In Miss Universe 2021 competition the participant from Armenia had the Urartian style.

 In Miss Universe 2021 competition the participant from Armenia had the Urartian style. It seems Mikael Badalyan (head of Erebuni museum) consulted for making this dress.

In the inscription describing a war with Melid (Militia) a land Musha is mentioned.

 In the inscription describing a war with Melid (Militia) a land Musha is mentioned. 

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On the same day I set off towards the land, on the right(?) I subdued the land Qala’a. I came to the land Karniši, mountainious land on the left(?) of the city Miliṭia, and I came to the land Muša nearby the city Zabša.

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The land was in most likelihood near modern Malatya and Kiği ( Armenian K'eli>Keghi from Urartian Qala'a?).

In Urartian inscriptions it was frequent when the final vowel was not really pronounced. So here we have a land Mush which fits well in the theory that the term Mushki was the plural of Mush. While the extra -ki represents the Armenian plural suffix -k' frequently used in many toponyms in Armenian period.

Nevertheless it is very unlikely that this place was the initial homeland of Mushki because in Hittite period the region near Malatya is well attested and there is no any term that can be linked with Mush/Mushki. Summing all data available we can say that Mushki came to that region after 1200bc from a more North Eastern location. 

Some of them moved further west and settled in Anatolian lowlands around modern Kayseri (ancient Mazhak) Eusebius use the term Moschoi to denote Cappadocians. While in Iron Age the term Mushki was also used to denote Phrygia.

The Turkish archaeologist Veli Sevin linked the Early Iron Age grooved ware in Malatya Elyazig region with Mushkis.

Let's hope one day we will see EIA ancient DNA associated with grooved ware.

I edited the map from Sagona's book

 I edited the map from Sagona's book. Added two other cultures that are mentioned but not marked in the map. 

Samtavro in Shida Kartli region of Georgia. It is in the North of Kur river. Later it correspond to historic Iberia.

Khojaly-Gadabay. Laneri et al. thinks that it was related to Lchashen culture. Later it correspond to Artsakh and Utik' provinces of Armenia. 

The borders of Colchian culture were exaggerated in that map. From Abkhazia further north starts other Iron Age culture known as Meotic which is usually linked to NWC people. Later the region was known as Colchis. 

But the land of Aia (Kolchoi) mentioned in Argonauts was almost certainly not in Colchian culture place but further south, west of Rize, and east of Synop.

Lchashen culture correspond to Etiuni tribal confederation. This culture was present in Kars, Igdir but it's pottery was rare in Erzurum. Occasionally it is also found in Agri region of Turkey. Later it correspond to Ayrarat and Gugark provinces of Armenia.

Kaiakent-Charachoi was in North East Caucasus with some presence in North Azerbaijan. It almost certainly correspond to NEC people. Their migration to south in Iron Age will create the Caucasian Albania.

Talysh or Talysh - Mugham correspond to various Iron Age tribes who were living there. Remarkably some of their pottery was found as far as in southern parts of Karabakh. 

And finally the Koban culture. Their ethnicity is unknown. But they almost certainly played an important role in the ethnogenesis of Alans. Which formed as a mixture of Scythians and Koban people.

Some scholars proposed a link between them and Tauri people living in Crimea. Some scholars want to link it with with Nakh people but that is quite unlikely.

Utik' was a province in ancient Armenia

 Utik' was a province in ancient Armenia. It's name was derived from a ethnonym Uti and the plural suffix -k'. Given it's obvious similarity with the name of Daghestani speaking Udis some scholars had proposed that ancient Utis were speaking the same language. Others expressed scepticism about NEC affiliation of ancient Utis because in Graeco-Roman sources tribes like Utians , Vitii (probably pronounced as Uitii) are attested in much larger territory. In Iran and in non Albanian parts of modern Azerbaijan. Another issue is that Vitii is distinct from Albania and is not included in it.

Given that we don't have much linguistic data to make judgements, we can use genetic data and archaeology.

Herrera (2012) gathered Y dna from Gardman (Utik') Armenians. The results are quite surprising. First Gardman Armenians have one of lowest level of J1* (2.1%) among Armenian groups. The J1-Z1842 branch is extremely popular in Daghestani speakers and do show obvious correlation with their linguistic family. Karafet (2015). Low presence of J1* (xP58) in Gardman Armenians means that Daghestani tribes who settled in Utik' from north didn't have much genetic impact in that region. If we look at broader picture in whole Azerbaijan then we find more cases there but not as much as one would expect. 20 from 265 ( 7.5% ) in Azerbaijan DNA project. Here we must remember that this are modern data and in the case of Azerbaijanis there were extra Iranian and Turkic migrations which could have diluted the initial level of J1-Z1842. Other important factors to consider is that not all cases of J1*/J1(xP58) from academic papers are from Z1842 branch and even not all Z1842-s are from typical Daghestani branches which means that this numbers are overestimated.

Other interesting numbers in Gardman Armenians are the higher than the average R1a1 (5.2%) and I2* (8.3%). R1a might be related to stronger Iranian influence in that region, which have left traces in toponymes (eg. Sakacene). While the I2* might be from the same I2c2 branch that was found in Early Iron Age Lchashen. This support the idea that LBA/IA culture Khojaly-Gadabay in Western Azerbaijan was connected to Lchashen culture in modern Armenia. 

The rest of haplotypes is more or less similar to other Armenian subgroups.

Those results do not support the idea that Utik' Armenians have large ancestry from Daghestani speakers. Which in turn could mean that ancient Utians/Vitii were not a NEC tribe but rather an IE tribe or an unknown language isolate.

A remarkable Kur-Araxian burial was found recently in Shahumyan (Armavir province).

 A remarkable Kur-Araxian burial was found recently in Shahumyan (Armavir province).

A collective burial with 30 bodies. More than 60 potteries, most of them well preserved. Dozens of bronze objects. Bronze objects are not frequent in KA burials.

According Pavel Avetisyan they will send them for genetic testing.

It's worth to note that despite the fact that we have ancient DNA from Kur-Araxian period, we lack any DNA from Araratian lowland plains like Armavir. I hope this will fill the gap and we will have more Y dna.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=262016952628406&id=100064603094737

The closest pops to Armenians in Dodecad K12b.

 The closest pops to Armenians in Dodecad K12b. I would like to make the same exercise in G25 but the regional data is not available yet.

For some unknown reason Yunusbaev choosed Hamshen Armenians for his research. So don't be surprised by the result.

The main conclusion is that East - West Armenians are the closest to each other then comes their respective neighbours. 

With fst the same result would be even more pronounced.

Udis are close to Eastern Armenians and vice versa.

 Udis are close to Eastern Armenians and vice versa. But Udis are a complete outlier in Nakh Daghestani family. In the top 20 ethnicities there is no single NEC nation close to them.

The first picture is from Dodecad, the second one is from G25. Notice we don't have yet Eastern Armenians in G25, but when we will have them they will be the closest. (see the update )

The historic reasons of this proximity are quite long to describe. But they are other reasons like the drop of population size which increase the instability of the population DNA.

When the effective size of a pop drops below a certain level it's Y dna becomes very volatile and prone to extreme drift. One such a classic case are Basques who's Y dna say nothing about their origins. The same can be true about Udis though in this case I am expecting some conservatism.

Here is the Y dna of general Silikyan (Silikov) who's patrilineal side has Udi origin. Yet the Y dna has European origin.

https://www.yfull.com/live/tree/E-BY35789/

Anyway only ancient DNA will help to understand better this situation.

PS. An update. The third image is the distance in G25 after the addition of new Armenian_Syunik sample.