G2A Origin

G2a ORIGIN

Rostovtzeff, the great Russian expert in Iranians of the steppes, once complained that "In most of the work on the period of migrations, the part played by the Sarmatians and especially by the Alans in conquest of Europe is almost ignored; but we must never forget that the Alans long resided in Gaul, that they invaded Italy, and that they came with the Vandals to Spain and conquered North Africa" A variety of haplogroups lived among the Alans due to their custom of integrating conquered peoples within their group, and it appears haplogroup G2a was a strong minority among this group.

Deep Ancestry: Inside the Genographic Project, By Spencer Wells, p. 211, Haplogroup G2 Ancestrial line "Adam" - M168 - M89 - M201 - P15. About 10,000 years ago, the geneic marker P15 emerged and now defines the haplogroup G2. The G2 lineage arose in the Middle East, though P15 descendants soon spread westward through modern Turkey into southeastern Europe, because most of these migrations took place more than 15,000 years ago, before much of Europe was locked in ice during the last glacial maximum. During the time when these ice sheets were largest, individuals living outside of the warmer refugia would have been unable to survive and thus effectively eliminated from the gene pool. This reduced the genetic diversity of the surviving populations, actually helping those lucky lineages to become fixed at higher frequencies in the subsequent generations. When the glaciers finally began to recede, the G2 lineage expanded northward and eastward from the Middle East to repopulate Europe. Evidence of these journeys can be seen by the marker’s presence in western Eurasia.

Among this group of people were the Vikings, having been described as men with "vast frames, and great courage," as well as strong, blond, white and blue-eyed. The Arab writer Ahmad Ibn Fadlan wrote the following after meeting the Viking traders during his travels, “I have never seen more perfect physical specimens, tall as date palms, blond and ruddy.” From the Old English Chronicles the following is written, "they were Hengist and Horsa, blond, blue-eyed barbarians from the corner of Europe which is now part of Denmark."

A team of researchers from Copenhagen University reported blue eyes originated among people who lived north of the black sea prior to 10000 years ago from a single mutation. “A genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a ‘switch,’ which literally ‘turned off’ the ability to produce brown eyes,” Eiberg said, These Proto-Indo-Europeans are often referred to as Aryans. “From this we can conclude that all blue-eyed individuals are linked to the same ancestor.” Source: Dr. Hans Eiberg, Journal of Human Genetics, Published January 3, 2008.

Core samples from the Black Sea indicate it was a fresh water lake 8890 - 8450 years ago and was approximately 400 feet lower than the current level. About this time the Bosphorus, a strait that forms part of the boundary between Europe and Asia, failed to hold back rising water from melting glaciers, and salt water broke through causing massive flooding around the Black Sea. The resulting flood forced families to flee to the area of Mount Ararat and Lake Van. Some members of this same tribe continued on to the area of what would become Egypt. Source: Noah’s Flood, By William Ryan and Walter Pitman, of the Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, NY.​

UBAIDIANS

Around 7000 years ago the original blue-eyed Mediterranean whites and early Nordic tribes settled in the Tigris and Euphrates River basin and together became known as the Ubaidians. Their settlements became cities lying in the country of Iraq. Source: Journal of Human Genetics, January 3, 2008.

Southern Mesopotamia, the floodplain between the Tigris and Euphrates, nurtured the first civilizations. “Centuries of annual flooding had made the soil there extremely fertile, yet with very little rainfall there was no natural means of watering crops in the dry season. The key to unlocking the riches of the floodplain was irrigation, and the earliest culture to master this technique was the Ubaid, which appeared in about 5900.” Source: A Short History of the World, By Alex Woolf, pages 20-21.

These original whites were eventually conquered by another light-skinned tribe called the Sumerians in 3250 BC and the area became known as Sumer. These groups prospered and grew rich and powerful, and art and architecture, as well as religious and ethical thought, flourished. ”The Sumerians held the belief that having blue eyes was a sign of the gods. Ancient busts of the Sumerian nobility show them with blue eyes and light hair.” Source: March of the Titans, A History of the White Race, By Arthur Kemp, page 48.​

SUMERIANS

By about 3000 BC, the Sumerian tribes consisted of at least 12 separate city-states. Each city-state was ruled by a king and with each worshipping its own deity. After separate invasions by the Elamites, Akkadians (led by Sargon), and the Gutians / Celts, these city-states were able to recover and once again regained their independence. Source: Mesopotamia: The World's Earliest Civilization, By Kathlene Kuiper, page 40.

