A new alphabetic system was apparently discovered in north Syria.

 A new alphabetic system was apparently discovered in north Syria. It can be the oldest alphabet known. Dated at 2400BC.

Till now it was assumed that the first alphabet was derived from the Egyptian hieroglyphs, while later it's modification appeared in Sinai and from there to Levant Phoenicia. This alphabet from ancient Syria is older than the Proto-Sinaitic one. This can change our understanding how and when alphabetic systems emerged and evolved.

https://hub.jhu.edu/.../ancient-alphabet-discovered-syria/

I made this map to explain how modern Armenian genetics has formed.

 I made this map to explain how modern Armenian genetics has formed. The map shows the genetic situation in Middle Bronze Age thus 4000 years ago. I deliberately selected those colors to emphasize the clinal nature of this situation.

The yellow is the TVC/Lchashen culture. with high steppe ancestry. Usually labeled here as Etiuni.

The orange has low steppe more or less equal to modern Armenians. Few samples from Van Urartu.

While the red region do not have steppe and have extra affinity to Levantine Bronze Age. Notice those regions were inhabited by Hurrians. We have some samples from Sirnak , Batman. But there are not young enough to see what was the situation in Middle and Late Bronze Age. Dinkha tepe 2 is Middle Bronze Age but it's from northwest Iran so not exactly representative of red region.

Further south the Levant lowland was inhabited by close to red people with a more southern shift . Numerous samples from Alalakh, Ebla.

Modern Armenians have ancestry from this three orange, yellow, red regions. The highest level is from orange region in most Armenians. Eastern Armenians have extra yellow. Armenians from southwestern regions do have significant orange but also have some red ancestry. An important thing to understand is that orange itself can be modeled as a mixture of yellow and red. So we can reduce the colors needed but it can oversimplify the situation. Also some alleles of red regions can be found in eastern Armenians and Armenians of south and western regions also have some alleles from yellow. Overall this makes all Armenians to cluster tight on the PCA.

Another thing to understand is that modern Armenians do NOT have any significant extra ancestry from outside regions other than those colored. In more recent historic times some sporadic influences occurred off course. But they are negligible and can be ignored in calculations. Also Armenians who settled outside of those regions acquired some local ancestry but it occurred in historic times and those extra acquisitions can be verified and are well known.

The reader will have a legitimate question. Why those three regions samples are not used for modeling Armenians. Well the problem comes probably from how those tools work. When You select too close populations that increase the standard errors. While distant populations decrease the standard errors. Notice all this three colors are close to each other despite exaggerated perceptions. That is why sometimes it's easier to choose a distant source from south of red zone and get some feasible models. There can be other problems also that I am probably not aware.

But the real problem is not the models per se. After all Lazaridis also used Levant N as a distal source and it claimed that it increased after the 600BC. And this didn't resulted in any "sensationalistic" titles in media outlets. The problem is the lack of historic interpretations of those models. When You don't interpret Your data based on real known historic events, it's not surprising that others will do it in a way they want.

Those historic events are well known. As I said it's the presence of Hurrian belt all over southern regions of historic Armenia who had a more southern genetic profile. And the formation of Urartu empire and it's expansion. There can be other events also that we could have overlook but those two facts are fully sufficient to explain the peculiarities of modern Armenian genetic profile.

Hopefully our paper with Armen Petrosyan will be published soon in English. We discuss this period of shift in East Armenia and I hope it can be useful for those who want to understand this story better.

PS below in the comments You can see a model mixing yellow and orange with high standard errors. Made by Nareg Asatrian

Hovhannisyan et al

 Hovhannisyan et al. 2024 published for the first time 5 genome wide DNA samples of Sasun Armenians. Until now we had only Y DNA studies about Sasun Armenians which showed that their Y DNA pool is different from other Armenian subgroups (see picture 2). Various theories has been proposed to explain this difference based on historic records and legends.

