Myanthropologies
07-05-2018, 02:59 AM
A lot of people on anthroforums claim that Armenians and Georgians are not true Caucasians and that they are mixed with recent Mesopotamian ancestry. However, recent studies on ancient DNA from Caucasian populations during the Eneolithic - Yamnaya have shown otherwise, and that North Caucasian populations are the ones who went through a demographic shift.
First, sometime after the Bronze Age present-day North Caucasian populations must have received additional gene-flow from populations north of the mountain range that separates them from southern Caucasians, who largely retained the Bronze Age ancestry profile. The archaeological and historic records suggest numerous incursions during the subsequent Iron Age and Medieval times 48 515 , but ancient DNA from these time periods is needed to test this directly.
The study also shows that Mesopotamia and the Near East have had substantial influence on the Caucasus since the 4th millennium BCE:
Our results show that at the time of the eponymous grave mound of Maykop, the North Caucasus piedmont region was genetically connected to the south. Even without direct ancient DNA data from northern Mesopotamia, the new genetic evidence suggests an increased assimilation of Chalcolithic individuals from Iran, Anatolia and Armenia and those of the Eneolithic Caucasus during 6000-4000 calBCE23, and thus likely also intensified cultural connections. Within this sphere of interaction, it is possible that cultural influences and continuous subtle gene flow from the south formed the basis of Maykop (Fig. 4; Supplementary Table 10). In fact, the Maykop phenomenon was long understood as the terminus of the expansion of South Mesopotamian civilisations in the 4th millennium BCE. It has been further suggested that along with the cultural and demographic influence the key technological innovations that had revolutionised the late 4th millennium BCE in western Asia had ultimately also spread to Europe.
First, sometime after the Bronze Age present-day North Caucasian populations must have received additional gene-flow from populations north of the mountain range that separates them from southern Caucasians, who largely retained the Bronze Age ancestry profile. The archaeological and historic records suggest numerous incursions during the subsequent Iron Age and Medieval times 48 515 , but ancient DNA from these time periods is needed to test this directly.
The study also shows that Mesopotamia and the Near East have had substantial influence on the Caucasus since the 4th millennium BCE:
Our results show that at the time of the eponymous grave mound of Maykop, the North Caucasus piedmont region was genetically connected to the south. Even without direct ancient DNA data from northern Mesopotamia, the new genetic evidence suggests an increased assimilation of Chalcolithic individuals from Iran, Anatolia and Armenia and those of the Eneolithic Caucasus during 6000-4000 calBCE23, and thus likely also intensified cultural connections. Within this sphere of interaction, it is possible that cultural influences and continuous subtle gene flow from the south formed the basis of Maykop (Fig. 4; Supplementary Table 10). In fact, the Maykop phenomenon was long understood as the terminus of the expansion of South Mesopotamian civilisations in the 4th millennium BCE. It has been further suggested that along with the cultural and demographic influence the key technological innovations that had revolutionised the late 4th millennium BCE in western Asia had ultimately also spread to Europe.