Bronze age Trialeti Culture in Transcaucasia

Bicicleur

There is no consensus about Greek Armenian clade. For example Clackson made a case that there is no such a clade while Ringe thinks there is.
But if such a link exists then the reason why such a clade exists is because E V13 was indo europeanised by Z2103. The Balkanic branch of Z2103.

If it was indo europeanised by R1a then You will see Greeko Aryan clade or Greeko Balto Slavic clade.

There is Greaco-Aryan clade but also known under the name Graeco-Armeno-Aryan.I agree that Armenian did not came from the Balkans,moreover I think that proto Greeks too arrived from that territory somewhere.
 
If the Tarim mummies are really Tocharians which most probably they are,the haplogroup they belong to is R1a,then the label of certain haplogroups or clades of R1a as satem or Easterners(Indo Iranians,Balto-Slavs etc) or R1b as centum doesn't make sense, rather the time of their separation.In my opinion the Tocharians,Hittites(perhaps) and Italo Celts will be the first to separate.Then we have satem innovation which will affect almost all of other daughter languages Indo Iranian,Balto Slavic,Armenian,Albanian,Thracian,Dacian partly Greek with exception of Germanic.Despite this division of Centum/Satem some languages seem to be more close related to each other whether is geographic proximity or shared history, for example in my opinion Germanic(centum) is more closely related to Balto Slavic than to Greek (centum) or the Greek (centum) more closely related to Indo-Aryan and Armenian(satem) than to Italo Celtic or Germanic(centum).
 
Last edited:
If the Tarim mummies are really Tocharians which most probably they are haplogroup they belong to is R1a,then the label of certain haplogroups or clades of R1a as satem or Easterners(Indo Iranians,Balto-Slavs etc) or R1b centum doesn't make sense, rather the time of their separation.In my opinion the Tocharians,Hittites(perhaps) and Italo Celts will be the first to separate.Then we have satem innovation which will affect almost all of other daughter languages Indo Iranian,Balto Slavic,Armenian,Albanian,Thracian,Dacian partly Greek with exception of Germanic.Despite this division of Centum/Satem some languages seem to be more close related to each other whether is geographic proximity or shared history, for example in my opinion Germanic(centum) is more closely related to Balto Slavic than to Greek (centum).Or the Greek (centum) more closely related to Indo-Aryan and Armenian(satem) than to Italo Celtic or Germanic(centum).

AFAIK the Tarim mummies are R1a1a-M198xM417
there is no proof they are Tocharian, neither Afanasievo
but it is possible, of course
 
AFAIK the Tarim mummies are R1a1a-M198xM417
there is no proof they are Tocharian, neither Afanasievo
but it is possible, of course
I agree except if they can test Tocharian speakers we can throw away any doubt,anyway there in Tarim basin where we should find Indo Iranian if any IE speakers we have centum language and not related to Indo Iranians,if they aren't some wandering Celts which is doubtful considering they take this language as archaic,but anything is possible, anyway for now I'm inclined to think Tarim mummies are Tocharians.
 
The Tarim mummies are negative for Z93. They haven't been tested for M417.
 
Swords were invented on the steppe in western Ukraine 100 years before arrival of Myceneans.
Before arrival of Myceneans only western steppe and the Carpathian basin had swords.

The first rather short 'sword' is from the Transcaucasus. The first unambiguous swords appear in Anatolia (Alaca Höyük) and spread into the Caucasus, the Levant and the Aegean with quite some delay.

Afaik Ukraine and the western steppe never hosted particularly advanced metallurgy.

The chariot, too, likely spread into Europe from Anatolia. Littauer & Crouwel have published a very technical analysis of the first Mycenean chariots, which is a bit over my head to be frank. Drews summarizes the evidence in his The Coming of the Greeks (p. 173):

Most important of all is the fact (long acknowledged by specialists) that the chariots of Late Helladic Greece are in all essentials parallel to those of the Near East. Wiesner's thesis—that Indo-Europeans from the north brought the chariot simultaneously to Greece and to the Near East early in the sixteenth century—has been rendered untenable by the evidence that the horse-drawn chariot was known in the Near East well before that time. As both Schachermeyr and Crouwel have plainly said, the chariots used by the firstshaft-grave princes came to Greece from the east.
 
