Burusho people living in North Pakistan speak a language isolate

 Burusho people living in North Pakistan speak a language isolate. Various attempts have been made to link with other groups ( Yenisseian, IE, Kusunda etc ) but non of them got a general acceptance.

Based on legends Casule has tried to link Burushaski with Paleo-Balkanic IE languages. Some of his parallels were acknowledged as interesting by scholars. The genetic data is not particularly supportive of Casule's theory. The main haplogroups are the R1a-Z93 (27%) , the L1a and R2 (~15%) Also some C2 (8%) is present in Burusho with East Asian ancestry. Genome wide data also do not support the link with Balkans. Nevertheless the branch of Z93 ( https://www.yfull.com/tree/R-Y40/ ) that Burusho have is quite remarkable. It's a branch embedded in Indo-Iranian Z93 but quite isolated and distinct distribution. It is frequent both in Pakistan and Europe, reaching the highest level in Burusho. It's interesting that Z93>Y40 is also found in Armenia. Burusho also has term Khajon denoting native speakers. This term has been compared to Greek Khayon and Paion ( p>h shift ). Obviously close to Armenian Hay. 

Is there any meaning in all this is hard to say. The time will show.

PS Below I give the link to Iuri Mosenkis Academia page because I couldn't find the original Casule's paper. Later I will try once more. Keep in mind that Mosenkis himself is quite unreliable. I just link him to see the words.

https://www.yfull.com/tree/R-Y40/that/

An excerpt from Wikipedia about Kurgan stelas.

 An excerpt from Wikipedia about Kurgan stelas.

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Spanning more than three millennia, they are clearly the product of various cultures. The earliest are associated with the Pit Grave culture of the Pontic–Caspian steppe (and therefore with the Proto-Indo-Europeans according to the mainstream Kurgan hypothesis[3]). The Iron Age specimens are identified with the Scythians and medieval examples with Turkic peoples.

Such stelae are found in large numbers in Southern Russia, Ukraine, Prussia, southern Siberia, Central Asia, Turkey and Mongolia.

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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurgan_stelae

Such anthropomorphic stelas were found in Artsakh ( Karabakh ) also. Some of them having 2-3 meter height. Below You can see their pictures. They are more simplistic compared to Hakkari region stelas in Turkey ( the last picture ) . But still one can notice the similarities. The long hands and the importance of dagger. Those stelas were made for important persons like chieftains or warlords. Sometime a bowl is depicted which some believe represents the pot in which the ashes of the cremated person were placed. 

It is hard to say who erected those stelas in Karabakh. But scholars believe it is an Iron Age period artefact. Others place it to later period.

+ One possibility it was Scythians. But the depiction is not typical to Scythian style. + Another possibility is that local Urtekhians who were an Indo-European tribe living in Iron Age Artsakh/Karabakh. Later they became part of Greater Armenia giving the name Artsakh to subsequent province.

Unfortunately the current situation in Artsakh do not permit a detailed scientific research to better understand this question. If we had at last one ancient DNA associated with those stelas that could shed a light to their origins.

https://allinnet.info/archeology/first-millennium-bc-steles-found-in-artsakh/

A new important aDNA paper from Xinjiang region in NW of China

 A new important aDNA paper from Xinjiang region in NW of China. The paper is behind a paywall. But some data is still available.

In Bronze Age we see mass influx of Afanasievo ( Yamna related ) ancestry. Those people create the MLBA Chemurchek culture which was linked to Tocharians by some scholars. The majority of Chemurchek people were R1b-Z2103. Also few cases of Q and one R1a from a basal branch.

Later in Iron Age ( after 700bc) we see a new wave. This time mostly R1a-Z93 with some BMAC haplogroups (J,L,E,G2).

They introduce Andronovo and BMAC ancestry which was typical to ancient Iranians. The authors link it with Saka ,Khoranese Iranian speakers and also Wusun confederation attested in Chinese records.

Later in Historic Era we see apparition of East Asian ancestry (represented by Xiongnu ) related to Huns and Turkic tribes.

In conclusion we see another strong piece of evidence that the apparition of R1b-Z2103 and R1a-Z93 and some other affiliated HGs is related to IE migrations. This obviously is helping us to better understand the formation of Armenian nation.

https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.abk1534

A blogger comments

https://musaeumscythia.blogspot.com/2022/04/discussion-thread-new-ancient-dna-from.html

https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.abk1534

We had a discussion about Corduene/Karduchoi recently

 We had a discussion about Corduene/Karduchoi recently. It is possible that it's early form is attested in Assyrian records.

An old book about Assyrian ancient inscriptions mentions Kurti/Kurte more or less in the same place as Karduchoi of Xenophon. But in modern papers You will not find this form because scholars consider them all as Quti.

The form Kurti/Kurte is mostly used by Tukulti-Ninurta and Tighlat-Pilesar kings, who ruled in EIA. So it is hard to say was this just an erroneous transcription by scribes. Or there was some real pronunciation shift in that period. I didn't dig much this issue but it is possible that in that period the shift from Kuti>Kurti started to occur.

I also would like to mention this paper from Artak Sargsyan who discuss the campaign of Tukulti-Ninurta. He comes to the conclusion that the Kuti (Kurti ) mentioned there is the historic Korduk/Corduene. 

He also has interesting ideas about the location of Nairi and the city Nihiria. He thinks Nairi is mostly in the same place as Hayasa and Azzi. The paper is in Armenian.

https://www.academia.edu/44953524/CAMPAIGN_OF_ASSYRIAN_KING_TUKULTI_NINURTA_I_1243_1207_BC_KUTI_%C5%A0UBARI_AND_NAIRI_Artak_Sargsyan_VEM_Journal_N_2_66_2019