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.

All reactions:

1818