If the Tarim mummies are really Tocharians which most probably they are,the haplogroup they belong to is R1a,then the label of certain haplogroups or clades of R1a as satem or Easterners(Indo Iranians,Balto-Slavs etc) or R1b as centum doesn't make sense, rather the time of their separation.In my opinion the Tocharians,Hittites(perhaps) and Italo Celts will be the first to separate.Then we have satem innovation which will affect almost all of other daughter languages Indo Iranian,Balto Slavic,Armenian,Albanian,Thracian,Dacian partly Greek with exception of Germanic.Despite this division of Centum/Satem some languages seem to be more close related to each other whether is geographic proximity or shared history, for example in my opinion Germanic(centum) is more closely related to Balto Slavic than to Greek (centum) or the Greek (centum) more closely related to Indo-Aryan and Armenian(satem) than to Italo Celtic or Germanic(centum).

Armenians are satem speakers with predominantly R1b, I don't see why there can't also be a centum speaking group with R1a.
 
The Tarim mummies are negative for Z93. They haven't been tested for M417.

are they found with negative Z93 or is it that Z93 was not present in these mummies?
 
The first rather short 'sword' is from the Transcaucasus. The first unambiguous swords appear in Anatolia (Alaca Höyük) and spread into the Caucasus, the Levant and the Aegean with quite some delay.

Afaik Ukraine and the western steppe never hosted particularly advanced metallurgy.

The chariot, too, likely spread into Europe from Anatolia. Littauer & Crouwel have published a very technical analysis of the first Mycenean chariots, which is a bit over my head to be frank. Drews summarizes the evidence in his The Coming of the Greeks (p. 173):

swords are long daggers
around 1700 BC technology appeared to make bronze swords of over 1 meter long
Bronze Age swords appear from around the 17th century BC, in the Black Sea region and the Aegean, as a further development of the dagger.
when did those swords appear in Alaca Hoyük?

where and when did first horse-drawn charriots with spoked wheels appear in Anatolia?
the charriot was not of practical use for the Myceneans, it was more a ceremonial status symbol

The Coming of the Greeks is dated 1988.
Barry Cunliffe certainly knew about this, but in 'Europe between the Oceans', 2008 page 222-223 he favours the Ural-Volga steppe-forest area for earliest known charriots with an early introduction into the Carpathian Basin.
 
swords are long daggers
around 1700 BC technology appeared to make bronze swords of over 1 meter long
Bronze Age swords appear from around the 17th century BC, in the Black Sea region and the Aegean, as a further development of the dagger.
when did those swords appear in Alaca Hoyük?

where and when did first horse-drawn charriots with spoked wheels appear in Anatolia?
the charriot was not of practical use for the Myceneans, it was more a ceremonial status symbol

The Coming of the Greeks is dated 1988.
Barry Cunliffe certainly knew about this, but in 'Europe between the Oceans', 2008 page 222-223 he favours the Ural-Volga steppe-forest area for earliest known charriots with an early introduction into the Carpathian Basin.

According to Ziad Sherazadishvilli the first long sword appears 2,500 B.C. at aforementioned Alaca Höyük. This is after centuries of local experimentation with long daggers, early rapiers and such. The article can be found in the International Symposium on Anatolia-South Caucasus Cultures: Proceedings I.

The spoked is first attested in Anatolia in Kültepe Karum II level in a cylinder seal. The first three-dimensional spoked wheels on a metal toy are found at the Burnt Palace of Acemhöyük dated to the 19th-18th century B.C. . My source is The Earliest Three-Dimensional Evidence for Spoked Wheels ​by Littauer and Crouwel.
 
According to Ziad Sherazadishvilli the first long sword appears 2,500 B.C. at aforementioned Alaca Höyük. This is after centuries of local experimentation with long daggers, early rapiers and such. The article can be found in the International Symposium on Anatolia-South Caucasus Cultures: Proceedings I.

The spoked is first attested in Anatolia in Kültepe Karum II level in a cylinder seal. The first three-dimensional spoked wheels on a metal toy are found at the Burnt Palace of Acemhöyük dated to the 19th-18th century B.C. . My source is The Earliest Three-Dimensional Evidence for Spoked Wheels ​by Littauer and Crouwel.

Swords in Alaca Hoyuk 800 years before they appeared elsewhere, if this is true, it is quite remarkable and we should hear more about this the coming years.

I don't know about the chariots.
Fact is that the Mitanni ca 1500 BC became a military force who got the upperhand over both the Hittites and the Egyptians due to their horse-drawn chariots.
They must have had better chariots or more likely better trained horses. And the horse-trainers they were speaking an Indic language, Sintashta-derived.
The Hittites, and probably also the Egyptians invited Mitanni horse-trainers to their courts in order to fill the technological gap.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kikkuli
 
the first swords with meaning of sword were made by Minoans

although at Arslan tepe known as Melite Malateia Malatya around 3000 BC
they found shorter bars that might be swords.
 
