Lernagog 1 - a new Neolithic site in Republic of Armenia near Talin.

New details are emerging about the Lernagog 1 site which was discovered in 2017 by an Armeno-Japanese team. Radiocarbon dates show that it is the oldest Neolithic site in South Caucasus and can be qualified as Early or Middle Neolithic (8-7th millennium BCE) Until the discovery of this site the advent of food producing in South Caucasus was mostly dated after 6200 BCE, known as Shulaveri- Aratashen- Shomutepe culture.

Tthe youngest hunter-gatherer date obtained in foragers cave (Kmlo 2) was 7400 BCE in Armenia. Thus, there was a hiatus of more than 1000 years between the end of the last forager and the start of farming and pastoralism. The Lernagog 1 site fills this hiatus. Research shows that they were making clay houses and were mostly pastoralists. No human bone is found yet

There are two possibilities. One is that Lernagog were local hunters who learned the pastoralism. If so, they would be closer to Aknashen sample. Another possibility is that they were migrants from Fertile Crescent "core area" (see the map). This latter scenario would mean that they were closer to Masis blur sample we have.

Qpadm models about the Core Yamnaya origins.

We have one sample from north Caucasus PG2004 which is similar to so called BP group of Caucasus Lower Volga cline.

Modeling Yamnaya as a three-way mixture of CLV_BP, Aknashen and Ukraine Neolithic hunter gatherers was very easy, as in the paper.

BP group 66.5%

Aknashen 19.5%

UNHG. 14.0%

p value 0.17

It didn't require from me any extra effort to find the correct "settings" (outgroups). Adding western Ukraine Trypllia farmers didn't made the model better. Aknashen was still wanted while Trypllia not. I tried various ways to make Trypllia wanted, but it didn't work. Finally, I removed Aknashen and forced the model to rely solely in Trypllia. I got a p value lower than 0.05. So practically a failure. Nikitin 2024 dedicates a special chapter to this subject. Their conclusion is that Yamnaya probably do have some Trypllia but it's very low.

My conclusions are the same. Aknashen ancestry in Yamnaya is real. It is supported by Y DNA of preceding period, and I am sure that the scrupulous analysis of mtDNA will show the same result. Finally, if I had access to the Nalchik farmer data then the percentage would be twice higher.

Then I tried the same in G25 and here a surprise. The raw unscaled models behaved in the same manner as qpadm albeit with a different proportion. But the scaled G25 showed a clear a preference for Trypllia. I said in this group many times that tools and settings matters. And this an excellent example why the use of scaled models can lead to misleading results. I want to remind that scaled coordinates are artificially altered numbers.

Keeping this in mind let's see what means CLV-steppe ancestry in Bronze Age Anatolia that Lazaridis 2024 supposedly has found but Lazaridis 2022 didn't detected. I don't have Cayonu files to reproduce their models in qpadm but what we know from G25 behavior is that:

+ When Anatolia N and CHG are used in models as source they mask the steppe ancestry and show a lower number. This was done in Lazaridis 2022 which not only didn't find any steppe in BA Anatolia but even in Van Urartu.

+ When a Mesopotamian or Levantine and Iran Neo are used as sources and CHG and Anatolia_N are ommitted then this exaggerates the steppe ancestry in northwest Asia. In Lazaridis 2024 they used Cayonu Neolithic which was a north Mesopotamian population. This exaggerated the steppe ancestry in Bronze Age Anatolia where Hittite lived. If the same Cayonu was used for Minoans, they would find steppe even in Minoans and probably Alalakh Hurrians and Semites also. Which doesn't make sense. Uniparental markers do NOT support such high level of CLV-steppe ancestry in BA Anatolia. Quite contrary they speak about very low or virtual absence of it. Just one R1b-V1636 in the midst of more than dozen local haplotypes.

My conclusions are that based on this genetic data it is not possible to consider IE homeland issue fully solved. We are very close it. And the broad picture. But the exact details are not still there, and linguistics also can be helpful.

What is needed now is to have more than 50 Y DNA from Bronze Age Anatolia. Also, a large number of Y DNA is needed from South Caucasus and historic Armenia LC-EBA period to see what happened to those Late Chalcolithic migrants from north. How much they left an impact and why their autosomes were diluted after the Areni C. It is also important to have samples from LC kurganic burials like Aknalich and Soyuq Bulaq.

See also

• When the tools and settings matters. Part 1 and Part 2

The Kurgan builders.

