The Early Medieval Georgians

After Christianisation the towns of Kartli kept burying their dead in the old cemeteries, and these twelve people come from the early medieval graves of Samtavro at Mtskheta, the fortified town of Samshvilde in Kvemo Kartli, Dzinvali in the mountains to the north and Khuntsi in western Georgia. The study that sequenced them followed the Southern Caucasus across five thousand years and found one local gene pool holding steady from the Bronze Age to the Middle Ages despite a constant flow of newcomers. Samshvilde, like Samtavro, was a cosmopolitan place. Extra Anatolian and Levantine ancestry arrived with Christianity, strongest in the fifth century, and then settled into the enduring local mix.

The genome-wide data behind this entry was published in The genetic history of the Southern Caucasus from the Bronze Age to the Early Middle Ages: 5,000 years of genetic continuity despite high mobility.

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 Early Medieval Georgians are your ancestor. See how it looks in the live demo or read about Ancestry Map, the full Global25 report.

• 01

  Who were the Early Medieval Georgians?

  The Early Medieval Georgians (c. 400-900 CE, Samshvilde, Kvemo Kartli, Georgia) are one of the Historical figures entries in our Notable Matches catalog, represented by 12 sequenced ancient genomes published in the study "The genetic history of the Southern Caucasus from the Bronze Age to the Early Middle Ages: 5,000 years of genetic continuity despite high mobility".

• 02

  What does "matching" the Early Medieval Georgians 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 Early Medieval Georgians?

  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 Kunbábony Avar Khagan630-670 CE

• The Byzantine Villagers of Chhîmc. 430-760 CE

• The Türks of Gurvan Dovc. 540-635 CE

• The Alans of the North Caucasusc. 350-1100 CE

• The Chen Clan of the Tang Frontierearly 8th century CE

• Empress Ashina551-582 CE

• The Salme Ship Warriorsc. 750 CE

• Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou543-578 CE

• The Christians of Nicaea's Sunken Basilicac. 350-700 CE

• The Early Medieval Slavs of Velimc. 650-950 CE

• Bishop Teodomiro of Iria Flaviad. 847 CE

• The Medieval Islanders of Soqotrac. 650-1150 CE