The debate over the location of the so called Indo-Anatolian homeland won't be decided by the persistence of any type of genetic ancestry in ancient Anatolia.
It'll be decided by a multidisciplinary study on the interactions between the ancient peoples of the North Pontic steppe, the eastern Balkans, and western Anatolia.
If such a study finds a pulse of steppe-related gene flow from the Balkans into Anatolia sometime during the early metal ages, it'll corroborate the linguistic hypothesis that a language ancestral to Hittite, Luwian and related tongues moved into Anatolia from Eastern Europe.
Why do we only need a pulse of gene flow, you might ask? Obviously, because:
- language and genetic ancestry can start with a strong association but, since they're not linked, they can eventually follow very different trajectories
- the dilution of genetic ancestry is an important factor, especially in ancient West Asia, and it must be taken into account in models of language spread, rather than ignored in favor of simple, elegant models that do not reflect reality.
Here's my favorite quote from the recent
Lazaridis, Alpaslan-Roodenberg et al. paper, because, probably unbeknownst to the authors, it's exceptionally revealing about the spread of a wide range of Indo-European speakers into Anatolia.
However, in individuals from Gordion, a Central Anatolian city that was under the control of Hittites before becoming the Phrygian capital and then coming under the control of Persian and Hellenistic rulers, the proportion of Eastern hunter-gatherer ancestry is only ~2%, a tiny fraction for a region controlled by at least four different Indo-European–speaking groups.
Indeed, this is exactly what the Lazaridis, Alpaslan-Roodenberg et al. paper should've been about.
That is, the authors should've given us a painstaking account of the spread of different ancient Indo-European speaking groups into Anatolia and explained how, overall, their DNA was rapidly diluted to a trace amount.
However, instead they treated us to a make-believe tale about a so called Indo-Anatolian homeland in what is now Armenia.
See also...
Dear Iosif...Yamnaya
But Iosif, what about the Phrygians?
Dear Iosif...
Dear Iosif #2
Dear Iosif #3