The paper analyzed this question and didn't found much difference between modern Armenian subgroups and Sasun Armenian autosomes. You can see that on the PCA. They plot close to other Armenians marked as E,W,C while Sasun is marked as S. All five samples from Sasun are in the "southern" side of the "Armenian cloud" on the PCA which matches their geographic position. When the G25 coordinates of those samples became available we will have occasion to look at them closer.

As for their Y DNA difference, without ancient DNA from that region it will be hard to understand that peculiarity. T haplogroup homeland was in most likelihood located close or was overlapping with Sasun, while R2 in Sasun is probably a founder effect. R2 was prominent in Zagros neolithic farmers and recently was discovered even in South Caucasian farmers.

Sasun's Y DNA can also be related to the specific history of that region. Assyrian sources report a kingdom known as Shubria in that region. The name of this kingdom is derived from an older Sumerian term known as Subir. Not much is known about the Subir, except that in later sources the term Subarean language means a Hurrian language. In Iron Age multiple Hurrian king names are attested in that region. Even though this do not necessarily mean tha old Subir were Hurrians also. The neighboring southern lowlands of Sasun had a Semitic presence while in the north, in Mush region Urumu tribes are attested. Urumu later known as Urme were almost certainly an Armenian speaking tribe. Around 400BC Xenophon consider the Centrites (modern Botan river) as the southern border of Armenians. Sasun is situated north of that river border so well within the Armenian satrapy. More ancient DNA is needed to understand the whole complexity of the genetic history of that region

EHG genetic profile appears in Eastern Europe after the Late Glacial Maximum ( 20.000 ybp).

EHG genetic profile appears in Eastern Europe after the Late Glacial Maximum ( 20.000 ybp). Before that the region was populated by different people who apparently became extinct due to very cold weather.

EHG samples are found from north Caucasus till Karelia in the most northern parts of East Europe. In internet You can find various maps showing the EHG ancestry impact in world. They need some comments. ( See the link in comment section )

There are two ways to calculate the EHG left today in the world.

One way is to ignore the fact that most of EHG was dispersed by Yamnaya and Corded Ware. This is the frequent method but it's a confusing way because it creates a wrong perception about Yamnaya ancestry impact. Given that EHG was roughly the half of Yamnaya culture genetics many would assume erroneously that highest EHG means highest Yamnaya. Which is not true.

The other way is to extract Yamnaya/ Corded ware ancestry from the total EHG and to see what is left of pure EHG that was unaffiliated to Yamnaya migrations.

For this I selected Corded ware samples in sources, given that Yamnaya never moved to north Europe. Only Corded ware culture related to Yamnaya did. I also added ANE samples from Siberia to avoid pseudo EHG effect. And used Karelia HG to check the pure EHG.

I included all modern populations and here are the results.

The highest level of pure EHG unaffiliated to Yamnaya ancestry is found in Mari, Chuvash ( a Turkic group) , Saami, some northern Russians and Udmurts. The highest level is 33% but most of them has lower than 25%. As we can see today there is no much EHG left that is unaffiliated to Yamnaya/CWC. It is mostly found in north Eastern Europe which makes sense because this is the region where Corded ware pastoralists never settled. The cold weather was not permitting them to practice herding and basic crop raising.

Now let's see where is the highest Corded ware ancestry. The second chart shows that it is in north Europe mostly found in Germanic speakers in Scandinavia. It is 53% and lower. Notice that You will get the same result if Yamnaya is used instead of Corded ware. So Yamnaya related ancestry is the highest in north western Europe which has a trivial explanation. Most of north Europe especially the Scandinavia was a sparsely populated place. While south Europe , West Asia and South Asia had a high density of population. It makes sense that Yamnaya related ancestry would have left higher impact in regions with low density than in regions with higher density.