I wanted to share this with you, since it's relevant to the topic of this thread.

https://www.academia.edu/25264019/Royal_tombs_with_horse_sacrifices_in_Nerkin_Naver_Armenia_middle_bronze_age_

Interesting is they found pots with depictions of six wheels, which most probably denoted three chariots linked together.

19-784f882492.jpg
 
Last edited:
Here are genomes of BA people from Armenia area. We can see steady rise of NE Euro and American admixtures during Bronze Age, which indicates arrival of Steppe people, most likely IEs. Judging quickly by numbers up to half of population came from Steppe/Yamnaya like.
The last dude is modern Armenian, and it is so much different from most BA guys. Modern Armenians look more like the first guy from EBA, before Steppe invasion. It seems that BA Steppe invaders left Armenia, and population has rebuilt from original local enclaves.
M536324I1658M182163I1656M930063RISE423M691697RISE407Modern
Armenia EBAArmenia MLBAArmenia MBAArmenia LBAArmenian
Run time8.22Run time8.42Run time6.24Run time3.92Run time
S-Indian0.27S-Indian-S-Indian-S-Indian-S-Indian1
Baloch25.53Baloch26.71Baloch23.13Baloch28.22Baloch18
Caucasian56.75Caucasian42.8Caucasian38.66Caucasian30.75Caucasian57
NE-Euro4.79NE-Euro16.99NE-Euro18.57NE-Euro24.77NE-Euro3
SE-Asian-SE-Asian-SE-Asian-SE-Asian-SE-Asian-
Siberian-Siberian-Siberian0.54Siberian-Siberian-
NE-Asian-NE-Asian-NE-Asian-NE-Asian-NE-Asian-
Papuan-Papuan-Papuan0.92Papuan-Papuan-
American-American0.12American1.3American1.54American
Beringian-Beringian-Beringian0.59Beringian-Beringian-
Mediterranean5.88Mediterranean9.14Mediterranean9.34Mediterranean6.98Mediterranean8
SW-Asian6.45SW-Asian4.23SW-Asian4.94SW-Asian6.38SW-Asian13
San-San-San-San-San-
E-African-E-African-E-African-E-African-E-African-
Pygmy-Pygmy-Pygmy-Pygmy-Pygmy-
W-African0.33W-African-W-African1.99W-African1.36W-African
Their genetics (Middle BA Armenia) are interesting:
1 Caucasian 30.35
2 Baloch 28.51
3 NE-Euro 20.9
4 SW-Asian 7
5 American 6.49
6 W-African 3.48
7 San 3.27

another result:

1 Caucasian 38.66
2 Baloch 23.13
3 NE-Euro 18.57
4 Mediterranean 9.34
5 SW-Asian 4.94
6 W-African 1.99
7 American 1.3
8 Papuan 0.92
9 Beringian 0.59
10 Siberian 0.54

Both have African admixture, the source of this I believe is Northern Europe, since NE Euro and Mediterranean also increased.

The Dodecad K12 calculator revealed a considerable amount of African admixture, which came as a big surprise since no African admixture is found in Scandinavia today. The two Funnelbeaker samples from Sweden tested below, display about 6% and 11% of African admixture respectively. How it got there is still a matter for debate, but the most likely explanation is that it came with Megalithic people from Iberia, who in turn inherited North African admixture from South Levantine Neolithic farmers who reached Iberia via North Africa. Remnants of this African DNA were found in every prehistoric sample in Scandinavia from the Chalcolithic until the Late Iron Age, as well as among the Anglo-Saxons

I find this interesting because it might explain how my haplgroup I2c2 (Mesolithic Sweden), A1b1, C-V20, H2 reached Armenia
https://www.familytreedna.com/public/ArmeniaDNAProject?iframe=yresults
 
Here are genomes of BA people from Armenia area. We can see steady rise of NE Euro and American admixtures during Bronze Age, which indicates arrival of Steppe people, most likely IEs. Judging quickly by numbers up to half of population came from Steppe/Yamnaya like.
The last dude is modern Armenian, and it is so much different from most BA guys. Modern Armenians look more like the first guy from EBA, before Steppe invasion. It seems that BA Steppe invaders left Armenia, and population has rebuilt from original local enclaves.


