The Lady from Central Asia who was found dead in a Bronze Age Turkish well

 

Site of the Alalakh 'Well Lady'. Courtesy: Skourtanioti et al 2020

The remains of the Alalakh 'Well Lady' were discovered in the archaeological site of Tell Atchana / Alalakh / Alalah, Turkey dating to ~1550BCE. Her aDna was published in 2020 (1) and she was found to be of central Asian origin, far from where she was found. She was found at the bottom of a deep well that was still in use at the time. The individual showed evidence of healed trauma on the skull's frontal bone and two healed fractured ribs, and her manner of death has been suggested as a homicide due to or before being thrown into the well (2). Her teeth also showed clear signs of enamel defects (2), a possible sign of malnutrition during childhood. Her age at death was 40-45 years.

Armenia vs NW Iran - Two different short stories

 The Armenian Data from the new papers

1. Some EHG ancestry from north of caucasus is seen at Areni Cave, 4200BCE.

2. EHG dilutes by the time of Kura Araxes 3600-2000BCE, Arm_EBA (green below).

3. Arm_MBA/LBA/IA cluster clearly shifts towards steppe, with lots of R1b & I2 Y hg. According to Lazaridis et al, this explains the Armenian language branch. For now I will accept this conclusion as it makes sense, and explains the different language of NW Iran.

4. Post IA, intense mixing with more southwestern populations (but not NW Iran) so much so that all steppe autosomal ancestry gets diluted.

PCA - Ancient & Modern Armenia

Marija Gimbutas's Kurgan Hypothesis rejected by Harvard

 

The Genetic History of the Southern Arc: A Bridge between West Asia & Europe

Below are some excerpts from the notes of a talk which will be delivered by Dr David Reich at an Israeli university in July 2022.

Our comprehensive sampling shows that Anatolia received hardly any genetic input from Europe or the Eurasian steppe from the Chalcolithic to the Iron Age; this contrasts with Southeastern Europe and Armenia that were impacted by major gene flow from Yamnaya steppe pastoralists.

The impermeability of Anatolia to exogenous migration contrasts with our finding that the Yamnaya had two distinct gene flows, both from West Asia, suggesting that the Indo-Anatolian language family originated in the eastern wing of the Southern Arc and that the steppe served only as a secondary staging area of Indo-European language dispersal. 

Here, Dr Reich confirms what I have already said before - That the Anatolian branch of the IE language family has its origin in Armenia and has nothing to do with Steppes. I believe this is the first time that Harvard will officially debar Steppefrom being a PIE homeland contender. 

Read my post - The Armenian Origin of the Anatolian branch of IE language family