Lecture on the Armenian DNA – Library Of Congress

Library Of Congress has recently hosted a great lecture on the Armenian DNA titled: “DNA & the Origins of Peoples: The Armenians”. The lecture was given by two speakers: Hovann Simonian and Peter Hrechdakian. Bellow I have compiled a summery of the highlights with screenshots from the power-point presentation.

The first speaker is Peter Hrechdakian who explains the following:

• Armenians didn’t mix much with other populations ever since the formation of the Armenian ethnos. Peter says:

“One of the reasons why Armenians are interesting to study, is that they didn’t really mix too much with other people once they became Armenian.”

• Armenian DNA is closely related to Anatolian Turks (especially from Eastern Turkey, where the people seem to be acculturated Armenians). Assyrians too seem to be very closely related to Armenians (Assyrian empire assimilated many Urartians/Araratians after they conquered parts of it).

•  The most prevalent haplotype among Armenians is the R1b marker which spread during the Neolithic Revolution from the Armenian Plateau into Europe about 3000 years ago. So the Western European populations which are also predominantly R1b appear to be recent arrivals. This is confirmed by genetic analysis. See the following map:

“All of the Armenian R1b DNA belongs to the ancient branches of the R1b tree, while all the European traces belong to the younger branches.”

• Armenians are a mix of different local tribes who originated about 15, 20 and 30 thousand years ago and coalesced becoming the Armenians and devised the Armenian language at one point in time and have maintained their Armenianness ever since.

• Within Armenian DNA you find often many variants of a single genetic marker. These variants indicate a genetic spread from the Armenian Highlands into Europe. As we can see in the chart below most of the world’s DNA seems more isolated, it is predominantly the Armenian Plateau that exhibits a rainbow of genetic materials. The greater diversity points towards a more distant past as the marker had a longer time to mutate and branch out.

• Armenians are overwhelmingly an autochtonous (native) people to the region of their habitation.  80 to 85% of the Armenian DNA has originated in the Armenian Plateau where Armenians are still living today.

“When you separate what is autochthonous and what is not, you realize that 80 to 85% of the branches to which Armenians belong came into existence in the area in which we (the Armenians) live (today). So for me it is relatively clear evidence that we are mainly an autochthonous population. That only few Armenians came from elsewhere.”

• Many ancient groups radiated from the Armenian plateau and the surrounding regions. The study of the Armenian DNA is therefore very interesting to other people as well.

“Because of a lot of European, central Asian, and southeast Asian groups radiated from this area. The study of the Armenian DNA is very interesting to people who study other groups, because to them we (Armenians) are like an image of what the DNA groups were before they started spreading out.”

• Armenians have seldom mixed with other (often invading) populations ever since they became Armenians.

“When you look at Armenians living now to see if there is evidence of Arab invasion, Turkish invasions, Mongol invasions, you rarely find any trace of this in Armenian DNA.”

• Armenians belong to one of the haplogroups that is clearly associated with the people who have invented agriculture, who laid out the first cities, who invented the first alphabet, and then spread out with their inventions in Europe.

• Haplogroup G which is associated with the spread of agriculture can be found in a high concentration within Georgians, but the haplogroup G versions within Armenians is much older than that of Georgians. There fore it is likely that Haplogroup G originated within Armenians.

“When you study the origin of G, you see that it started in the Armenian Highlands, and that the Georgian version of G is a newer one and is much more concentrated than what you find in the Armenian population”

“So here again is proof to a certain extent, that some of the important European, West Asian groups saw their begging in the region from where Armenians come from.”

• The “Out of Balkans” theory is highly unlikely. The R1a distribution which is typical to the Balkans and Indo-Iranians is very minor within Armenians.

“R1a is another interesting group, a minor group in Armenians, which is divided into Indo-Iranian speakers and Slavic Speakers. And initially I thought that many Armenians would belong to this if it was true that we came from the Balkans initially. But it’s a very minor percentage of Armenians who belong to this group. And we initially didn’t know to which part these few Armenians that belong to R1a, belong to. But thanks to genetic studies of mutations we were able to divide the Armenians.  Two thirds of the Armenian R1a’s are clearly of Indo-Iranian background, perhaps descendants of Iranians who lived in the region or older than that, and one third of them come from the pre-Slavic branch.”

The second speaker Hovann Simonian traces genetic affinity of different people to the Armenian house of Khachen titled:

DNA as Pebbles on the Genealogical Path: From the House of Khachen to Eastern Europe

• Many Georgian princely families are of Armenian ancestry.

“Up to one third of Georgian nobility were of Armenian extraction”

• The Ossetian ‘Tagaour’ clan is an elite family in Ossetia that claims to be descendants of a Royal Armenian prince who took refuge among the Alans during middle ages. DNA testing confirms these relations. The first cousin of the president of North Ossetia was among those tested and found to be related to Hassan Yalalian of the House of Khachen. The head of the Republic of North Ossetia Taymuraz Mamsurov himself is of the Tagaour clan. Tagaour also appears to be of Armenian etymology. “Tagaour” derived from the Armenian “Tagavor” which means “The king/Royalty”. A reference to their royal background.

• The Georgian Bagrationi family is of Armenian origin deriving from Bagratuni.

• The Georgian Tsitsishvili princes (originally known as Panaskerteli from the Armenian settlement Panaskert) are of Armenian origin. Related to the Bagratids.

• Bagratids are not of Jewish origin as was claimed by Khorenatsi in order to connect the house of Bagratuni with the line of David from the bible.