Skip to content
Ancestrify

Ancestry populations · Classical Antiquity

Parthian Iran

The people of the Iranian plateau under the Arsacid kings, sampled at Liar Sang Bon in Gilan, the Classical era reference for Iran itself. One of the 50 curated source populations in the Classical Antiquity era of Ancient Ancestry, Ancestrify's qpAdm analysis.

See plans and pricingBrowse every population

Who they were

Artistic interpretation of the Parthian Iran (AI-generated artwork, not documentary evidence)
Period
BC 250 to 200 AD
Era in the analysis
Classical Antiquity
Region
Iranian plateau and southern Caspian shore
Role in the model
Source (left) population, a reference qpAdm tests against

The Parthians ruled Iran and Mesopotamia for nearly five centuries, from the Arsacid revolt against the Seleucids in the third century BC until the rise of the Sasanians, and held the Silk Road against Rome from their capital at Ctesiphon. The reference population comes from the cemetery of Liar Sang Bon in Gilan, on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, where burials of the Parthian centuries have yielded the only genomes of Classical era Iran in the reference panel.

Their genomes carry the profile the plateau had built up over the preceding millennia: a base of Zagros farmer and Caucasus hunter-gatherer ancestry, a substantial Anatolian farmer layer, a steppe contribution that reached Iran in the Bronze Age, and a small ancestral South Asian share (Lazaridis et al. 2016; Narasimhan et al. 2019). That profile is what present-day Persians, Kurds, Lurs, Gilaks, Mazanderanis and Azeris still carry, and it forms the core of the Sasanian and early Islamic population of Iran and of the Persianate world beyond it.

In Ancient Ancestry, Ancestrify's qpAdm analysis, Parthian Iran 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 an Iranian, Kurdish, Caucasus or Central Asian genome it is usually the anchoring source of the era, and its weight should be read together with the Anatolian, Southern Levant and Arabian Peninsula sources on one side and the Peninsular South Indian source on the other.

Y haplogroups J2, R1a, G2a and R1b, and mtDNA H, U7, J and T, are common in Iranian populations. A haplogroup alone is never evidence of a share.

In your report

The people of the Iranian plateau under the Arsacid (Parthian) kings, known from the Liar Sang Bon cemetery in Gilan on the southern Caspian shore (c. 200 BC to 100 AD). Their genomes are the only Classical era reference for Iran itself: a Zagros farmer and Caucasus hunter gatherer base, a substantial Anatolian farmer layer, a steppe contribution from the Bronze Age and a small ancestral South Asian share, the profile that present-day Persians, Kurds, Lurs, Gilaks, Mazanderanis and Azeris still carry. Parthian ancestry is the core of the Sasanian and early Islamic population of Iran and of the Persianate world beyond it. This is the source an Iranian, Kurdish or Caucasus genome is tested against for its Classical era Iranian share.

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 Parthian Iran 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 Parthian Iran (BC 250 to 200 AD)?

    Parthian Iran 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 Parthian Iran 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 Parthian Iran 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 Parthian Iran?

    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 Parthian Iran where it improves the fit.

  • Can I model Parthian Iran 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:

Ancestrify

Combining cutting-edge genomic science with rich historical records to map your ancestry across generations and continents.

© 2026 Ancestrify. All rights reserved. · Ancestrify is a trading name of Andi Thomaj, a sole trader registered in Tiranë, Albania · NUIS M61725001N
Card payments processed by POK Payments (RPay Ltd)VISAMASTERCARD