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In the PCA of West Eurasians, there are three clines of ancestry, one is mainland Europe another is the Middle East, and a third between them for Meditteranean and Jewish populations.
The European cline formed as a mixture of Steppe BA populations and European Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic populations, did the Middle Eastern cline form similarly as a mixture of two populations to varying degrees? if so then what are they?
The first fact is that it is a north-south cline, the northernmost populations are north Caucasians (Adygei, Balkar, Chechen, Georgian Ossetian, Lezgin, Kumyk, Abkhasian), while the southernmost seem to be Bedouins and Arabians.
If we take Europeans as an analogy, the southernmost and northernmost populations are a proxy for the two founder populations, is it the same in the Middle East?
Ancient DNA has already documented a mixture between Iran Chalcolithic on the one hand and Levant Neolithic/Anatolian Neolithic populations on the other, resulting in the Levant BA and Anatolia BA, but they're not the same as modern Turks and Levantines, and north Caucasians have extra Steppe ancestry compared to EBA populations, so this large Early BA migration from Iran/Caucasus did contribute but not fully forming the cline between north and south.
My hypothesis is that The Middle East cline formed through three waves of migrations:
1- Anatolian and Levantine farmers migrate to the Caucasus and Iran, combining with CHG to form Armenian and Iranian BA populations.
2- these populations then back-migrate to Anatolia and the Levant, forming the Levantine and Anatolian Early BA populations.
3- in the Middle Bronze Age, Armenian Middle/Late BA forms with additional EHG ancestry, hinting that Steppe ancestry arrived at the region, North Caucasians are the closest proxy population, this group then moved everywhere, probably like this:
Anatolia: Anatolia_BA + Armenia_MLBA
Iran: Iran_Chalcholithic + Armenia_MLBA
Levant: Levant_BA + Armenia_MLBA
for Arabia, my hypothesis is a Levant Iron Age migration combining with the ancestral southern population, which is probably Levantine Neolithic but shifted towards the Natufians, I'll call it Arabian Neolithic.
Arabia: Levant_IA + Arabian_Neolithic
Armenia has shifted south again, probably after the Assyrian campaigns to Urartu:
Armenia: Armenia_MLBA + Levant_IA
I'm comfortable with this scheme because it seems to agree with the modern populations positions on the PCA compared to their previous state, they're all shifted to north Caucasians.
The biggest hole in all of this is Mesopotamia, but it should be intermediate between the Levant and Iran, this northern migration may have reached Mesopotamia and had a role in forming the new Kassite Babylonian empire.
I have some theories for linguistic association for all of these movements but in another post.
The European cline formed as a mixture of Steppe BA populations and European Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic populations, did the Middle Eastern cline form similarly as a mixture of two populations to varying degrees? if so then what are they?
The first fact is that it is a north-south cline, the northernmost populations are north Caucasians (Adygei, Balkar, Chechen, Georgian Ossetian, Lezgin, Kumyk, Abkhasian), while the southernmost seem to be Bedouins and Arabians.
If we take Europeans as an analogy, the southernmost and northernmost populations are a proxy for the two founder populations, is it the same in the Middle East?
Ancient DNA has already documented a mixture between Iran Chalcolithic on the one hand and Levant Neolithic/Anatolian Neolithic populations on the other, resulting in the Levant BA and Anatolia BA, but they're not the same as modern Turks and Levantines, and north Caucasians have extra Steppe ancestry compared to EBA populations, so this large Early BA migration from Iran/Caucasus did contribute but not fully forming the cline between north and south.
My hypothesis is that The Middle East cline formed through three waves of migrations:
1- Anatolian and Levantine farmers migrate to the Caucasus and Iran, combining with CHG to form Armenian and Iranian BA populations.
2- these populations then back-migrate to Anatolia and the Levant, forming the Levantine and Anatolian Early BA populations.
3- in the Middle Bronze Age, Armenian Middle/Late BA forms with additional EHG ancestry, hinting that Steppe ancestry arrived at the region, North Caucasians are the closest proxy population, this group then moved everywhere, probably like this:
Anatolia: Anatolia_BA + Armenia_MLBA
Iran: Iran_Chalcholithic + Armenia_MLBA
Levant: Levant_BA + Armenia_MLBA
for Arabia, my hypothesis is a Levant Iron Age migration combining with the ancestral southern population, which is probably Levantine Neolithic but shifted towards the Natufians, I'll call it Arabian Neolithic.
Arabia: Levant_IA + Arabian_Neolithic
Armenia has shifted south again, probably after the Assyrian campaigns to Urartu:
Armenia: Armenia_MLBA + Levant_IA
I'm comfortable with this scheme because it seems to agree with the modern populations positions on the PCA compared to their previous state, they're all shifted to north Caucasians.
The biggest hole in all of this is Mesopotamia, but it should be intermediate between the Levant and Iran, this northern migration may have reached Mesopotamia and had a role in forming the new Kassite Babylonian empire.
I have some theories for linguistic association for all of these movements but in another post.