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**Mediterranea** · 09-08-2022, 10:14 PM

Human mobility at Tell Atchana (Alalakh), Hatay, Turkey during the 2nd millennium BC: Integration of isotopic and genomic evidence

The Middle and Late Bronze Age, a period roughly spanning the 2^nd millennium BC (ca. 2000–1200 BC) in the Near East, is frequently referred to as the first ‘international age’, characterized by intense and far-reaching contacts between different entities from the eastern Mediterranean to the Near East and beyond. In a large-scale tandem study of stable isotopes and ancient DNA of individuals excavated at Tell Atchana (Alalakh, located in Hatay, Turkey), we explored the role of mobility at the capital of a regional kingdom, named Mukish during the Late Bronze Age, which spanned the Amuq Valley and some areas beyond. We generated strontium and oxygen isotope data from dental enamel for 53 individuals and 77 individuals, respectively, and added ancient DNA data of 10 newly sequenced individuals to a dataset of 27 individuals published in 2020. Additionally, we improved the DNA coverage of one individual from this 2020 dataset. The DNA data revealed a very homogeneous gene pool. This picture of an overwhelmingly local ancestry was consistent with the evidence of local upbringing in most of the individuals indicated by the isotopic data, where only five were found to be non-local. High levels of contact, trade, and exchange of ideas and goods in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, therefore, seem not to have translated into high levels of individual mobility detectable at Tell Atchana.

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Background

Tell Atchana

Situated on the southward bend of the Orontes River in the modern state of Hatay, Turkey (see Fig 1), settlement at Tell Atchana (Alalakh) can be traced back to the terminal Early Bronze Age (EBA) or the earliest MBA (ca. 2200–2000 BC), flourishing throughout the MBA and LBA until its nearly complete abandonment ca. 1300 BC [55–57, 71]. The site was first excavated in the 1930s-1940s by Sir Leonard Woolley [54, 72], who exposed large horizontal swathes of what came to be known as the ‘Royal Precinct’ of the site (Fig 2) and uncovered a continuous sequence of 18 levels from Level XVII to Level O [54], the latter now known to date to the Iron Age (Table 1) [56, 71, 73]. K. Aslıhan Yener returned to the Amuq Valley in 1995 [74] and resumed ongoing excavations at Tell Atchana in 2003 [55, 56].

Texts from the palace archives dating from the MB II and LB I at Tell Atchana itself and from other sites that mention the city of Alalakh provide ample evidence about the city’s significance as the capital of the region and its relations of exchange with its neighbors, such as Ebla, Ugarit, Halab, Emar (all located in modern Syria; see Fig 1), and cities in Cilicia, as well as entities located further away, like the state of Mitanni, Mari, the Kassite kingdom of Babylonia, the Hittites, and Middle and New Kingdom Egypt [5, 55, 75–81]. The textual record is matched by an archaeological record, particularly for the LBA, rich in imports (or objects imitating foreign styles) and architecture bearing foreign influences, including particular building methods, imported ceramic styles and small finds, and artistic motifs, such as Aegean-style bull-leaping scenes [54–57, 71, 81–99]. It is unclear how strongly this evidence was connected with the actual presence of people from abroad in permanent residence at Alalakh, however. While it is likely that at least some migrants lived and died at the site, it is impossible to make claims about the actual scale on the basis of texts and archaeology alone. It is also unclear whether these migrants were buried in the 342 graves which have been excavated to date, making the site a perfect candidate for targeted mobility studies.