The Caucasus Lower Volga cline (CLV) having both south Caucasian and Eastern European foragers ancestry is a genetic term. The material cultures behind this term were variable but they had one important common feature. Virtually all the samples from CLV cline were found from kurgans. Kurgan is an artificial mound, a tumulus on top of the grave. A kurgan could harbor a single or multiple graves. Given that it requires a lot of manpower it was usually built for elite persons. Smaller kurgans also existed. Other prominent features of kurganic burials in Pontic Caspian steppe were the red ochre, the raised knee position etc. The origins of this tradition are uncertain, and the dates of the oldest kurgans debated but what is well known now that it expanded with Eneolithic (is equal to Chalcolithic) pastoralists (4500-3500bc) who had the CLV ancestry, replacing older local hunter's flat grave tradition. Besides kurgans, we know that those people had a patrilocal and exogamic culture.

Kurganic people moved to north, toward middle Volga region and the Khvalynsk culture (after 4500bc) emerged there. In middle Volga region various branches of haplogroup Q1 were integrated into early steppe pastoralist communities. Q-L939 the branch of Georgian Bagrationi. Q-YP1669, probably Q-F26062 and some others to be found.

They also moved toward the Balkanian peninsula where they mixed with local European farmers where various kurganic cultures emerged (Cernavoda, Usatovo, Suvorovo). This migration has been proposed to be the source of Anatolian languages. Currently there is no evidence that they reached deep into Anatolia. Nevertheless it's possible that some obscure ethnicities like Mysians in Turkish Thrace and north west Anatolia were derived from those migrants. Although a later Yamnayan origin is also possible for them. Yamnayans themselves also had kurgans.

The new "finding" in Lazaridis 2024 paper is about the migration of those kurganic CLV people to south Caucasus. I use brackets because the presence of steppe ancestry in Areni cave was known since 2016. But only now it got an interpretation. This migration apparently occurred at 4300BC a period known as late Chalcolithic which is associated with Chaff faced ware. Chaff ware was not from steppe but had a local Neolithic origin. A syncretic culture emerged. A variant of which is known as Leila tepe culture in what is now Azerbaijan. We have already seen that those chaff groups moved to west toward Anatolia. The R1b-V1636 is associated with this event. We have now three cases of V1636 stretched from Aintab to Sevan basin.

The new proposal of Lazaridis is that they were the IE Anatolians and based on this they propose that the CLV is the place were Indo-Europeans emerged. This is the main difference of this paper from the Lazaridis 2022 in which they placed the homeland of PIE ( or Indo-Anatolians ) in south of Caucasus.

My next post will be about the Indo European origins based on the linguistics and how those known migrations fits into the great picture. Also I will discuss the real number of steppe ancestry in Bronze Age Anatolia and will show that the current data size is very small for having a good understanding of the situation.

** The first picture is a reconstruction of a kurgan .They are usually eroded over time. This one reconstructed. The second picture is the tumulus of Lydian king Alyattes. This is one of the largest known kurgans.

Pastoralism in East Europe

We have now quite large number of samples before the Yamnaya period in East Europe ( before 3300BC) to have some conclusions about the origins of pastoralism in Pontic Caspian steppe and forest steppe regions.

If we keep aside local hunter gatherer lineages and those associated with Maykop culture in North Caucasus, then we are left with haplotypes that are associated with South Caucasian farmers. Shulaveri Aratashen culture.

• J2-M319 - an obvious farmer lineage, which usually is associated with Minoans but it's deeper origins are without doubt in historic Armenia. Absent in European farmers.
• J2b2b from Eneolithic Moldova associated with migrations from east. This branch was never found in any Euro-Anatolian farmer site but was found in Mentesh tepe in northwest of Azerbaijan.
• J2b2a1-L283 currently the oldest sample from this branch is from Yamnaya but there is little doubt that it was present in Eneolithic steppe also. It became part of Yamnaya communities, moved to west Balkans and had a successful founder effect there. It's parallel branch the J2b2a2 is a lineage found in farmers from Central Asia who from there moved to India. Thus, indirect evidence supports that it was a south Caucasian farmer lineage. Its hunter gatherer origin is less likely.
• J1b - it was a west Caucasian hunter lineage. It could be a CHG lineage in steppe. But a farmer lineage can't be ruled out completely given that this branch was found in many farmers sites stretched from Pakistan to Crete. In steppe it was found in Volga region and Usatovo cultures.
• J1-CTS1026 - similar to J1b uncertain affiliation. It's south Caucasian origin in steppe is without doubt.