M536324I1658M182163I1656M930063RISE423M691697RISE407Modern
Armenia EBAArmenia MLBAArmenia MBAArmenia LBAArmenian
Run time8.22Run time8.42Run time6.24Run time3.92Run time
S-Indian0.27S-Indian-S-Indian-S-Indian-S-Indian1
Baloch25.53Baloch26.71Baloch23.13Baloch28.22Baloch18
Caucasian56.75Caucasian42.8Caucasian38.66Caucasian30.75Caucasian57
NE-Euro4.79NE-Euro16.99NE-Euro18.57NE-Euro24.77NE-Euro3
SE-Asian-SE-Asian-SE-Asian-SE-Asian-SE-Asian-
Siberian-Siberian-Siberian0.54Siberian-Siberian-
NE-Asian-NE-Asian-NE-Asian-NE-Asian-NE-Asian-
Papuan-Papuan-Papuan0.92Papuan-Papuan-
American-American0.12American1.3American1.54American
Beringian-Beringian-Beringian0.59Beringian-Beringian-
Mediterranean5.88Mediterranean9.14Mediterranean9.34Mediterranean6.98Mediterranean8
SW-Asian6.45SW-Asian4.23SW-Asian4.94SW-Asian6.38SW-Asian13
San-San-San-San-San-
E-African-E-African-E-African-E-African-E-African-
Pygmy-Pygmy-Pygmy-Pygmy-Pygmy-
W-African0.33W-African-W-African1.99W-African1.36W-African

I know that I'm a bit late to the party, maybe we can resume it?

Could the MLBA/MBA Steppe-derived "Armenians" actually be Indo-Iranians and not Armenian speakers? For example, the Mitanni ruling class?
 
Arame, do you still get on here ever? Any updates about the Trialeti genetic samples?
 
The Oxus civilisation is thought to have been Proto-Indo-Iranian and predominantly R1a-Z93. However R1b tribes did live in Central Asia before that, at least since Afanasievo. Nowadays R1b is more common in Turkmenistan than anywhere else in Central Asia, while R1a is higher around Kyrgyzstan. Yet the Oxus civilisation ranged from Turkmenistan to Kyrgyzstan via Tajikistan, so it's not clear if R1a tribes founded that culture in an area where R1b was already present, or if they came together. What we do know is that the Proto-Indo-Iranians continued west to Iran, Armenia and northern Mesopotamia, where they appear as the Mitanni from 1500 BCE.

It has also been suggested that the Gutians, who lived in the Zagros around 2200 BCE and were described as fair-skinned and blond, were of Indo-European stock. Even their name reminds of that of other ancient IE people like the Goths (aka Gauts or Gut-þiuda) and the Gauls/Gaels/Celts. Since the Indo-Iranian called themselves Aryans and came to the Middle East with chariot-riders from 1500 BCE, the Gutians might have been an earlier R1b tribe that had migrated to the Zagros from Turkmenistan. If they belonged to R1b-L584, they might have been the ancestors of modern Armenians.

The Gutians eventually conquered Sumer and ruled over Mesopotamia for a bit less than a century. They may also be responsible for the relatively high frequency of R1b in central-northern Iraq and in Kermanshah (west-central Iran), where R1b reaches 15-20% of the population, the highest in the Middle East after Armenia.
Gutian sounds like Gudian which in Kartvelian folklore are ugly men that kidnap children. Mothers scare their kids with Gudians in order to make them behave.

how it relates to Armenian tribes ( Hayassa, Mushki, Urumu/Arme )
Wow I didn't realize how many Armenians push this "Mushki-Armenian" hypothesis. They were Proto-Kartvelian Meskhs that lived in exact place where Meskhetian kingdom sprung up.
 
Wow I didn't realize how many Armenians push this "Mushki-Armenian" hypothesis. They were Proto-Kartvelian Meskhs that lived in exact place where Meskhetian kingdom sprung up.

It wasn't Armenians who came up with the Mushki-Armenian hypothesis, it was Diakonoff, who was a Russian, and I believe it was endorsed by Greppin, who was an American.

That being said, there is no consensus as to what the Mushki were, or even if they were a single people. They may have been Kartvelian (at least partially) but all that is really known about them is that they were conflated with the Phrygians (who were indeed Indo-Europeans), they settled in Cappadocia, and the one or two Mushki names that we have (Mita and possibly Kurti/Kurtis) are Indo-European.

And obviously Meshkhet is in modern Georgia, but that doesn't do much to help us. We know that there were Indo-Europeans there too (which doesn't negate Kartvelians being there).

There's even a theory (I believe suggested by a Georgian researcher...maybe Meilikshivili, I cannot remember for sure) that the word Somxeti is related to the "Mushki."
 

This thread has been viewed 21903 times.

Back
Top