The earliest, and to date only, glimpse into the genetic makeup of the inhabitants of the Amuq Valley prior to Alalakh comes from six samples from Tell Kurdu, five of which date to the Early Chalcolithic between 5750–5600 BC and one of which is dated to the Middle Chalcolithic, 5005–4849 cal BC (2σ) [49]. Skourtanioti et al. [49] showed, with three different analyses (PCA, f₄-statistics, and qpAdm), that the Chalcolithic samples from Tell Kurdu harbor ancestries related primarily to western Anatolia and secondarily to the Caucasus/Iran and the Southern Levant, suggesting a gradient of ancestries with geographical characteristics already in place during that time in the Amuq Valley [49]. However, the samples from the MBA and LBA from Alalakh draw a genetic picture of the Amuq that is considerably changed: roughly 3000 years after the last individual from Tell Kurdu, the individuals from Alalakh, along with individuals from EBA and MBA Ebla in northwestern Syria, are part of the same PC1-PC2 space with Late Chalcolithic-Bronze Age Anatolians. They are, compared to samples from Barcın in western Anatolia and Tell Kurdu, all shifted upwards on the PC2 towards samples of Caucasus and Zagros/Iranian origin [49]. This shift in ancestry was formally tested with f₄-statistics of the format f₄(Mbuti, test; Barcın_N/TellKurdu_EC, X), which revealed that all the Late Chalcolithic-LBA populations from Anatolia and the northern Levant (X, i.e. Ebla and Alalakh) are more closely related to Iranian Neolithic individuals and/or Caucasus Hunter Gatherer individuals (test) than are the earlier Tell Kurdu and Barcın individuals [49]. A similar genetic shift towards Iranian/Caucasus-related populations was detected for the contemporary Southern Levant [37–39]. This means that in the period between 5000–2000 BC, gene flow from populations harboring Iranian/Caucasus-like ancestries, which also includes populations that are genetically similar to these but have not yet been sampled, and are thus unknown, affected southern Anatolia and the entire Levant, including the Amuq Valley. It is currently neither possible to pinpoint the exact source population(s) that brought about these changes in the local gene pool nor to propose specific migration events.

Four genetic outlier individuals from Bronze Age Levantine contexts, one of them the so-called Well Lady from Alalakh (ALA019) and three from Megiddo (two of which are siblings), are shifted upwards on the PCA, the former towards individuals from Chalcolithic/Bronze Age Iran and Central Asia [49] and the latter towards the Chalcolithic/Bronze Age Caucasus. Strontium isotope analysis of the two siblings from Megiddo suggests that both grew up locally [37]. These outlier individuals from Megiddo and Alalakh attest that gene flow from the Caucasus/Iran (or genetically similar groups) into the Levant continued throughout the 2^nd millennium BC.

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The genome-wide data from the new individuals were combined with previously published ancient and modern data [39, 42, 45, 46, 49, 162, 193–220]. For readability, we kept most of the group labels used in Skourtanioti et al. [49], most importantly “Alalakh_MLBA”, “ALA019” (genetic outlier) (n = 1), “Ebla_EMBA” (n = 9), “K.Kalehöyük_MLBA” (Kaman-Kalehöyük, n = 5), and “TellKurdu_EC” (n = 5), but dubbed individuals from Sidon with the label “Sidon_MBA” (instead of “Levant_MBA”; n = 5). A principal component analysis was performed on a subset of western Eurasian populations of the Human Origins Dataset using smartpca program of EIGENSOFT (v6.01) [221, 222] (default parameters and options lsqproject: YES, numoutlieriter:0).

**Mediterranea** · 09-08-2022, 10:17 PM

'Lady in the well' sheds light on ancient human population movements

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The bones of a woman of Central Asian descent found at the bottom of a deep well after a violent death in an ancient city in Turkey are helping scientists understand population movements during a crucial juncture in human history.

Researchers have dubbed her the “lady in the well” and her bones were among 110 skeletal remains of people who lived in a region of blossoming civilization running from Turkey through Iran between 7,500 and 3,000 years ago.

The study provided the most comprehensive look to date of genetics revealing the movement and interactions of human populations in this area after the advent of agriculture and into the rise of city-states, two landmarks in human history.

The remains of the “lady in the well,” found in the ruins of the ancient city of Alalakh in southern Turkey, illustrated how people and ideas circulated through the region.

Her DNA showed she hailed from somewhere in Central Asia - perhaps 2,000 miles (3,200 km) or more away. She died at about 40 to 45 years old, the researchers said, probably between 1625 BC and 1511 BC. Her body bore signs of multiple injuries.

“How and why a woman from Central Asia - or both of her parents - came to Alalakh is unclear,” said Ludwig Maximilian University Munich archaeologist Philipp Stockhammer, co-director of the Max Planck-Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean and co-author of the study published in the journal Cell.

“Trader? Slaves? Marriage? What we can say is that genetically this woman is absolutely foreign, so that she is not the result of an intercultural marriage,” Stockhammer added. “Therefore, a single woman or a small family came this long distance. The woman is killed. Why? Rape? Hate against foreigners? Robbery? And then her body was disposed in the well.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-s...-idUSKBN2382R1

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Ancient City Of Alalakh Levant

Ancient City Of Alalakh Levant

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