Besides those cases there were also J1* in Karelia in hunter gatherer context. Those were almost certainly from CHG.

On the other hand, there was no single European farmers lineage found in Pontic Caspian steppe. Archaeologists believed that west Ukraine farmers played an important role in the introduction of pastoralism, but the genetic data do not support that idea. In west Ukraine Cucuteni Trypllia farmers we have G2a2a, G2a2b, E1b-L618, C1a2, I2a2a etc. None of them is found in steppe.

An unpublished sample from Nalchik proves that farmers from South Caucasus moved to north. Despite this southern input, the Eneolithic steppe was predominantly R1b-V1636 and I2-L699. This latter was a Ukraine hunter gatherer lineage in its deep origin.

What was the reason of the mismatch between autosomes and Y DNA is hard to say but a similar scenario occurred in main Europe where after an initial success, the G2 farmers lost their positions and I2 became more frequent. While the autosomes didn't change in a significant manner.

Those genetic results is supported by the linguistics data also. Sahala notice that the Sumerian word gud, gu meaning ox, bull is a good parallel with PIE *gou(s) meaning cow, ox. From which the Armenian word kov is derived.

Matasovic notice that the reconstructed PIE language morphology shares features with North Caucasian languages.

PS You can see the Caucasus Lower Volga cline on the map which had both CHG and South Caucasian farmers ancestry mixed with local hunter gatherers

The Yamnaya culture and it's legacy

Yamnaya was an Early Bronze Age culture (3300-2700BC) that expanded in Pontic Caspian steppe in East Europe. It is remarkable due to its homogenous population which contrasts to the diversity of the preceding Eneolithic (means Chalcolithic) cultures. In just 1000 years genes associated with Yamnaya culture reached what is now Portugal and western Mongolia, Britain and South-Central Asia. The scale of this expansion can be considered as one of the most important demographic events in West Eurasia after the invention of farming in Fertile Crescent. In 2022 Lazaridis et al. announced that all modern living IE nations languages can be derived from the Yamnaya.

In 2015 the first ancient DNA of Yamnayans was published and it became clear that they do not directly descend from Eastern European hunter gatherers. Roughly the half of their ancestry was from south, and the "Armenian like" term was used to label this southern part. Then in late 2015 the Caucasian hunter gatherers (CHG) were discovered. In 2016 Iranian Zagros Neolithic farmers were published and since then both those populations were used to model the Yamnayans.

Despite those statistical models the formation of Yamnayans gene pool was remaining an obscure subject. Finally in April 2024 two large papers dedicated to this subject provided more clarity. Various Neolithic and Eneolithic groups living in East Europe had both shared ancestry and differences. One group who was living from North Caucasus foothills to Lower Volga (site Berezhnovka ) was labeled as "Caucasus Lower Volga cline". CLV had both southern Caucasian hunters and farmers (Aknashen) ancestry.

I will dedicate a special topic to describe what is CLV but at this stage it's sufficient to say that Yamnayans had up to 80% of their ancestry from CLV. Not only Yamnayans but all Kurganic cultures (Sredni Stog, Khvalynsk, Cernabida, Usatovo) of eastern Europe and Balkans had the CLV ancestry mixed with various local European populations. For the case of Yamnayans the second part of their ancestry was the Ukraine hunter gatherers (UNHG), which made them similar to Sredni Stog. Even though the most important Y DNA's were missing in Sredni Stog which could mean that Proto Yamnaya's exact immediate geographic location is not found yet but shouldn't be outside from Don - Volga - Caucasus triangle. With more sampling we will learn the exact origin of the two most successful lineages. R1b-M269 and R1a-M417.

The samples from the new paper are not available yet but we have two samples from the forementioned CLV cline. They are from the Progress - 2 site in the North Caucasus (4500-4000BC, see the last map for the location). I used them to model various Yamnaya samples and got the same result as in Lazaridis 2024. More than 75-80% of ancestry in regular Yamnaya samples is from the Progress / CLV. Some outliers have extra ancestries which is normal given their location.

You may wonder how "Hittites from east, from historic Armenia" and "Yamnaya from CLV" are connected to each other? After all there is no evidence that Hittites and other Anatolian speakers descend from Yamnaya culture. What is the common shared ancestry between IE Anatolians and Yamnaya?