So what do tell us this data about the possible language of those northern EHG. Given that it is found only in a subset of Uralic speakers then it's very unlikely that those northern EHG were speaking an Uralic language. Even more most eastern Uralic speakers do not have any EHG, though they have Yamnaya related ancestry. You can note that the main peculiarity of the Uralic speakers in East Europe is the presence of Siberian / Nganassan ancestry. Their most frequent Y DNA N1 is also from the Siberian side. On the other side those northern populations virtually lack any Y DNA related to EHG. Whatever R1a they have is derived from Corded ware. Overall this suggests that the language spoken by those northern EHG is now extinct. The Uralic speakers came from east, from Siberia some time after the 1500BC. While IE speakers like Balto-Slavic and Germanic groups in north Europe descend from Corded ware culture that expanded in that regions after the 2800BC

Nine principal genetic profiles of Western Eurasians

 Nine principal genetic profiles of Western Eurasians. We use frequently those terms so it would be good to know them. Most of this genetic profiles appear after the Last Glacial Maximum. Before the Glacial maximum (20.000-26.000 years ago) Eurasia was populated by different genetic profiles.

All this genetic profiles have common origins and descend from one source population which is not sampled yet

Cayonu is an early Neolithic site situated in northeast of the Portasar/Gobekli tepe.

 Cayonu is an early Neolithic site situated in northeast of the Portasar/Gobekli tepe.

In Lazaridis 2024 ancient DNA from Cayonu was used for modeling Neolithic farmers of Armenia.Those models should be viewed as preliminary given that we don't have hunter gatherer DNA from historic Armenia. But they give a hint of what can be expected.

I wanted to see where is best preserved the ancestry of those Cayonu first farmers. So I choose 16 ancestral components and used them to model world populations. Without much surprise Cayonu related ancestry is best preserved in modern populations derived from Mesopotamia and historic Armenia.

Just for comparison. The Natufian ancestry from neighbouring Levant is best preserved in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.While Anatolian farmers in Sardinia and south Europe.

Notice that this method gives a different result from what would I get if I simply had compared the Cayonu farmers distance to moderns. First the distance would be high showing that their ancestry was diluted over time. But given the genetic proximity of Cayonu to Anatolian and Levantine farmers the people from the aforementioned regions would get priority. With this method I exclude that shared ancestry to see where exactly Cayonu really left impact.

The result is in the first chart. Sorted from high to low.

My next post will be about EHG using the same method

Urfa region hunters and farmers.

 Urfa region hunters and farmers.

Portasar / Gobekle tepe megalithic constructions are well known. Another site with even more impressive statues was found in nearby Karahantepe. In 2021 another remarkable finding from Sayburc ( see the map for the locations of those sites)

Human reliefs were made in Sayburc around 9000BC. Apparently by early farmers of West Asia and fertile crescent.

It becomes evident that the hunter gatherer society that invented the farming and domesticated animals had a quite complex society. Without bronze tools they must have spend quite a large time to polish stones and carve the rocks.

Ancient DNA from neighbouring sites such as Nevali Chori, Cayonu are available. Well they don't have alien DNA but were situated in the intermediate position between Anatolian hunters and Pre Pottery N, Levantine Natufians and farmers from South Caucasus, Armenia Neolithic farmers. You can see them in the blue hexagon between three red circles on the 4th picture PCA

Deep origins of IE family

 Deep origins of IE family

This question regularly arise in our group, so some remarks are needed.

IE family is a linguistic concept produced by linguists. They had made an internal classification of daughter IE languages and came to the conclusion that the Anatolian branch is the first while all others including the Armenian descend from another branch which has different names. Late PIE, nuclear IE and various other names.

This mean that for the question of deep origins of IE family the origins of Anatolian languages is crucial. Given that Anatolian languages are extinct we can't test them directly. The only way to know their origins is to have large number of ancient DNA from Anatolia. And when I say Anatolia I mean exactly those places where only Anatolians lived. Not the coasts of Aegean sea where early Greek tribes settled and not the so called East Anatolia, east of Euphrates where early Armenic tribes were already present. Also not regions in north Levant where Hurrians and Semites had a strong presence.

