Remarks on Hurrians and their initial Y DNA

 Remarks on Hurrians and their initial Y DNA

The recent Williams et al. 2026 paper about ancient DNA from Mesopotamia (Bakr Awa) made some comments about the possible Hurrian DNA, so let's look closer at it. It's probably the third or fourth ancient DNA paper discussing Hurrian DNA. Despite the growing number of aDNA from regions where Hurrians and the related Urartians had left inscriptions, the understanding of their DNA is still very far from being complete. But some preliminary conclusions can be made.

Their autosomal genetic profile was primarily composed of Central farmer type. In northeastern regions where they had contacts with Proto-Armenians, they had probably acquired some steppe ancestry and R1b-Z2103. This also correlates with linguistic contacts. Like the word ešši meaning horse is almost certainly a loanword from the Armenian word eš meaning donkey (it was initially meaning horse).The ancient DNA from western regions (Alalakh) where Hurrians had left inscriptions does not have steppe ancestry but seems to be intermingled with Semitic ancestry. It's important to keep in mind that North Mesopotamia witnessed a Semitic wave around 3200–3000 BC, thus before Hurrians became the prominent group in that region. This means that Hurrians almost certainly assimilated or lived side by side with East Semites that settled there a few centuries earlier. Linguistically, it's confirmed by numerous loanwords from Akkadian.In eastern regions, Hurrians had also contacts with various poorly classified Zagros people (Gutians, Lullubi, Kassites). I will dedicate a separate topic about them later. And of course, after 1800 BC, a group of Indo-Iranians migrated to the Near East who became the ruling elite of a Hurrian-populated kingdom, Mitanni. Numerous names and words of Aryan origin among Hurrians are the best proof of this.

All these numerous interactions of Hurrians with neighbors complicate the understanding of Hurrian DNA. Most of the time, it's very hard to figure out whether the excavated Y-DNA was natively Hurrian or is from neighbors. So the best way is to ignore possible neighboring group Y-DNA and try to find the core Hurrian ones. Fortunately, there was an archaeological culture in North Mesopotamia that almost certainly was created by Hurrians, even though not exclusively by Hurrians (East Semites were also part of it).

It's the Khabur ware (2000–1500 BC) in North Mesopotamia. The distinctive painted Khabur ware pottery apparently evolved into Nuzi ware, which shows a robust correlation with the Mitanni kingdom. This Khabur pottery has it's roots in North Mesopotamia, where the oldest Hurrian text was found from Urkesh (see the map) at around 2300 BC.

We already have samples from Khabur ware-related sites. It's from the Dinkha Tepe BIA 1. Occasionally, you will see claims that Dinkha Tepe 1 from the Urmia Basin are Semites. That is very unlikely. The J2-PF5197 found there is atypical to Bronze Age Semites, while the J1-P58 can be from them. Khabur ware was present in Bakr Awa, where we find an unusual Y-DNA, J1-PH128. At least three Y-DNA out of 10 were from this branch. This branch of J1 is unrelated to Semitic J1 and to NEC J1. So we can conjecture that it's a genuine Hurrian J1. Its popularity among Armenians is another hint of their plausible Hurrian connection.

As usual more samples from Khabur and Nuzi ware will help to find more plausible genuine Hurrian Y DNA.