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Ancestry populations · Classical Antiquity

Loebanr Swat Iron Age

The protohistoric grave-culture people of the Swat Valley, the best-sampled Iron Age population of northern South Asia and its earliest well-sampled window. 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 Loebanr Swat Iron Age (AI-generated artwork, not documentary evidence)
Period
1200 to 800 BC
Era in the analysis
Classical Antiquity
Region
Swat Valley, northern Pakistan
Role in the model
Source (left) population, a reference qpAdm tests against

The Swat Valley in the mountains of northern Pakistan holds the richest Iron Age cemeteries of South Asia, the protohistoric graves of Loebanr, Katelai, Aligrama and Udegram excavated by the Italian Archaeological Mission since the 1950s. The people buried there between about 1200 and 800 BC formed the largest group of ancient individuals in the first genome-wide study of South Asian ancient DNA (Narasimhan et al. 2019), which made them the earliest well-sampled population of the northern subcontinent.

Their ancestry blends the Indus Periphery legacy of Iranian-farmer-related and native South Asian ancestry, which the neighbours of the Indus Civilisation had carried for a thousand years, with a minor share of Central Asian steppe pastoralist ancestry that had reached the region only shortly before, the earliest direct evidence of steppe ancestry in South Asia (Narasimhan et al. 2019). Ancestry of this kind is the foundation of the present-day populations of the Swat, Chitral and Gilgit valleys and of the wider north-west, and it marks the north-western end of the gradient that runs across the subcontinent.

In Ancient Ancestry, Ancestrify's qpAdm analysis, Loebanr Swat Iron Age is a source in the "Classical Antiquity" era. The report shows its weight with a standard error and a Z-score, so you can see not only how much of the model it carries but how confidently that share is separated from zero, and a model that cannot support it is rejected rather than published. For a South Asian genome it is the north-western pole of the era, and its weight is best read together with the Peninsular South Indian source, which anchors the opposite end of the subcontinent, and with the Gandharan Swat and Saidu Sharif sources that describe the same valley in later centuries.

Y haplogroups R1a, L, H and J2, and mtDNA lineages of the South Asian M and U2 clades beside West Eurasian H, U7 and T2, are found in these samples. A haplogroup alone is never evidence of a share.

In your report

The protohistoric grave-culture people of the Swat Valley (c. 1200–800 BC), known from the Loebanr cemetery — the best-sampled Iron Age population of northern South Asia. A blend of Indus-Periphery farmer ancestry, native South Asian lineages and a minor steppe component, they are the earliest well-sampled window on the ancestry of the northern subcontinent.

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 Loebanr Swat Iron Age 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 Loebanr Swat Iron Age (1200 to 800 BC)?

    Loebanr Swat Iron Age 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 Loebanr Swat Iron Age 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 Loebanr Swat Iron Age 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 Loebanr Swat Iron Age?

    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 Loebanr Swat Iron Age where it improves the fit.

  • Can I model Loebanr Swat Iron Age 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:

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