If we exclude all this regions we are left with just a dozen ancient DNA from those genuine Bronze Age (3000-1200BC) Anatolians. This number is absolutely insufficient for having definitive conclusions about their origins. Those samples only give a hint what can be expected.

Here are the list of this expectations.

1. Anatolians were from Armenian highland farmers. (Quite likeky)

2. Anatolians were from Steppe Eneolithic in north Caucasus who migrated via Caucasus (Also possible but an important question of steppe Eneolithic ancestry dilution must be addressed)

3. Anatolians were from CLV, Volga or Dnepr clines and moved via Balkans to Anatolia. ( this scenario is unlikely but there is a need to fully ruled out it )

As You can see the key to the Deep origins of IE family is not in Armenia, not in modern Armenian genetics, not in Caucasus or Europe. Especially in north Europe. The key to the answer is in the Bronze Age Anatolia.

Besides genetics there is another "soft" way to support a theory related to deep origins of IE. It's a linguistics. Let's say a genius linguist proves that Indo-Uralic theory is correct. Indo-Uralic theory posits that IE and Uralic languages descend from the same source. If someone proves that they are connected and all others accept it then we will have no any other option to believe that common origins of IE and Uralic was in EHG (Eastern European hunters). But currently no one has provided this "proof" and overall genetic data shows that Uralic family was from Siberia most probably related to Yukaghir people.

In Lazaridis 2024 they speak about the crop raising terminology in IE. They used it an argument for more southern origins. Arguments like contacts with Semites and Sumerians are also important but they can't be decisive because the IE languages were already spoken 6300 years ago in Near East. There is no much reasons to doubt it now. So proving that they had contacts with Sumerians changes nothing and helps in no way to understand their deep origins.

Another absolutely meaningless activity is to attack Yamnaya, to question it's affiliation to late IE languages. This way of acting is irresponsible because the only reason that western academy is interested in Armenian theory since the 2015 is the Yamnaya culture. If You remove Yamnaya from that system then there is no much reason to believe that Armenian highland farmers are related to IE given that they didn't migrated directly to Europe or India. But they migrated a lot to Caucasus where at last three different non-IE linguistic families exist today.

So my advise to some our members try to be patient, not emotional. We can not change the past. We can just learn about it

The East Asians and the Mongoloid race.

This group is dedicated to the Armenians but given that various subjects are discussed that are indirectly related to IE and thus Armenian origins so let's take a broader view on Eurasia. Another reason to discuss the East Asian genetics is related to our two neighbouring countries who speaks Turkic languages that came from the aforementioned region.

After it's initial spread in Eurasia (45.000years ago) humans divided into two major groups. East Eurasians living east of Himalayan mountains and West Eurasians.

Initially both groups were close genetically. Ancient DNA confirmed it. But after the Last Glacial Maximum, thus 20.000 years ago in East Asia new drifted group formed which had Mongoloid phenotype. It formed as a result of evolution and not migration. Today those people are known as Mongoloid race, while West Eurasians are known as Caucasoid or Europoid race.

The East Asian ancestry formed in northern central China / Amur region. The main Y DNA associated with them are the N, O and C2. See the attached maps. The haplogroup Q living in Paleolithic Siberia had West Eurasian origin and was initially associated with people having Caucasoid phenotype. The main population associated with them is known as ANE. Ancient North Eurasian which do not exist anymore.

Amerindians formed as a result of mixture of "caucasoid" ANE and old Mongoloids in Far East. Even though their most important Y DNA remained the "western" Q1. They settled in America some 15.000 years ago.

