YEREVAN (Realist English). In an interview with Realist English, renowned Armenian geneticist Levon Yepiskoposyan, head of the Laboratory of Evolutionary Genomics at the Institute of Molecular Biology of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, answered a question about the timing and scale of the Turkic genetic trace in the Armenian Highlands.
“The invasion of Turkic tribes began roughly from the 10th–11th centuries,” the scientist explained. “Isolated, sporadic raids earlier left no trace, even in records. In the Armenian Highlands and Western Asia, Turkic tribes appeared in waves over four to five centuries. These waves were not very massive, because the region experienced a demographic boom in the Bronze Age. The newcomers from Central Asia, in a genetic sense, dissolved.”
Different figures for different countries.
According to data from the international company Ancestry, which has tens of thousands of samples, the percentage of Turkic genetic elements in the gene pool of Turkey’s population is 4–5%. These data, which appeared two or three years ago, puzzled even the Turks themselves. In Armenia, according to Yepiskoposyan’s laboratory (hundreds of samples, thousands for Y-chromosome), the presence of Turkic-speaking signals in the gene pool is 0.5%.
There is also no genetic trace of Turkic-speaking tribes in the Georgian population.
In Iran (except for the northern part, where there is a Turkic belt) — also 4–5%. However, as the scientist noted, one of his graduate students from Iranian Azerbaijan investigated this issue: in northern Iran (South Azerbaijan) the figure reaches about 12%. “Compare: 12% in South Azerbaijan, 4–5% in Turkey and 0.5% in us,” Yepiskoposyan emphasized. “This indicates barriers and a striking rejection of influence.”
Continuity of the gene pool and ancient migration.
The scientist added that Armenians can be proud of 8,000 years of continuity of the maternal gene pool and 6,000 years of the paternal gene pool. Beginning approximately from the Bronze Age, a large mass of population flowed into the Armenian Highlands from the Middle East — possibly due to a major earthquake in the area of present-day Israel and Lebanon (4th–3rd millennium BCE). This influence accounted for about 45% in the western part of the highlands and below 30% in the eastern part.
“After the Bronze Age — the last three and a half thousand years — there has been no foreign influence on our gene pool,” Yepiskoposyan concluded. “We have a genetically isolated Armenian population.”
A large-scale whole-genome study conducted in 2024 by an international team of scientists, including Armenian specialists led by L. Yepiskoposyan, disproved the hypothesis of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus about the origin of the ancestors of Armenians from the Balkan Peninsula. The scientists found no convincing signals of a “Balkan genetic substrate” in the Armenian genome. On the contrary, the study confirmed that populations genetically close to modern Armenians have lived in the region at least since the Bronze Age, and a significant part of their ancestors inhabited the Armenian Highlands as early as the Neolithic era (about 10,000 years ago).
Comparative analysis of complete genomes of modern DNA samples conducted by scientists at the Institute of Molecular Biology of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia showed that the Armenian gene pool has a continuous history of more than 8,000 years. Over several millennia, the Armenian gene pool has demonstrated a high level of stability, distinguishing it even from the population of Sardinia, which was considered a classic Neolithic genetic isolate.
Armenians from different parts of the Armenian Highlands show high genetic homogeneity. Beginning from the Bronze Age and over the last 3–4 thousand years, the Armenian population has been reproductively isolated. This has led to the formation of unique genetic variations characteristic specifically of Armenians.
