An update on North West Caucasians.

 An update on North West Caucasians.

Apparently we missed this story in this group. In Ghalichi et al. 2024 new samples from the Dolmen culture were published and one of them was G2-L1266. This haplotype is very popular among all North West Caucasian speakers. This finding support the possibility that the linguistic ancestors of Abkhaz-Adyghean (NWC) speakers were from the Dolmen culture.

After the Bronze Age in northwestern Caucasus a new Iron Age cultural landscape appears known as Maeotian culture. The name is based on the Greek sources term.

From another paper (Andreeva et al. 2025) two female samples were published supposedly linked to Maeotians.

Their genetic profile was different from the neighbouring Scythians. They had a typical Caucasian genetic profile. This supports the theory that the Greek sources Maeotians had probably a NWC origin.

The G2-L1266 moved to northwestern Caucasus from south. In most likelihood from Anatolia or eastern parts of Anatolia. There is some slim chance that it was from South Caucasus via the Maykop culture.. But current data is not particularly supportive of this possibility.

As for the ultimate origin of NWC languages it can be the same as the haplotype but can be different given that multiple cases of local J2 also were found in Dolmen culture