Another topic will be dedicated to this subject.

And at the end here is the list of Y DNA found in Yamnaya at this stage. R1b-Z2103 (west Asia Balkans), R1b-L51 (west Europe), R1a-M417 (Asia - Europe), I2-L699, J2b-L283 (west Balkans), R1b-PF7562 (Balkans Mycenean ) Q-L939 and isolated cases of J1 and R1b-V1636.

See also

• Population dynamics in North Caucasus

Hittites from east.

Before commenting the deeper origins of Indo Europeans proposed in the new Lazaridis 2024 paper I want to speak about the origins of Anatolians. Since the advent of paleogenetic it became clear that they can't be native to plain Anatolia. They could be either from east or from north-west. Since 2018 the accumulating data was giving clear preference to the eastern origins. From historic Armenia. But a doubt was still persisting, because the Balkanian route was not fully investigated. In 2023 Penske et al. has found a migration from steppe to eastern Balkans before Yamna around 4000BC but they didn't even discuss the possibility that they could be related to Hittites. It's because their autosomes were rapidly diluted having a limited impact in Bulgaria yet alone in Anatolia. Also the Y DNA associated to this migration the I2-L699 was missing from inland ancient Anatolian samples.

While a R1b-V1636 was found in Bronze Age Gaziantep quite close temporaly and geographically to the kingdom Armi mentioned in Eblaite texts around 2500bc. Hittites names have been discovered in this kingdom recently.

The V1636 was popular in CLV cline stretching from Caucasus to Lower Volga and was found in ancient Malatya and Sevan basin also.

Besides this R1b other haplotypes found in Bronze Age Anatolia also show self-evident eastern affiliation.

The J1-Z1828 who's subbranch BY94 can be an Iron Age Luwian lineage like the J2- L70 which itself is derived from the L25 a haplotype from east.

A J2-Z6065 which was found in Masis Blue in Neolithic Armenia. We have also bunch of of J2-M67 and G2-M406, even though this latter is related to Hattic people so it can't be interpreted as a prove of Hittites from east.

In conclusion all ancient Y DNA that we have in inland Anatolia do have an eastern origin, from historic Armenia and around. One of them is further from north of Caucasus region. Their autosomes are also shifted to east compared to the preceding periods.

One exception is the I2-P78 from MBA Yassi Tepe near Izmir, which is clearly from Mycenean Greece, so this person was almost certainly a Greek people representative who probably settled in western Anatolian coasts after the 2000BC. They are mentioned in Hittite texts as Ahhiyawa.

In sum we can now say with high certitude that Indo-European languages were spoken in Armenian Highlands at minimum the last 6300 years. The 4300BC is not a random number it's the date of the start of Late Chalcolithic associated with Chaff faced ware which had a tremendous impact on southern Anatolia. But not much on northern Anatolia where Hattic related people were settled since more earlier times. Probably since 5800BC.

But that would require another thread which I will do the next time.

PS a proposed location of Armi. Another location is in the northeast of Ebla.

See also

• One possible way to know the language(s) spoken in Kur-Araxian culture is to examine the onomastics in those places where there was continuity

Samples of Anatolian/Aegean origin from the Roman empire city Vimminacium in what is now the eastern part of Serbia

Samples of Anatolian/Aegean origin from the Roman empire city Vimminacium (Olalde 2023) in what is now the eastern part of Serbia. A large military camp was present in the city.

• E-L791 is remarkable because it's very close to Napoleon's Y DNA. Another L791 from Roman era Croatia.

  Distance to: Croatia_Zadar_Roman_oLevant.SG:R3742.SG
  0.03003301 Greek_Cappadocia
  0.03236809 Greek_Central_Anatolia
  0.03434637 Greek_Crete_Heraklion
  0.03806465 Armenian_Gesaria
  0.03847296 Greek_Crete

• I2-Y16419 is ultimately from Trialeti-Vanadzor culture. Based on genetics he was probably from Kesaria/Kayseri.

• The presence of J2-L70 and J1-BY94 is without surprise. These two haplotypes expanded in Iron Age Anatolia most probably.

• And the T1a2 could be local but in most likelihood, he was also from Anatolia.

Also, a lot of local Balkanian specific haplotypes like E-V13 with some Germanic ones.

Another evidence that Roman Empire had a significant impact on the genetics of South Europe. Read in more detail in the link below.

 

•  In 313 AD, the Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, which accepted Christianity