Another perspective on 25 Antique era samples from Syunik (Aghitu) from Skourtanioti et al. 2025.

 Another perspective on 25 Antique era samples from Syunik (Aghitu) from Skourtanioti et al. 2025.

The bulk off them are in the intermediate position between Iron Age Syunik marked as LIA and modern Syunik. Which makes sense. The cause of the change from LIA to modern Syunik might be a source similar to Turkey IA which includes samples from Van and Batman regions.

The rest have various shifts. Some toward Iranian plateau, One case with a strong shift to Levant and it seems at last two cases shifted toward Anatolia or even Europe.

I don't think all this samples are from Hellenistic era. Only one has a radiocarbon date. While others are dated based on archaeology which can be misleading in caves. However if they are from Hellenistic era this could mean that the Etiuni genetic profile persisted in Syunik quite long time.

Most of their Y DNA are typical Etiuni. R1b the L584 subbranch. The rest also might be local, like the J2-M92 and E1b. I2a1-L699 might be from Etiuni also. If G1 is real it could be from NW Iran. But it can be local also. However the paper do not mention the G1, it was found by Genarchivist users.

There is little doubt that most of this people were Armenian speakers in their lifetime.