At some point number of important innovations occurred in East Asia providing a competitive advantage to them. One of oldest potteries are found in Amur region, north China dated between 12.000-18.000 years before present. Some 7000-8000 years ago the haplogroup N moved from Mongolia to "Caucasoid" Siberia starting a large migration and conquest which reached modern Finland and Europe. Today the highest level of haplogroup N is found in Uralic speakers, who's homeland was probably in east of Uralic mountains. Turkic speakers also have the N haplogroup but in a lesser degree. Haplogroup O expansion was more related to farming invention in China. Both in south (rice) and north (millet) China. They had large expansion to southern regions, replacing there Black people related to Aborigenes, Onge and Papua. And finally, the haplogroup C2 initially restricted solely to Amur region had a dramatic expansion in Current Era related to Mongols and Evenk (Tungusic) speakers.

Here is a comprehensive list of linguistic families that expanded from East Eurasia spreading genes associated with Mongoloid race in the rest of the world. You can see the autosomal impact in 4th map. It's probably a little bit exaggerated but overall give an impression of the scale of these expansions.

+ Uralic

+ Turkic

+ Mongolic

+ Evenks also known as Tungussic

+ Sino-Tibetan, the most famous member is the Chinese

+ Austro-Asiatic that reached India.

+ Austronesian stretched from Madagascar to Easter Island in Pacific via Indonesia.

I will dedicate separate threads to some linguistic families that are interesting from the Armenian history perspective

R1b-M269 and the Steppe Eneolithic.

In 2019 Wang et al. published three ancient samples from north Caucasian foothill steppe region. They got the label Steppe Eneolithic. The term "Steppe" is usually used in genetic papers to label DNA related or similar to Yamnaya genetic profile.

Those Steppe Eneolithic samples were remarkable because not only they have the genetic profile similar to Yamnaya but were also older than it. Back then they didn't get the attention they deserved because they were not from a famous culture. In 2024 Lazaridis et al. proposed a new name for them the Caucasus - Lower Volga cline and added new similar samples. Genetic calculations showed that genome wide Yamnaya got most of their ancestry from this CLV folks. Despite this advance the two most important Y markers were still not securely linked to this CLV population. The R1b-M269 and R1a-M417 which had a large expansion all over Eurasia spreading the Indo-European languages.

Ghalichi et al. 2024 filled this gap. Two new cases of R1b-M269 were found before the Yamnaya near North of Caucasus region. They had similar to other Steppe Eneolithic groups ancestry dated at around 3800BC. It's worth to note that there was another older M269 sample (I33307) from Kalmykia dated around 3700 but it's genetic profile is identic to Core Yamnaya raising the suspicion that it is younger than the radiocarbon dates show. Lazaridis et al. labeled this sample as Russia_Caspianinland_EBA_Yamnaya group that is why I didn't included it in this list of Steppe Eneolithic Y DNA (4700-3000BC. See the map for the geographic area)

R1b-V1636 -----9

R1b-M269. -----2

R1a. -----1

I2-L699. ------1

J2a ------1

J2b2a. ------1

Besides those cases another possible old R1b-M269 (around 4500BC) was found in Bulgaria in Varna culture burial. It's autosomes showed an obvious Steppe Eneolithic related ancestry. Which means that it was not related to local Neolithic farmers and was a migrant from the Caucasus Lower Volga region. Varna was a peculiar culture with highly hierarchical organization. Large number of gold items were found from Varna culture graves.

Another important finding in the Steppe Eneolithic context is off course the J2b2a-L283. Its autosomes were more Caucasus shifted which is understandable. But overall, it was part of that emerging kurgan Eneolithic groups from which the Yamnaya and Corded Ware Culture will stem few centuries later.

We haven't yet found the R1a-M417 in the forementioned context. But given that one of oldest R1a-M198 (close to M417) was found in Middle Volga region we can assume that M417 will be found in Steppe Eneolithic / CLV region also. Currently one of oldest R1a-M417 is from Yamnaya layer in Balkans.

