Who were the Iron Age Iranian Plateau (1200 to 600 BC)?

Iron Age Iranian Plateau is one of the 50 curated source populations in the Classical Antiquity era of Ancient Ancestry, Ancestrify's qpAdm analysis: a group of published genomes pooled as a single reference the model can test your genome against. These are ancient individuals from one archaeological context wherever the record holds them, and present-day genomes standing in where it does not, which the description on this page says.

Does Iron Age Iranian Plateau in my result mean they were my ancestors?

No. A source population is a reference the model tests against, never a statement about who your ancestors were. A coefficient on this source means the ancestry those burials represent helps explain your genome to within statistical noise: similar ancestry composition, not descent from those individuals. Ancestrify never claims a population is your ancestor.

What does a Iron Age Iranian Plateau percentage in a qpAdm model mean?

qpAdm estimates the mixture proportions that best explain your genome as a combination of the chosen sources, given a fixed set of outgroup (right) populations, and reports a p-value for whether the model is statistically acceptable together with a standard error for every proportion. The percentage is that estimated share, with its uncertainty published beside it.

How do I get a qpAdm model that uses Iron Age Iranian Plateau?

Order Ancient Ancestry, Ancestrify's qpAdm analysis (€29.99, one-time), and upload the raw file you already have from a consumer test. Your genome is merged into the AADR reference panel and modelled across both eras; each era's model is built from that era's source populations, so a model for the Classical Antiquity era draws on Iron Age Iranian Plateau where it improves the fit.

Can I model Iron Age Iranian Plateau ancestry for free first?

Yes. The Ancestrify Lab runs Global25 admixture calculators, a nearest-populations distance tool and an AdmixTools 2 workbench in your browser with no account, and several calculators cover the Classical Antiquity era. Those are G25 fits, not formal qpAdm models. Ancient Ancestry, the paid analysis, is the one with a p-value.

Ancestry populations · Classical Antiquity

Iron Age Iranian Plateau

The Iron Age people of the north-western Iranian plateau, known from the great settlement mound of Hasanlu in the Solduz plain south of Lake Urmia, where a fortified town of columned halls, storerooms and workshops flourished from about 1200 BC until it was stormed and burned around 800 BC, leaving its defenders where they fell beside the famous golden bowl. One of the 50 curated source populations in the Classical Antiquity era of Ancient Ancestry, Ancestrify's qpAdm analysis.

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Who they were

Artistic interpretation of the Iron Age Iranian Plateau (AI-generated artwork, not documentary evidence)

Period: 1200 to 600 BC
Era in the analysis: Classical Antiquity
Role in the model: Source (left) population, a reference qpAdm tests against

In your report
The Iron Age people of the north-western Iranian plateau, known from the great settlement mound of Hasanlu in the Solduz plain south of Lake Urmia, where a fortified town of columned halls, storerooms and workshops flourished from about 1200 BC until it was stormed and burned around 800 BC, leaving its defenders where they fell beside the famous golden bowl. They were farmers, herders and horse breeders of the high valleys between the Zagros and the Caucasus, living on the frontier between Assyria, Urartu and the Median tribes of the plateau. Their genomes rest on the ancient farmer ancestry of the Zagros and the Caucasus, with the Anatolian farmer and steppe related layers that reached the plateau during the Bronze Age, the profile that present-day Azeris, Kurds, Persians and the other peoples of north-western Iran still carry. This is the source an Iranian, Kurdish or Caucasus genome is tested against for its Iron Age plateau share, a thousand years before the Parthian reference.

Artwork is an AI-generated artistic interpretation informed by the archaeological record, not documentary evidence.

Where this population sits in the model

Ancient Ancestry, our qpAdm analysis, models your genome once per era. The Classical Antiquity era has 50 curated source populations, and Iron Age Iranian Plateau is one of them: every candidate model for that era is a combination of these sources, tested against a fixed set of outgroup populations, and only a model that passes the statistical fit check is published, with a p-value and a standard error on every proportion.

A reference, not a verdict: every population on this page is a source the model tests your genome against, a well-sampled point in ancient genetic space that a mixture of ancestries can be expressed in terms of. A weight on it means your genome is well described as partly resembling those people; it is never a statement that they, specifically, were your ancestors, and a population that fits well is not the only one that could.

Read how qpAdm works on the Ancient Ancestry page, or the definitions in the glossary.

Model it yourself for free

The Ancestrify Lab runs in your browser, with no account. Paste a Global25 row into an admixture calculator that covers the Classical Antiquity era, rank the closest ancient populations in the distance tool, or run f4, qpWave and qpAdm on the public panel in the AdmixTools 2 workbench. These are Global25 fits and exploratory statistics, not the formal qpAdm model of Ancient Ancestry.

Questions

Who were the Iron Age Iranian Plateau (1200 to 600 BC)?
Iron Age Iranian Plateau is one of the 50 curated source populations in the Classical Antiquity era of Ancient Ancestry, Ancestrify's qpAdm analysis: a group of published genomes pooled as a single reference the model can test your genome against. These are ancient individuals from one archaeological context wherever the record holds them, and present-day genomes standing in where it does not, which the description on this page says.
Does Iron Age Iranian Plateau in my result mean they were my ancestors?
No. A source population is a reference the model tests against, never a statement about who your ancestors were. A coefficient on this source means the ancestry those burials represent helps explain your genome to within statistical noise: similar ancestry composition, not descent from those individuals. Ancestrify never claims a population is your ancestor.
What does a Iron Age Iranian Plateau percentage in a qpAdm model mean?
qpAdm estimates the mixture proportions that best explain your genome as a combination of the chosen sources, given a fixed set of outgroup (right) populations, and reports a p-value for whether the model is statistically acceptable together with a standard error for every proportion. The percentage is that estimated share, with its uncertainty published beside it.
How do I get a qpAdm model that uses Iron Age Iranian Plateau?
Order Ancient Ancestry, Ancestrify's qpAdm analysis (€29.99, one-time), and upload the raw file you already have from a consumer test. Your genome is merged into the AADR reference panel and modelled across both eras; each era's model is built from that era's source populations, so a model for the Classical Antiquity era draws on Iron Age Iranian Plateau where it improves the fit.
Can I model Iron Age Iranian Plateau ancestry for free first?
Yes. The Ancestrify Lab runs Global25 admixture calculators, a nearest-populations distance tool and an AdmixTools 2 workbench in your browser with no account, and several calculators cover the Classical Antiquity era. Those are G25 fits, not formal qpAdm models. Ancient Ancestry, the paid analysis, is the one with a p-value.

More populations from the Classical Antiquity era

Browse the full directory of source populations, or continue with another population from the same era: