The Bronze Age Armenians of Lchashen

Lchashen lay under the waters of Lake Sevan until a drawdown in 1950 exposed one of the richest Bronze Age cemeteries in the Caucasus. Excavators opened 231 tombs between 1955 and 1975, among them royal graves holding wooden wagons and chariots and delicate bronze miniature sculptures, and hundreds more graves were dug in the decades that followed. These twelve men and women belong to the Late Bronze Age community that buried its dead on the lake shore. Their genomes carry the signature of a change already complete by about 2000 BCE: a low but pervasive thread of steppe ancestry running through Armenia, with paternal lineages of Yamnaya origin still surviving. Lchashen is the flagship group for that inheritance.

The genome-wide data behind this entry was published in The genetic history of the Southern Arc: A bridge between West Asia and Europe.

Every Ancestry Map includes the free Notable Matches lens: your coordinates are compared to every sequenced member of every catalog entry, and the distance to the closest member is reported, a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional space the Distance lens uses. Because these are a small group of real individuals, not a population average, distances naturally run larger than population distances. That is expected, not a poor result. And one thing is never claimed: a small distance means similar ancestry composition, not that the Bronze Age Armenians of Lchashen are your ancestor. See how it looks in the live demo or read about Ancestry Map, the full Global25 report.

• 01

  Who were the Bronze Age Armenians of Lchashen?

  The Bronze Age Armenians of Lchashen (c. 1450-1200 BCE, Lchashen, Gegharkunik, Armenia) are one of the Iconic discoveries entries in our Notable Matches catalog, represented by 12 sequenced ancient genomes published in the study "The genetic history of the Southern Arc: A bridge between West Asia and Europe".

• 02

  What does "matching" the Bronze Age Armenians of Lchashen mean?

  Your Global25 coordinates are compared to the entry's sequenced members and the distance to the closest one is reported, a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional reference space the Distance lens uses. A notable entry is one person or one small burial group, not a population average, so distances naturally run larger than population distances.

• 03

  Are they my ancestor?

  No, and no DNA test can show that. A small distance means your genome sits near theirs in a shared reference space: similar ancestry composition, not descent. Ancestrify never claims a notable individual is your ancestor or relative.

• 04

  How do I see my own distance to the Bronze Age Armenians of Lchashen?

  Notable Matches is a free lens on every Ancestry Map, never sold separately. Order Ancestry Map, our Global25 analysis (29.99 EUR), and your report ranks your coordinates against the full catalog, with a portrait, dossier and map for every entry. The public demo shows the lens with example data.

The catalog holds every published entry across three tiers. Browse the full Notable Matches directory. Nearby entries:

• The Tombs of Aidoniac. 1600-1200 BCE

• The Palace of Nestor Burialsc. 1350-1000 BCE

• The Trzciniec Culturec. 1650-1250 BCE

• The Proto-Illyriansc. 2600-300 BCE

• The Mycenaeans of Tirynsc. 1400-1050 BCE

• The Bronze Age Epirotes of Ammotoposc. 1275-1125 BCE

• The Nuragic Sardiniansc. 1300-1050 BCE

• The Mycenaeans of Mygdaliac. 1600-1450 BCE

• The Philistines of Ashkelonc. 1200-600 BCE

• The Iron Age People of the Swat Valleyc. 1400-800 BCE

• The Canaanitesc. 2000-1150 BCE

• The Urnfield People of Central Europec. 1300-800 BCE