Based on this data I will restate my scepticism about the possibility that Yamnaya descend from Sredny Stog located in Ukraine expressed on some boards. Highest diversity of Z2103+ and negative to Z2106 is found in Near East which means that the region from which Z2103 started its expansion must be close to Caucasus. More ancient DNA will hopefully solve this question also.

PS. I didn't include in that Eneolithic Y DNA list samples from Steppe Maykop who have a different Central Asian origin. Also, one of V1636 is dated at 2800BC which is later than the 3000BC. But its autosomes shows that it was from preceding period and not from Core Yamnaya.

See also

• Qpadm models about the Core Yamnaya origins.
• The Yamnaya culture and it's legacy.

The Kura-Araxes culture. An open thread.

Ghalichi et al. 2024 have published 7 new KA ancient samples from Georgia. Site Dzedzevbi near Dmanisi. And two more samples from Velikent Dagestan.

The low coverage didn't permit to find the deep subclades of those samples. But apparently two male samples from Dzedzevbi are J2b2. While the other is J1 almost certainly from the Z1842 branch. The Velikent is also J1.

Overall, there is now 16 Y DNA from known Kura-Araxes layers. 11 of them are J1 from the Z1842 branch. Most cases of J1 are found in regions that are geographically close to eastern Great Caucasian range. Dagestan, Kakhetia, Berkaber in Tavush and one case near Dmanisi. The strong prevalence of J1 is almost certainly the result of founder effect, because in earlier Neolithic periods the J1 was rare.

Moving away from the eastern parts of Caucasian range we see other haplotypes. Like R1b-V1636 from Sevan basin, G2b from Kaps Shirak. J2-M92 from Doghlauri central Georgia. And now two cases of J2b2 from Dzedzevbi. According the Genarchivist activists one of them is from the J2b-FT3464 a minor branch found today in Near East and Europe. While the other J2b was J2b2b-Z2453. An old Neolithic branch found in Shulaveri culture and Hajji Firuz tepe.

What can we deduce from this distribution? As I have already noted the J1 in northeastern parts of Kura-Araxes horizon can be associated with North-East Caucasian (NEC) speakers. But the whole KA horizon couldn't have been NEC speakers otherwise this would have left linguistic traces. For which there is no evidence. The rapid shift in Y DNA distribution when moving away from eastern Caucasus is another strong argument that there was another ethnic group (or groups) in Kura-Araxes.

Who could be this other group(s)?

The two main candidates are the Anatolian speakers and Hurro-Urartians. Currently the data is still too small to connect the dots between South Caucasus and Anatolia/Levant/Mesopotamia where Anatolian Hurro-Urartian languages were spoken. But some patterns are already visible.

See also

• Here is an excerpt from the Petrosyan 2023 paper about the origins of Kura-Araxes culture.
• 
  

I2a2b-Y16419 a possible Ukraine hunter gatherer lineage in Yamnaya/Catacomb?

Lazaridis et al. 2024 had discovered that Yamnaya has some Ukraine Neolithic hunter gatherer ancestry. UNHG. This term can be confusing but it's a result of different naming convention in ex-Sovietic countries, when a hunter-gatherer community gets the Neolithic label if they had a pottery.

Ghalichi et al. 2024 confirmed the presence of some 15% of UNHG in Yamnaya. The I2-L699 regularly found in steppe was derived from UNHG for example.

The presence of I2 in Yamnaya related cultures is an important subject for the Armenian ethnogenesis given the presence of I2a2b in Trialeti-Vanadzor culture.

Till now we didn't have any extra information about this haplotype. The closest European sample to it was found in Eneolithic Croatia with a common ancestor reported to live at 8200BC by the FTDNA. This age is amply sufficient for this lineage to be present both in European farmers and in UNHG.

Ghalichi et al. 2024 had a new sample which probably can help to understand how I2a2b could end up in early Yamnaya communities as a rare lineage. The paper reported a single female sample from near Azov and Black Sea joining region labeled as "Steppe Eneolithic outlier west". KHB dated at 4000BC near Taman peninsula. This sample has large amount of UNHG ancestry (43%). In most likelihood it infiltrated there from Ukraine.

