By sequencing 727 ancient individuals from the Southern Arc (Anatolia and its neighbors in Southeastern Europe and West Asia) over 10,000 years, we contextualize its Chalcolithic period and Bronze Age (about 5000 to 1000 BCE), when extensive gene flow entangled it with the Eurasian steppe. Two streams of migration transmitted Caucasus and Anatolian/Levantine ancestry northward, and the Yamnaya pastoralists, formed on the steppe, then spread southward into the Balkans and across the Caucasus into Armenia, where they left numerous patrilineal descendants. Anatolia was transformed by intra–West Asian gene flow, with negligible impact of the later Yamnaya migrations. This contrasts with all other regions where Indo-European languages were spoken, suggesting that the homeland of the Indo-Anatolian language family was in West Asia, with only secondary dispersals of non-Anatolian Indo-Europeans from the steppe. Description Connecting genes and history Stories about the peopling—and people—of Southern Europe and West Asia have been passed down for thousands of years, and these stories have contributed to our historical understanding of populations. Genomic data provide the opportunity to truly understand these patterns independently from written history. In a trio of papers, Lazaridis et al. examined more than 700 ancient genomes from across this region, the Southern Arc, spanning 11,000 years, from the earliest farming cultures to post-Medieval times (see the Perspective by Arbuckle and Schwandt). On the basis of these results, the authors suggest that earlier reliance on modern phenotypes and ancient writings and artistic depictions provided an inaccurate picture of early Indo-Europeans, and they provide a revised history of the complex migrations and population integrations that shaped these cultures. —SNV A web of migrations between Anatolia, its neighbors, and the Steppe suggests a West Asian origin of Indo-Anatolian languages. INTRODUCTION For thousands of years, humans moved across the “Southern Arc,” the area bridging Europe through Anatolia with West Asia. We report ancient DNA data from 727 individuals of this region over the past 11,000 years, which we co-analyzed with the published archaeogenetic record to understand the origins of its people. We focused on the Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages about 7000 to 3000 years ago, when Indo-European language speakers first appeared. RATIONALE Genetic data are relevant for understanding linguistic evolution because they can identify movement-driven opportunities for language spread. We investigated how the changing ancestral landscape of the Southern Arc, as reflected in DNA, corresponds to the structure inferred by linguistics, which links Anatolian (e.g., Hittite and Luwian) and Indo-European (e.g., Greek, Armenian, Latin, and Sanskrit) languages as twin daughters of a Proto-Indo-Anatolian language. RESULTS Steppe pastoralists of the Yamnaya culture initiated a chain of migrations linking Europe in the west to China and India in the East. Some people across the Balkans (about 5000 to 4500 years ago) traced almost all their genes to this expansion. Steppe migrants soon admixed with locals, creating a tapestry of diverse ancestry from which speakers of the Greek, Paleo-Balkan, and Albanian languages arose. The Yamnaya expansion also crossed the Caucasus, and by about 4000 years ago, Armenia had become an enclave of low but pervasive steppe ancestry in West Asia, where the patrilineal descendants of Yamnaya men, virtually extinct on the steppe, persisted. The Armenian language was born there, related to Indo-European languages of Europe such as Greek by their shared Yamnaya heritage. Neolithic Anatolians (in modern Turkey) were descended from both local hunter-gatherers and Eastern populations of the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, and the Levant. By about 6500 years ago and thereafter, Anatolians became more genetically homogeneous, a process driven by the flow of Eastern ancestry across the peninsula. Earlier forms of Anatolian and non–Indo-European languages such as Hattic and Hurrian were likely spoken by migrants and locals participating in this great mixture. Anatolia is remarkable for its lack of steppe ancestry down to the Bronze Age. The ancestry of the Yamnaya was, by contrast, only partly local; half of it was West Asian, from both the Caucasus and the more southern Anatolian-Levantine continuum. Migration into the steppe started by about 7000 years ago, making the later expansion of the Yamnaya into the Caucasus a return to the homeland of about half their ancestors. CONCLUSION All ancient Indo-European speakers can be traced back to the Yamnaya culture, whose southward expansions into the Southern Arc left a trace in the DNA of the Bronze Age people of the region. However, the link connecting the Proto-Indo-European–speaking Yamnaya with the speakers of Anatolian languages was in the highlands of West Asia, the ancestral region shared by both. Many partings, many meetings: How migration and admixture drove early language spread. Westward and northward migrations out of the West Asian highlands split the Proto-Indo-Anatolian language into Anatolian and Indo-European branches. Yamnaya pastoralists, formed on the steppe by a fusion of newcomers and locals, admixed again as they expanded far and wide, splitting the Proto-Indo-European language into its daughter languages across Eurasia. Border colors represent the ancestry and locations of five source populations before the migrations (arrows) and mixture (pie charts) documented here.

