7
This will be part of a series of anthropological myths that exist in people's minds, whether on these forums or real life that I will seek to demolish with facts and logic.
Simply false, the various people of the Caucasus have diversity within themselves but none can be considered European or clustering anywhere near Europeans. In fact, they are decidedly closer to West Asians than anything else. Their phenotypes also appear closer to West Asians, albeit lighter than most.
Unlike Europeans, all Caucasus groups have substantial ancestry from CHG(Caucasus Hunter Gatherers), a type of ancestry that is largely alien to Europe. Some CHG-like admixture reached Europe via Indo-European groups who contained it, but for the most part it's quite distinct even from that.
Some groups like Chechens and North Ossetians have a decent chunk of Indo European Yamnaya ancestry which is roughly similar to the amount you see in southern European groups(about 30%). But they also have a ton of CHG on top of it. This makes them distinct. Other groups like Georgians lack any Indo-European ancestry whatsoever and are even heavier on CHG.
Russians living near the Volga are still closer to British Isles people than they are to Chechens in Grozny.
Bookmarks