If this outlier represents a regular population living in that region, then this raises the possibility that the I2a2b-Y16419 was also living, there since the Eneolithic and with the formation of Yamnaya/Catacomb became part of those cultures as a rare lineage. Later it moved to south and had a great luck to expand with Trialeti-Vanadzor culture.

For verifying this theory more ancient DNA is needed from the aforementioned region in particular and from south Ukraine in general.

Shulaveri-Aratashen-Shomutepe (SAS) culture. 7000/6200-5300BC.

 Shulaveri-Aratashen-Shomutepe (SAS) culture. 7000/6200-5300BC.

We have five good quality new samples from Shulaveri (SAS) culture in Georgia (Aruchlo). They had YDNA H2, J2a1a and R. This latter is from the R2 haplogroup according Genarchivist activists.

On the PCA three of five farmers plot close to related Neolithic samples from Armenia and Azerbaijan while modern people close them are the Armenians in G25. It's now obvious that this was the main genetic profile in SAS/Shulaveri culture. Those were the first farmers in South Caucasus and their ancestry was largely derived from central regions of Fertile Crescent hence the reason that occasionally we call them Central farmers. Ghalichi 2024 used also the term East Anatolian farmers. Given some archaeological data from Van region we can assume that most of historic Armenia (except probably the most western and southwestern regions) was inhabited by this type of farmers.

Besides this "Central"/"Armenian like" type there were also farmers with higher CHG ratio. First we have seen them in Aknashen from Armenia. Now we have another similar CHG shifted sample from Georgia plotting close to modern Georgians. It's not exactly identic to Aknashen but rather plots close to Darkveti-Meshoko ( labeled as Caucasus Eneolithic ) raising the possibility that Darkveti-Meshoko culture formed as a mixture of Shulaveri and CHG. The Darkveti culture is remarkable because genome wide it's genetic profile looks a good candidate for being Pre-Proto-Kartvelian. High CHG and very low Steppe. But the absence of G2a1a there and scant sampling from west Caucasus makes those suggestions still speculative.

Another sample from Aruchlo/Georgia plots close to CHG hunters. The ARO006 with YDNA R2. Making it a hunter who learned farming without having any significant admixture from those farmers. The presence of such hunter related genetic profile in Shulaveri culture means that there were at last two different languages in SAS. One derived from the first farmers and another derived from the hunters who learned farming. It's remarkable that archaeology supports this dualistic nature of Shulaveri culture. Two different potteries were made in Shulaveri. One of them was Chaff-tempered. The other one was Grit-tempered. Chaff-tempered was almost certainly made by the first farmers who came from southern regions of historic Armenia. While the Grit-tempered was made by groups derived from the local hunters.

It's interesting that both pottery traditions continued in ancient South Caucasus and historic Armenia after the Neolithic period. Grit-tempered was prominent in Sioni (also found in Adablur and Guinchi) culture which evolved in Early and Middle Chalcolithic (5300-4300BC). . We can conjecture that they were CHG shifted. Offcourse this is a just a prediction based on archaeology which can be wrong, given that currently there are no samples from this period. While Chaff-tempered pottery became prominent in Late Chalcolithic period (4300-3600BC). The Late Chalcolithic period DNA both from Armenia and Azerbaijan shows that they were mostly derived from the first Neolithic farmers having some extra new admixtures.

And finally we can now say with high degree of certitude that the CHG shifted genetic profile of Kura-Araxes culture (3600-2400BC) had local origins. When farmers settled all over Kur and Arax river valleys the forest-mountain zone between those two valleys also known as Lesser Caucasus became a sort of refugium where they preserved the initial hunter gatherer ancestry in higher proportion. This is the reason why the oldest radiocarbon dated Kura-Araxes sites are found in north Armenia (Gegharot) and south Georgia.