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The genetic history of the Southern Arc: A bridge between West Asia and Europe

The purpose of this paper was to present a case of type III dens invaginatus, identified on the maxillary right second premolar. To date there have been no reports about dens invaginatus in ancient teeth from Armenia. This skull was unearthed from Quchak site (Aparan region) in Armenia. Based on archaeological findings, most of the graves of Quchak were dated to the Late Bronze Age.

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Radicular dens invaginatus in Late Bronze Age in Armenia

During recent excavations in Aragatsavan (Armenia), a fairly complete skeleton of a individual unearthed. The individual was identified as adolescent male with mesocrany skull form, and an estimated stature of 159 cm. Unintentional tumpline and cradle deformations were found in individual. Skull bones exhibited signs of healed trauma, small blunt force lesions on the frontal and parietal bones. The goal of this study was to detect Mycobacterium leprae (M. leprae) in archaeological human skeletal remain. Resorption of the alveolar bone in the anterior maxilla was in individual with lepromatous leprosy in Aragatsavan. The skull also showed the premature closure of the sagittal suture. This individual experienced multiple bouts of starvation or malnutrition due to serious disease (lines enamel hypoplasia). The analysis also revealed bowing of the hips, osteoarthritis and periostitis. These data are interpreted to mean that resorption of bone inferior (alveolar bone) and other paleopathologies appears in individual occur independently.

Resorption of the alveolar region in Facies leprosy: a paleoanthropological and paleopathological analysis (Aragatsavan, Armenia): Resorption of the alveolar region in Facies leprosy

Article is devoted to studying of bone remains from antique burial grounds from the territory of the Armenian Highland. Anthropological materials of burials consist of 322 skeletons and dated I–III c. AD. The article analyzes the differences in anthropological characteristics of urban and rural population of Armenia of Antiquity period. The work is based on classical craniometric and statistical research methods. Artificial cranial deformationare and unintended deformation of a cradle-type found among urban and rural populations. As an intragroup analysis showed, the main differences between male urban and rural population across the size of the width of the frontal bone and face. If the villagers face orthognatic, angle of horizontal profiling at the top level enters the category of averages, in urban women face mezognatik, the angle of horizontal profiling is characterized by small values. Intergroup analysis showed, closest to urban male groups it turned out the tribes of Chernyakhov culture and the population of the Middle East. A male part of the villagers shows intimacy with Scythians of Crimea, Ukraine and Transnistria. The female part of the towns’ people is close with the Scythians of Ukraine and Crim; villagers are morphologically similar to the carriers of the Middle Sarmatian cultures of the Don region, with a population of the first centuries AD from Tanais, European and Asian Bosporus. Morphological analogies with the population of Northern Turkmenistan (Tumek-Kichidzhik), Western Ukraine (Chernyakhov culture), Middle Dnieper and Moldova (Scythians) were also revealed. This circumstance confirms the fact of sustainable, constant migration flow to the territory of the Armenian Highlands.

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Population of the Armenian Higlands in the age of Antiquity (according of anthropological materials of urban and rural settlements)

Bioarcheology of bone remains from the 7th century bcburials found in the nor armavir burial ground (armenia)

Cultural practices resulting in lasting modifications of the body can be a productive focus of investigation. Artificial cranial modification involves the alteration of cranial vault shape by cultural means, and is performed during infancy or early childhood while the cranial bones remain malleable. Our results indicate that tumpline deformation and cradle deformation should be added to the suite of cranial deformations that were detected in Armenia. It has been determined that the occipital modification is most likely unintentional. Post-coronal depression also appears to be unintentional. Cradle deformation is heavily influenced by infant sleep position, and constant supine positioning is a frequent cause of deformation during infancy. In the Armenian burials 32 skulls showing signs of cradle deformation are identified. Post-coronal depression, positioned on both parietals and slightly posterior to the coronal suture, was detected on 44 of the skulls. The deformation was a correlate of economic activities of the population and was an inadvertent consequence of carrying loads with a band across the parietal bones. In 12 cases a combination of the two types of deformation (tumpline and cradle), is observed. The only modification that has been classified as intentional is one case of parieto-temporal modification.

Key words: Armenia, Bronze Age, Iron Age, post-coronal depression, cradle deformation, parieto-temporal modification

Anahit Yu. Khudaverdyan

Papers

Artificial Deformation of Skulls from Bronze Age and Iron Age Armenia