Great news for understanding the Kura-Araxes culture legacy.

Great news for understanding the Kura-Araxes culture legacy.

Now that ancient DNA files from Bakr Awa are uploaded to FTDNA, we can make more precise conclusions.

The most important news is about G2b from MBA Bakr Awa (~1800BC). It is from the same branch as the G2b from Kaps in Armenia EBA. This G2b from Kaps was from a Kura-Araxes layer. Another Kura-Araxes G2b sample (I22907) is upcoming from Akbari et al. dataset. And multiple other G2b samples from later Lchashen period with typical Etiuni profile. You can see them on the first picture.

All this support the idea that G2b-FGC3032 was an important Kura-Araxes marker that moved to Zagros and reached Bakr Awa, which is marked by the blue dot on the second map showing sites with KAC pottery.

Given that Bakr Awa was an important Hurrian site in MBA this raises sharply the probability that Hurro-Urartian languages descend from Kura-Araxes culture. Or at last from southern parts of it. Other haplotypes supporting such a possibility are three cases of J1-PH128 from Bakr Awa connected to South Caucasus by the parallel branch. We don't have yet the proof that it was a KAC lineage but chances are quite high that it was. Another interesting haplotype is the J2-M92 in Achaemenid era Bakr Awa. The M92 was found in Kura-Araxes site from Georgia and in Levantine site Meggido in MBA also.

Combined with the possibility that Nakh-Dagestani people also descend from Kura-Araxes a legitimate question arise. If Kura-Araxes origin of Hurrians is confirmed, do this proves that Diakonoff and Starostin linguistic theory was correct. Well Kura-Araxes was roughly contemporary with Yamnaya. If those two linguistic groups descend from the same Proto language living in Early Bronze Age then other linguists also would have easily noticed their connection, like in the IE case. However that theory didn't get acceptance and recently Alexei Kassian completely rejected such a link.

Another possibility is that Hurro֊Urartian was language of farmers, which by the way is supported by their lexical parallels with Sumerian. While Proto-Nakh-Dagestani was a language of east Caucasian hunter gatherers that were shifting to food producing way of subsistence. In that case PHU and PND will not have recent common origin but will have occasions to contact each other and exchange words. Additionally the presence of Proto-Anatolians in Late Chalcolithic historic Armenia can explain the findings of Fournet and Bomhard about an archaic IE influence on Hurrian.