Endgame?.

Endgame?. Lazaridis says Armenians , Greeks and Albanians descend from Yamna. Also Tocharians. And the Southern Arc paper is out. The link below.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm4247

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It is a remarkable accident of history that Anatolian speakers lasted long enough to leave their writings in cuneiform and later alphabetic writing. If the Anatolian speakers had lived anywhere else we would have no clue they even existed as a sister group of IE

The same for Tocharian speakers: they presumably lasted for >3000 years, long enough to record their languages, even briefly, in medieval times, before their languages went extinct. It's an accident of history that we have evidence for them at all.

And 99% of Indo-European speakers stem from Corded Ware ancestors. It is only three small groups: Greeks, Armenians, Albanians who go up to the Yamnaya not via Corded Ware intermediaries. Many others were wiped out linguistically, e.g. Tocharians and most Paleo-Balkan speakers

It's basically a series of unlikely events that make it possible for us to reconstruct the early history of Indo-Anatolian and Indo-European languages. And, presumably, other important languages were lost, but what survived is, I think, enough to recover the big picture.

https://mobile.twitter.com/ios.../status/1562894181454200832

Reich says.

 Reich says.

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By sequencing 727 ancient individuals from the Southern Arc (Anatolia and neighbors in Southeastern Europe and West Asia) over 10,000 years, we contextualize its Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages (~5000-1000 BCE), when extensive gene flow entangled it with the Eurasian steppe. At least two streams of migration transmitted Caucasus and Anatolian/Levantine ancestry northward, contributing to Yamnaya steppe pastoralists who then spread southwards: into the Balkans, and across the Caucasus into Armenia, where they left numerous patrilineal descendants. Anatolia was transformed by intra-West Asian gene flow, with negligible impact of the later Yamnaya migrations. This contrasts with all other regions where Indo-European languages were spoken, suggesting that the homeland of the Indo-Anatolian language family was in West Asia, with only secondary dispersals of non-Anatolian Indo-Europeans from the steppe.

https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/.../the-genetic-history...

Many religious terms in Armenian language are loanwords from Christian and Iranian periods. This means that the native or the older vocabulary is lost.

 Many religious terms in Armenian language are loanwords from Christian and Iranian periods. This means that the native or the older vocabulary is lost.

Hrach Martirosyan tries to recover an Armenian religious term from Urartian texts. It is the word iarani meaning holy place or shrine. This word can be compared to Greek ieros/iaros ( ἱερός , ῐ̔ᾰρός ) meaning holy, related to gods. The word has Indo-European origin and has parallels in Sanskrit. This mean that chances are quite high that ancient Armenians also had a such term which was lost later. Indeed this Urartian word is a good indication that such a word existed.

The proposed Armenian word *iaran would have the root iar- and a suffix -an similar to another word damb-an ( grave with a memorial stone ).

Once more we see that Greek and Indo-Iranian parallels can be useful to confirm the Armenian origin of a word. In this manner the Urartian term arcibini was compared to Armenian arciw ( eagle ). Which leaves little doubt that the term is a loanword in Urartian from Armenian language.

Source: "Vishap between fairy tale and reality" 2019 . Collection of articles.

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/.../%E1%BC%B1%CE%B5%CF%81%CF...

All reactions:

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We have already seen a genetic shift during the Urartian period in modern Armenia.

We have already seen a genetic shift during the Urartian period in modern Armenia. I predicted that similar shifts occured in other parts of historic Armenia and neighboring regions were Urartu had a control. Here an example from North West Iran. We have two samples from Early Iron Age period preceding Urartu. They are from south of lake Urmia. Hasanlu Tepe and Hajji Firuz tepe. We don't have any sample that comes after Urartu that is why I used modern Armenian and Kurdish samples as close as possible to south Urmia.

The results shows that pre-Urartian samples from lake Urmia bassein have high level of Iran Neo. Higher than they did have in Chalcolithic period. This increase in most likelihood occured during LBA/EIA period. It could be the result of migrations from East.

They also have Steppe ancestry which was absent in Chalcolithic period. Steppe ancestry came in Middle Bronze Age, after 2400bc.

Armenians have much lower Iran Neo, and higher Central farmer. We can assume that Armenian like samples would appear in that region during/after the Urartian period. Later Armenians mostly inhabited western and northern parts of lake Urmia known as Nor Shirakan. (Pasrkahayk')

We also notice that modern Kurds are similar to EIA samples. In Iron Age various polities are attested there. The most important was the Mana. But also Gilzanu in west of Urmia and Uishdis in east.

In Greek period this region was known as Matiene/Mantiene. Unfortunately not much is known about their ethnic affiliation.

Neolithic sites in South Caucasus (except Western Georgia), also known as Shulaveri culture.

 Neolithic sites in South Caucasus (except Western Georgia), also known as Shulaveri culture.