But this is not the whole story. Apparently Kura-Araxes also had two potteries and genetic profiles. Which could mean that for at last 4000 years two genetic profiles were competing in South Caucasus starting from the Neolithic period till the end of Early Bronze Age.

PS. There was in reality six samples from Aruchlo. But one of them has so little coverage that it was not included in the calculations.

Ghalichi et al. 2024 and the Indo-European question.

 Ghalichi et al. 2024 and the Indo-European question.

A new paper with more than 100 samples provided new details about the interaction of Eastern European populations and West Asians over Caucasus.

A new Mesolithic sample from north Caucasus (Satanae cave SJG001) dated at 6100BC yielded an interesting genetic profile. It was practically identic to other Eastern European hunter gatherers (EHG). The sample had the R1a haplogroup, from a minor branch (not the same as M417) that in most likelihood is related to later IE migrations.

This EHG result from north Caucasus means that the genetic profile of Yamnaya didn't existed since the immemorial times but formed later than the 6000BC. Yamnaya has ancestry both from EHG and from south of Caucasus. The event that triggered the formation of Yamnaya better known as Steppe genetic profile was the apparition of farmers in South Caucasus. The Shulaveri-Aratashen-Shomutepe (SAS) culture starts no later than 6200BC. And starting from this period farmers mixed both with Caucasian hunter gatherers and made attempts to colonize the steppe in north of Caucasus.

A new case of J2b2a-L283 was found in steppe zone of North Caucasus (the ZO1002 on the map). It was dated at 3800BC, older than Maykop and Kura-Araxes. And already had some EHG admixture which means that it was probably a lineage descending from Shulaveri farmers trying to settle in steppe. Later this haplotype will become a rare Yamnaya lineage and will move to Balkans where it will have an important expansion.

Despite this finding the most predominant Y DNA in Eneolithic steppe pastoralistic groups had local Eastern European origin (R1 and I2) rather than from south of Caucasus. We have another Y DNA from Nalchik farmers and this time once more it's R1b. From the V1636 branch. We have also now one of oldest R1b-M269 from Konstantinovka dated at 3800BC. KST001.

So two important question arises..

Why despite having large amount of West Asian/Caucasian ancestry the Eneolithic steppe groups and Yamnaya has so little cases of J haplogroup.

And the second question is linguistic. Who's language was the Proto Indo Anatolian? Those from Shulaveri culture farmers or those from EHG / R1 side.

Before answering the first question we should note that this phenomenon of mismatch between autosomes occurred not only in East Europe but also in West Europe. After the initial success of G2 haplogroup , later there was a widespread resurgence of local I2 haplogroup. In British islands farmers for instance had 100% of I2 haplogroup. Yet in autosomes they had 70% of Anatolian farner ancestry.

There can be numerous theories to explain this. I am personally inclined to believe that social factors played a key role. Neolithic farmers of West Asia had more egalitarian or even matriarchal culture. A recent paper from Catalhoyuk showed an obvious matrilineal culture. While eastern European hunters could have more patriarchal culture. When a matriarchal and patriarchal cultures meet each other this affects in different ways the uniparental markers. Y DNA of one side will prevail and mtdna of the other side will also prevail.

There are other theories like mass killing of males. Those theories are popular in internet. But they can't explain one important thing. Why Scythians, Saka and Turkic tribes who are known to have a warrior culture and where frequently killing all males of the competing clan had one of most diverse Y DNA. The answer is self evident. Because during a conflict it's not granted that always one haplogroup prevails while others always are defeated. The outcome of the clans conflict can be very random which will create a very random distribution of haplogroups.

When farmers moved to north of Caucasus they were the technologically advanced side. It would be strange that they lost all battles without wining any of them and expanding their lineage. So wars and mass killings can't explain the emergence of this pattern. There can be other explanations. I just demonstrated one possible.

As for the linguistic part I will dedicate another topic