Samples from ancient Batman are quite close to Xenophon's route both by time and space.

 Samples from ancient Batman are quite close to Xenophon's route both by time and space. Yet they didn't get the attention they deserve.

Batman samples can be divided into three group. Chalcolithic era. Then an Iron Age period between 640-550bc which in this context would be more correctly labeled as Urartian/Shubria/Assyria, Medes, Armenian Satrapy. And then there is a singleton sample of obvious southern origin. Dated at 430bc.

In Iron Age there is an obvious dilution of Mesopotamian ancestry and an increase of CHG/Steppe. Here we see the inverse to what was happening in RoA. Though it is hard to say whether this change occured in Iron Age or earlier in Bronze Age.

Those 4 Iron Age samples (the youngest excluded) are close to Urfa Armenians. But they are not exactly identic. Urfa Armenians have less Levant/Iran ancestry than those ancient Batman samples.

Xenophon mention that the river Centrites ( modern Botan ) was the border between Armenians and Carduchoi. Batman is close to that river. So here we see the type of population that Xenophon encountered while crossing the river.

Assuming that Carduchoi were close to ancient Batman samples then this seriously reduce the chances of their Iranian origin. Though given the proximity of Zagros it is still possible that further east of Batman there were other people. Further sampling is needed for solving this question.

And finally the youngest sample I4733 from Batman has a strong Levantine shift (see the third chart). It's Y dna is J1-L620 xP58 ( https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FT33771/ ). Another Y dna found among regular Batman_Anc was the L2-L595. An Y dna that seems to be associated with Hurrians.

PS You can get the average of Batman Anc with the Levantine outlier excluded below in comments.

All reactions:

1111

River systems matter.

River systems matter.

Population genetics is influenced by various natural objects. Especially prior centralized kingdoms and roads.

High mountain ranges acts as important barriers. But how genetics is shaped when there are multiple ranges? Well judging by ancient DNA we see from historic Armenia it seems river systems ( or water basins ) were also important in shaping genetics prior centralized kingdoms emerged.

Historic Armenia has two important basins. One is the Kur-Araxian system which is part of Caspian sea basin. The other one is Tigris-Euphrates system part of Gulf basin. Then there are also two closed basins. Van basin and Urmia basin. I didn't add the Black sea basin because it's a small portion of historic Armenia.

I think the differences we see between samples from RoA and South Eastern parts of modern Turkey can be explained also by river systems and lack of large mobility between this basins in pre historic times.

But overall this differences are not higher than between historic Armenia and Anatolia or Iranian plateau.

All reactions:

1515

I was making an average of Yervanduni (Orontid) era samples and noticed an error

 I was making an average of Yervanduni (Orontid) era samples and noticed an error. The sample I19322 which is marked as Anc(ient) and is lumped with an another sample from Yervandid era Noratus is not from that era.

In fact it is from Urartian period. At 650bc.

And here how she looks.

Distance to: ARM_Noratus_Anc:I19322

0.03159227 TUR_SE_Batman_Anc

0.03801031 TUR_SE_Gaziantep_Byz

0.04000982 TUR_SE_Mardin_RomByz

0.04099196 IRN_Hasanlu_LBA_B

0.04365056 IRN_DinkhaTepe_BIA_A

0.04367149 TUR_SE_Mardin_PostMdv

0.04387448 TUR_E_Van_Urartian

0.04422451 TUR_SE_Kilis_Byz

0.04591197 IRN_Hasanlu_MBA

0.04793373 AZE_Caucasus_lowlands_LC

0.04808755 IRN_Hasanlu_IA

0.04809169 IRN_HajjiFiruz_C

0.05048535 TUR_SE_Sirnak_BA

0.05145230 GRC_Marathon_Rom

As You can see she plots with very southern samples. Even more southern than Van. She has mtdna X2 which also can be an indication of southern origin.

Her autosomes are by consequent very Levant/Iran shifted.

Target: ARM_Noratus_Anc:I19322

Distance: 3.3728% / 0.03372765

25.6 Central-farmer_AZE_LN

23.2 Levant_PPNB

21.8 IRN_Zagros_N

18.6 TUR_Barcin_N

5.8 Yamnaya_RUS_Samara

5.0 GEO_CHG

In conclusion we are dealing with a genuine Urartian era sample with southern origin very different from surrounding Lchashen/Etiuni people in modern Armenia.

Another such sample (I13035 dated 605bc) is found from Karmir Blur (Teisheba). So currently we have two such examples.

But in reality the number of such people were much more numerous. Simply we are missing samples from real Urartian sites in RoA.