We have a sample from Menteshe tepe near modern Armenian border. It plot close Armenians, especially those from Urfa. We have also samples from Hajji Firuz Chalcolithic. It's not considered as part of Shulaveri culture but do have some connection with them, which indeed is visible in their DNA. Soon we will have the G25 coordinates of Armenia Neolithic from Aknashen. In most likelihood it will be similar to samples mentioned above. Or will be slightly western shifted.

The paper below speaks about similar Neolithic sites in South East Turkey around Van region. But given that they had painted pottery archaeologists don't classify them as Shulaveri.

It's now known that Shulaveri folk crossed Caucasus and had presence in North East of Caucasus also. They almost certainly had contacts with local Steppe Piedmont foragers. In Late Chalcolithic period we see some of those Northern women in Areni cave.

Recently a new Neolithic site was found in Armenia. Near Talin, Lernagog. Radiocarbon dating showed that it was the oldest site in SC of this type. ~7000bc.

We have also samples from Çayonu (near Diyarbekir ). At last one of that samples (cay008) seems to be close to those farmers who lived in SC and historic Armenia. While others are close to Anatolia-Levantine clusters. Reich mentioned them in relation to Armenia and Cyprus Neolithic saying:

"We report the first ancient DNA from the world’s earliest farming cultures of southeastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia, as well as the first Neolithic period data from Cyprus and Armenia, and discover that it was admixture of Natufian-related ancestry from the Levant—mediated by Mesopotamian and Levantine farmers, and marked by at least two expansions associated with dispersal of pre-pottery and pottery cultures—that generated a pan-West Asian Neolithic continuum."

Whether there was a mass migration of farmers or migration of ideas from Diyarbekir to Araratian plain is unclear given that we don't have Mesolithic DNA from Armenia and Azerbaijan. But there is little doubt that cultural connections existed. Shulaveri farmers were making similar round houses as those in early Çayonu layers. This round architecture was prominent in later Halaf culture also.

Finally we can add that those Central farmers were the first who started to use copper which is abundant in mountains. They shifted to Copper Age starting from 5300bc. One of the earliest shift in West Asia and world. This innovation gived them extra competitive advantages. Which permited them to expand in various directions. The legacy of those expansions is visible in modern populations living in West Asia and neighboring regions.

Below You can find a paper discussing new inscriptions from Thrace were toponyms are mentioned.

 Below You can find a paper discussing new inscriptions from Thrace were toponyms are mentioned.

The most interesting is the Argiske/Ergiske (modern Rogozen) which obviously is the centum version of Arzashku (Arṣašku [1] SN). One would expect that the Thracian version would be also satem but given the presence of centum languages in Balkanes then centum is also possible.

It's remarkable that Arzashku fits exactly the Armenian shift *ǵ>c (ծ) . In cuneiform s dotted is usually used to mark c (ծ).

Toponyms with similar roots (but not necessarily related ) are the river Arges and city Arge-dava in Romania. Notice dava in Thracian means settlement and it is a widespread particle in toponyms. Arthur Asatrian has a post on this subject.

In Armenia we also have the river Arcania ( Aracani ) mentioned in Assyrian texts.

Another interesting toponym is Kabyle/Cabyle ( occasionally confused as Kalybe ) . This toponym can be compared with land/tribe Qabilu in ancient Armenia (Diaukhi) . Qabilu is linked to Armenian period Gabelean.

This are just two examples. But there are other similar parallels that could be related. Treri~Trel/Drilae. See the link below.

PS FYI this post is about IE terms and is NOT about any migration theory.

Let's discuss the concept of indigenous populations.

 Let's discuss the concept of indigenous populations. This term is frequently used in various papers. And even more frequently on general public discussion boards. But what is left from this concept after the genetic revolution.

Here an example. There is little doubt that Australian Aborigenes can claim at last 30.000 year presence there. But can an individual Aborigene feel himself indigenous if researchers have found that at last 56% ( in some cases more than 70%) of male lineages and 22% of female lineages have recent Eurasian origin. Mostly European. Now You can say this is recent colonial event. But still the change is there and it is irreversible.

Then let's see the Basque case. Practically all their mitoDNA is local Neolithic but more than 75% of their male lineages are from Steppe. And they have more than 25% of Steppe ancestry. So can we use the term indigenous for their genetics. I don't think so. Or should we use it solely for linguistics. But even there things are not simple because Basque language has large number of IE words.

Maybe we should use this concept in high mountains like Caucasus. At last three different samples show that pre-LGM West Caucasus was very different from post-LGM CHG. CHG is more connected to Iran_Neo. While pre LGM West Caucasus was more connected to Anatolian farmers and WHG ( ironically even before WHG existed ). While modern West Caucasian are once more shifted toward Anatolia compared to CHG. This shift almost certainly occured with Neolithic Farmers.

So what You think. How should we define an indigenous population. By language or by genetics. By autosomes or by Y dna. If by genetics then what to do with old major shifts. From what year to count the start of indigenousity.

PS The irony of the situation is that a long term isolated pop like Aborigenes do have less native Y dna today than let's say Armenians who have a dynamic and rich history of contacts.