than in the scaled. The closeness of Turkish pops makes sense from historic point of view. In this sense the unscaled G25 data looks more close to Fst.

So why they are not close in the scaled? The reason of this is that scaling makes divergent pops like East Asian , African, Amerindian, Papuan deliberately more distant from West Eurasians. As consequence an East Turkish pop who have less than 10% East Asian is pulled away from Armenians while the local Near Easterners who probably have less shared ancestry with Armenians becomes apparently closer.

So when You use the scaled coordinates keep in mind this feature. This is even more important for ancient DNA. Many aDNA suffer from damage. They have noise levels of various anachronistic ancestry from Africa, America, East Asia which will affect the distances also.

In sum unscaled behavior is closer to Fst while the scaled behavior is more close to Admixture based oracles.

PS I used Erzurum because it's close to average.

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I updated this topic about Szolt Simon citing Dönmez "paper" about Triangle ware

 I updated this topic about Szolt Simon citing Dönmez "paper" about Triangle ware. It seems Dönmez made unscientific claims, which are quite sadly referenced by Simon.

To understand why it is an illogical argument I propose to read this paper from Summers.

He speaks about Triangle and Festoon ware, also about a special type of painted pottery. Notice painted potteries existed since Early Bronze Age. Here one type if it is discussed. The one related to Achemenids.

Main points are:

+ Triangle Ware, and that painted pottery are all linked to Achemenid period. They come from Iran. No single case in Urartu or even Hasanlu before Achemenids. The previous attribution of Triangle ware to Urartians was erroneous.

+Apadana architecture in Achemenid empire is borrowed from Urartu. That is why it is hard to distinguish Urartian period architecture from the Persian period.

+ Virtually no Medes period sites or artefacts in East Turkey Iron Age. Except one in west of Euphrates that can be tentatively linked to Medes. But even that needs a detailed examinations.

In sum we see what was already known from history. With the formation of Armenian Satrapy (547-331bc) the Tosp city in Van region became administrative center of Satrapy and hence we see there apparition of Persian pottery. It must be noted that in modern RoA Triangle ware is less frequent than in Van region. Erebuni was used as administrative center in RoA. If the Strabo's term Basorapeda is about Vaspurakan as some proposed then this could mean that a new name for East of Van was introduced during this Satrapy period. Vaspurakan means "nobility, high nobility" in Iranian languages. Consistent with it's role in the past. After the 331 when Achemenid empire collapsed the new capital was transfered to Armavir.

UPDATE: It seems Dönmez indeed used Triangle Ware as a Armenian presence marker. Well simply called this is a pseudo-science and it is quite sad that Simon relies on such references to promote his case. Dönmez pseudo-scientifuc theory was criticized by Mikael Badalyan also.

(99+) Archaeological Evidence for the Achaemenid Period in Eastern Turkey | Geoffrey Summers - Academia.edu

ACADEMIA.EDU

Archaeological Evidence for the Achaemenid Period in Eastern Turkey

Archaeological Evidence for the Achaemenid Period in Eastern Turkey

We have 12 new Kur-Araxian samples from RoA

Three Y DNA are published from Berkaber (~2500bc) All are J1-Z1842 which was also found in previous works in Dagestan. Another J1-Z1842 was found in MBA Hasanlu (2000bc). And finally, we have another Z1842 from Arslan Tepe EBA shifted to east which confirms that Z1842 was an important Kur-Araxian Y DNA. The age of this branch is consistent with Kur-Araxian expansion. Genome wide Kur-Araxians derive the bulk of their ancestry from preceding Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods of RoA/South Caucasus. They have also an extra CHG ancestry ~19%. The most interesting finding is that Aknashen type of Neolithic farmers is important for Kura-Araxes (KA). Except those KA sites that are situated in Shirak province (Karnut, Kaps). Areni ancestry is also well represented in KA. It must be noted that there were archeologic claims of very old KA pottery in Areni. This was so unexpected that Sagona expressed doubts about the validity of the age. But maybe there was some rational in it. Anyway proto-Kur-Araxian homeland might be in a place where extra CHG will meet the Areni and the archaic Aknashen type. This shouldn't be a place far from the territory of RoA. Or quite possibly in it. PS. Aknashen is a new Neolithic DNA from Armenia. It is different from Azerbaijan and Masis Blur Neolithic samples because it has some extra CHG/Iran_N ancestry. An odd combination most probably representing an older forager ancestry. His Y DNA is J2-PF5197. An Y DNA linked with Iranian plateau. Chances are quite high that J1-Z1842 and its upstream Z1828 are also related to this Aknashen type.

See also

• Kur-Araxian samples from modern Armenia

Can all modern Armenian ancestry derive just from one Iron Age population inside Armenia?

 Can all modern Armenian ancestry derive just from one Iron Age population inside Armenia? No. Should it be the case Armenian Y dna structure would be very drifted. With young clusters that erased everything else that preceded them. But there is no such a thing in Armenian Y dna structure. Quite contrary it is one of the most diverse in West Asia. Even more diverse than in Caucasians who have very drifted bottlenecked Y dna.

Here an update of an model that I used in this group. Back then it became evident that Van region DNA will be very important. Indeed it is the case. Urartu played an important role in the creation of the current Armenian genetics.

But as we can see other Iron Age populations from modern RoA and Tsopk and around region are also present in fair amount..

The same is even more true for ancient Hellenistic and Medieval Armenians.

After Beniamin DNA it became clear that understanding Urartu is very important. And now it's even more evident.

But one thing should be kept in mind. If Vannic region is at the origin of ancient Grabar then Etiuni will become simply a sister extinct language of that Vannic Proto Armenian. They can't be unrelated.

PS Notice there are no IA samples from Malatya region so I used EBA period samples.

PPS Aintab results are in most likelihood an artefact. Not definitive.

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In genomic papers the most interesting stuff is usually hiding in supplements.

 In genomic papers the most interesting stuff is usually hiding in supplements.

Lazaridis discuss the origins of Armenian language.

He mention the remarkable homogeneity of Lchashen Metsamor culture he propose that they could be the Armenian speakers.

Then later in page 280 he discuss the dilution of Steppe ancestry ( which by the way is related but NOT equal to EHG ) in post Urartian period he speculates that this data opens the possibility of migration from Balkans but few sentences later acknowledge that there is virtually no evidence of such a migration. And says that the direct migration from North is the most realistic.

In reality this dilution is not a big problem for a theory from North. Myceneans have the same dilution. Even more in some cases.

Nothing forbids us to imagine that some groups moved further south from modern RoA and settled in Van later returned back with Urartu conquest. Also there is no such a thing as post-Urartian large migrations. The true Urartian sites in RoA are not sampled in this paper. And they obviously had a large population from South. So those low Steppe people came in Urartian period. Maybe some came later. But the bulk is from Urartian period. So if this dilution has something to do with the introduction of Armenian language then one must agree that Urartu was in some part Armenian. But as You understand this theory has some problems of linguistic nature. That's probably is the reason why they do not discuss such a possibility.

In sum for better understanding this dilution of Steppe ancestry it is very important to have dense sampling from Urartian sites in RoA. Numerous bones exist from those sites so there is no technical obstacles.

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