Essay on the language of Gutians

The R1b from Bakr Awa (Mesopotamia) is now published in FTDNA. Its confirmed as Z2106 and is positive to Y100087 snp. This branch has strong presence in ancient remains from Ukraine and Russia. Thus the steppe origin of this Bakr Awa R1b is beyond the doubt.

This is the first case of Y100087 from West Asia, while other cases of Z2106 were from the parallel CTS8966 branch found from Armenia and possibly Levant.

As previously mentioned the best candidate for its affiliation is the Gutian connection. Even though its quite possible that over time he and similar people were assimilated in to locals, but their initial identity might be IE.

Its remarkable that Henning and after him Gamkrelidze and Ivanov proposed the IE origins of Gutians. Even though they linked it to Tocharian which is untenable in current stage of our knowledge.

Now with genetic data on hands lets look closer at Gutian names. 

At last three kings have the root Yarla in their name.

• Yarlagab
• Yarla
• Yarlaganda

In most likelihood the 'Yarla' is a Gutian deity name or a dynastic name while the rest are particles or other roots.

Yarla can be compared to Slavic deity Yarilo which has IE origin from *yeh₁r-. Its a Spring deity. The root is present in English in the form of word "year".

Another interesting root is the -gab. Its present in two names

• Sarlagab
• Yarlagab

It fits well with the PIE root ghabh- (also reconstructed as *gʰebʰ-). Which means to give, to hold. A frequent root in names. The English word to give is derived from that root.

Incidently the name Sarlak supports the fact that "Sarl" in Sarlagab is a root. Most probably a deity name. However this name is not from Sumerian king list so we are not sure anout its identity. He could be the same as Sarlagab ( or Zarlagab) 

Another possible root is the -gan present in 

• Tirigan
• Yarlaganda

Can be compared to PIE root *ǵenh₁. To give birth. Multiple names ending with -es or -us also supports the IE classification. The potential root Tir is also remarkable. It can be compared to Armeno-Iranian deity Tir.

Some other names are obvious Mesopotamian influence. Like Puzur-Suen. While the particle -um in some names is probably an Akkadian suffix.

Summing up the scant Gutian onomastic data we see evidence that can support their IE classification. However the potential IE language behind Gutian names seems to be somewhat different from the Proto-Armenian. It seems to be a centum, while Armenian is satem. It also preserved the phoneme [s] while Armenian converted them to [h] and lost them. What is also remarkable is that their Y DNA was widely present deep in steppe which once more could mean that the Gutian language was a (close?) parallel language to Armenian rather than a simple dialect of Proto-Armenian. 

With more ancient DNA we will have more clarity on all aspects of Middle Bronze Age migrations from steppe to West Asia.

Unexpected ancient DNA results from pre-Islamic Bahrain.

Unexpected ancient DNA results from pre-Islamic Bahrain. They are different from modern day Arabs living there and plot close to ancient Mesopotamian samples from Iraq. On the PCA they plot just in the vicinity of ancient samples from South Caucasus, North-West Iran and North Iraq LBA. In this group we use the term "Central farmers" for this type of ancestry.

Assuming those samples were not some kind random migrants then we can imagine that most of Mesopotamia was like this prior the arrival of Arabs.

This data gives us a hint what we can expect from more ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia. Sumerians and Akkadians.

The island Bahrain is usually connected with the land Dilmun in ancient Mesopotamian texts. Although other opinions also exist on the location of Dilmun.

Below are some excerpts from the paper.

Lastly, we evaluate the ancestry of Bahrain Tylos individuals in a context of Near Eastern variation by estimating ancestry proportions using a previously published 12 three-way model with TUR_Pınarbaşı_EpiP, ISR_Natufian_EpiP and CHG as sources in a set of relevant ancient groups which can also be modelled in this way (Figure 3C) 12. In this model, the Bahrain_Tylos samples present similar ancestry proportions to AZE_ChL, Mesopotamia_PPN and IRQ_Nemrik9_LBA, IRN_Dinkha_Tepe_A, LBN_IA and to ARM_Aknashen_N. Accordingly, rank=0 qpAdm models show that Tylos-period Bahrainis form a clade with several of these ancient groups (p≥0.01; Table S6), suggesting that similar sources have contributed to their ancestry.

...

Tylos-Period Bahrainis are genetically closer to present-day Levantine populations than to present-day Arabians

Regarding affinities with present-day populations, the temporally aware model-based clustering analysis (Figure 1B) suggests that Tylos period Bahrain samples are more similar to present-day Levantine groups than to present-day Arabians or South Asians,

...

In order to gain further insights into the relationship of Tylos to present-day populations from the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant, we tested if the Bahraini samples form a clade with any modern population in our dataset using a set of reference populations (as outgroups) that can differentiate the different ancestries in the Near East. We found that Iraqis, Assyrians and Jewish groups from Iran, Georgia and Iraq could derive all their ancestries from Tylos-period Bahrainis (Table S8). Arabians such as Saudis, Emiratis and Yemenis have, in addition to ancestry from Tylos-period Bahrain, ancestry from East Africa, while Levantines such as Druze and Lebanese have additional Southeast European ancestry (Table S9)

See also

• The genetic profile of eastern Jews
• Origins of Sumerians