Dispersals of the Aryans into the Iranian Plateau in the Light of New Genetic Discoveries, Case Study: Gohar Teppe Iron Age Cemetery, Behshahr, IRAN.

Vahdatinasab, Hamed; Anvari, Zohreh; Ghamari Fatideh, Mohammad; Sheykholeslami, Amirsaman; Akbari, Mohammad Taghi; Lesani, Naghmeh

doi:10.22059/ijar.2017.65922

Dispersals of the Aryans into the Iranian Plateau in the Light of New Genetic Discoveries, Case Study: Gohar Teppe Iron Age Cemetery, Behshahr, IRAN.

Authors

Hamed Vahdatinasab ¹

Zohreh Anvari ²

Mohammad Ghamari Fatideh ³

Amirsaman Sheykholeslami ⁴

Mohammad Taghi Akbari ⁵

Naghmeh Lesani ⁶

¹ Associate Professor of Archaeology, Tarbiat Modares University

² Assistant professor of Anthropology Department, University of Tehran

³ Assistant Professor of Archaeology, University of Mazandaran

⁴ PhD Candidate, Department of Archaeology, Tarbiat Modares University

⁵ Associate Professor of Medical Genetics, Tarbiat Modares University

⁶ Expert of the Laboratory of Genetic Medicine

10.22059/ijar.2017.65922

Abstract

The issue of Aryan dispersals was first recognized through the linguistic research, subsequently, both Archaeology and Anthropology were involved although compared to them it seems Linguistics had stronger basis for it. Although none of the mentioned disciplines could have ended the dispute, Population Genetics in general and Archaeogenetic in particular could clarify each discipline’ share and produce some practical results in terms of the structure of the Iranian gene pools and how much of it was under the influence of the Aryan migrants. In this research the results of the DNA extraction form the Iron Age (supposedly right after the immigration of the Aryans into the Iranian Plateau) cemetery of Ghar Teppe in southeastern of the Caspian Sea has presented. Comparisons of the Haplogroups for the Iron Age people of Gohar Teppe (H) with their predecessors and contemporary people at the region combining with review of a DNA research for the Iranian populations all indicate that although the biological impact of the so called Aryans were not very significant on the gene pool of the Iranian populations, their cultural influence (new language, ideology, myth…) was very strong. We propose here that the contemporary Iranian populations are the descendants of long-term in situ evolution since the past 40000 years ago, which were culturally mixed with the Aryan immigrants during the past two-three millenniums creating what today we call it the Iranian culture.

Keywords

Aryans

Indo-Iranian

Iron Age

Haplogroup H

Archaeogenetic

Southeastern of the Caspian Sea