Quick overview of post TVC period.

 Quick overview of post TVC period.

The only TVC sample we have has high Steppe. Higher than the later Lchashen.

So I use it as a source.

Later in LBA/EIA period we see the resurgence of local Kur-Araxian ancestry. Which existed in preceding EBA period.

Most Lchashen Metsamor sites (LBA/EIA/Urartian) have similar composition. The bulk of their ancestry is from TVC. Then they have some extra Kur-Araxian ancestry from preceding period.

But there are some interesting outliers. Notice those cases are mostly singletons or few samples unlike the mainstream Lchashen Metsamor sites with numerous samples predominantly R1b-Z2103 and I2a2b. There must be more than 150 samples on all those sites.

The Bragdzor_EIA has unusually high KA. Consistent with autosomes J2-M92 is found there in a relatively rich burial. His brother is also J. The person also has a son.

Dzori Geghi person is little bit different with a shift to southern parts Sirnak/Batman regions. Consistent with this autosomes he has J1-P58.

Karmir Blur outlier is a person with high Dinkha tepe ancestry which was high in Vannic Urartians. So he might have partial ancestry from Van region. His Y dna is R1b-M269.

And another outlier from Keti in Urartian period. He has a G2a1 which links him to Georgia. He has also the lowest TVC/Steppe. It's virtually absent. Unfortunately due to absence of samples from BA Georgia his modeling do not represent his real background.

Pops marked as Anc are in post Urartian period.

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The same BA model for Armenians and Assyrian

 The same BA model for Armenians and Assyrian. Fits are quite good.

Well it seems Armenians and Vannic Urartians are structurally similar. With some different emphasizes related to the fact that Vannics have extra ancestry from North Zagros. ( Dinkha + Sirnak )

All Armenians including Urfa ones have fair amount of TVC ancestry. 21-37%

TVC are the so called "back returners" from Yamna whom Lazaridis is inclined to link with those who introduced Proto Armenian IE vocabulary.

Arslantepe type of ancestry is also quite popular. This might be related to Luwians.

Ironically modern Armenians have slightly more Kur-Araxian ancestry than Vannic Urartians which further decrease the probability of HU speakers from KA.

Hamshen Armenians are different. Due to strong CHG shift. All other Armenians are structurally similar.

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In the second paper Lazaridis says that Hurro-Urartians are those Levantine shifted pops and links Armenians with those who came from North.

 In the second paper Lazaridis says that Hurro-Urartians are those Levantine shifted pops and links Armenians with those who came from North.

While the second excerpt is from the main Southern Arc paper.

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The origins of Urartian language

 The origins of Urartian language

The language used in Biaina kingdom is usually labeled Urartian. This term is probably not good because it reflects the external name of a kingdom and speakers of that language almost certainly were not using it.. Various theories were proposed: Surili or Biainili or something completely different that we don't know. We will use the current convention: the Urartian.

This language is not considered IE. It is affiliated to Hurrian. Origins of both languages are obscure but their homeland must not be far from historic Armenia or even from it.

We have first genomes from Van basin where this language is recorded so we can use them for better understanding.

Instead of using distant sources I will use more proximate Bronze Age sources for fine analysis of their genomes.

The first surprising result is the strong difference between pre-Urartian BA Van and regular Iron Age Van. This result do not contradict the archaeology. There are reasons to believe that Van region witnessed a serious depopulation most probably due to Assyrian campaigns. And then a new repopulation. The new population has more complex ancestry but an important part is from Dinkha tepe Urmia region. The Dinkha tepe BIA is a pop affiliated to western regions of Urmia and North Iraq/SE Turkey. This make sense because of introduction of cult Haldi into Van region. The cultic center of god Haldi was in the south, in Musasir city.

The next finding is the presence of Trialeti Vanadzor (TVC) ancestry in both periods. TVC has large Yamna ancestry and without doubt was speaking a Late IE language. It's presence in Van make sense given the presence of Indo-European terms in Urartian language.

In conclusion the Urartian language is either affiliated to Sirnak BA, a region in the south either to Urmia, or more likely between them. Those places do have Khabur ware in MBA. Khabur ware is usually connected to Hurrian people.

This makes sense from linguistic point of view also. Because in Urartian language the word for enemy is lulu. A word without doubt derived from Lulubeans. Tribes living in Zagros. Urartians were hating so much Lulubeans that they coined the word enemy from them. Which means that their initial homeland was near Lulubeans.

While keeping in mind that we need more aDNA to make definitive conclusions, we can say that this data is in line with archaeology and linguistics. Which is a good news. At last we didn't wasted our time in long discussions in this group.

PS. There is also an outlier in Van. She has an obvious Etiunian origin. She was buried with a grave good. Her own bronze ring. Which means that she was a respected in her lifetime and almost certainly was not an enslaved person.

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Hurrians, Kassites and IE tribes in Urmia basin

 Hurrians, Kassites and IE tribes in Urmia basin

In one of my previous topics I showed that NW Iran had a migration from East which resulted in the increase of Iran Neo ancestry. (See the link) The new data from Dinkha Tepe (Urmia basin) gives more information about the history of NW Iran.

Dinkha tepe samples are clustered in two groups. BIA A and BIA B.

The group A is older. It is equivalent to MBA. 1900-1500bc. It's main characteristic is the high Levant, zero or low Steppe. Relatively low Iran Neo. It's obvious that this population is derived from North Iraq and can be securely associated with Khabur ware. Khabur ware is usually connected to Hurrians ( also probably old Assyrians ). Consistent with autosomes there is J2-PF5197 and J1-P58. P58 further supports Mesopotamian connection.

Then comes the group B dated between 1800-1100bc. The group has much higher Iran Neo. Levant drops sharply. Steppe increases.

The most likely candidate for this events are the Mitanni Aryans. The dates fits well. Also we have a contemporary example in Alalakh affiliated to those migrations. Except that those samples do not have any R1a , neither R1b. Offcourse the sample size is small , only two Y dna. (J2-Z6065 ,G1) Nevertheless there are some reasons to believe that those migrants were non IE forerunners. In most likelihood the increasing pressure of Aryans in Eastern Iran triggered large migrations of local non IE Iranian pops, who started to move to west. One such a possible group were the Kassites.

With more digging we will almost certainly find unambiguous Aryans also. But right now we can't unambiguously pinpoint such a sample. Kassitic names are attested in NW Iran even in Iron Age.

In sum. It seems that the data from Alalakh to Dinkha tepe support the idea that Hurro-Urartians were Mesopotamian shifted people initially with zero Steppe. But do they ultimately derive from North Mesopotamia or from Kur-Arax is not clear yet.

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