After about 1900 BC the Semitic Amorites consumed Mesopotamia causing the Sumerians to lose their separate identity. These early tribes gave the world the first wheeled vehicle, the potter's wheel, the first system of writing, the first codes of law; and the first city-states. Babylonian kings were mainly of Sumerian stock, while other Sumerians integrated with the Hurrians, a people who lived in Anatolia and Northern Mesopotamia and spoke languages related to the Northeast Caucasuan languages. Source: Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia, By Karen Rhea Nemet-Nejat, page 306.​

HURRIANS

"Numerous cuneiform texts in the third millennium B. C. in a number of localities spoke of the non-Semitic nation of Hurrians who lived at that time in the mountainous region of present-day Armenia and Kurdistan and then spread to the area of the Euphrates and Tigris as seen from the Hurrian names in the ancient texts in that area." Source: Can the Bible Be Trusted: Old and New Testament Introduction and Interpretation, By Uuras Saamivaara, page 158.

“When civilization began in Sumer (ca 3200 BCE), the Hurrians were probably occupying lands north of the Semitic Akkadians (middle and northern Mesopotamia) in eastern and southeastern Anatolia. The Hurrians lived in separate settlements which did not coalesce to form states. Around 2100, Indo-Aryans from the north, nomadic peoples that roamed the steppes of southern Russia, breached the Pontic Gates (Caucasian valleys) and arrived in eastern Anatolia.

The Indo-Aryans are the horse-riding ancestors of the Vedic tribes that later invaded the Indian subcontinent (after 2000 - via Afghanistan Magadha). The branch of the Indo-Aryans that penetrated Anatolia encountered the Hurrians and either subjected them or were accepted as a ruling class, although they were assimilated culturally and linguistically by the Hurrians. Around 1600, there arose the Mitanni Kingdom in eastern Anatolia, which is presumed to have resulted from the fusion of the Hurrians and the Indo-Aryans. Mitanni can be derived from an Indo-Aryan word meaning 'warrior'." Source: Concise Encyclopeda of World History, By Carlos Ramirex-Faria.

Norse mythology informs us that Vanaheimr was the ancient home of the Vanir / Vanr gods. Lake Van in Turkey was home to an ancient Armenian kingdom with a city of the same name, dated from about 1000 BC. "During the early first millennium BC, in the northern reaches of Assyria around Lake Van, peoples predominantly Hurrian in origin were beginning to form a federation of states which soon developed extensively and came to be known as the Kingdom of Urartu." Source: The Armenian Kingdom in Cilicia During the Crusades, By Jacob G. Ghazarian, page 32. ​ ​MITANNI

“The Mitanni Indo-Iranian dynasty ruled in the upper Euphrates-Tigris basin, now part of northern Iraq, Syria and south-eastern Turkey, and ruled over the northern Euphrates -Tigris region from c1475-c1275 BC. Mitanni kings were Indo-Iranians, but used the Hurrian language of the local people. Mitanni controlled parts of northern Assyria until the mid 14th century BC. The Hittite archives of Hattusa contain the oldest surviving horse training manual in the world written c1345 BC on four tablets and contains 1080 lines by a Mitanni horse trainer. It begins with the words, Thus speaks Kikkuli, master horse trainer of the land of Mitanni and uses various Indo-Iranian words for horse colors, numbers and names.” Source: 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed, By Eric H. Cline, page 31.

This indicates that the Mitanni were experts in horse training, especially for military purposes and that the Mitanni in turn had brought the expertise with them in their migration westward. “The Mitanni also controlled the river trade routes down the River Habur to Mari and from there up the River Euphrates to Carchemish, as well as trade along the upper Tigris River and its headwaters at Nineveh, Arbil, Ashur and Nuzi.” Source: Zoroastrian Heritage, By K. E. Eduljee, 2014.

“Trade in the Euphrates-Tigris basin was conducted using the extensive river network. After their downfall, most of Mitanni fell under Assyrian rule, becoming an Assyrian province. The surviving Mitanni blended in to Assyria.” Source: 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed, By Eric H. Cline, page 31.

ASSYRIANS

"The conquered peoples now under Assyrian control were not required to take up the worship of Ashur; instead, the Assyrians declared that the conquered peoples had been abandoned by their gods.”Assyrian rule was long-lived and lasted until the civil wars from 626 BC. Semitic Chaldeans of the far south east of Mesopotamia seized Babylon in 620 BC. The Babylonians and Parthians aligned with the Medes, Persians, Scythians and Cimmerians and were able to end Assyrian rule by 605 B.C.” Source: Assyrian god Ashur, Online cyclopaedia.net.

“It is reasonable to postulate, and I am certainly not the first to do so, that Ashur’s name was cognately related to the Nordic Aesir and the Indo-Iranian Asura / Ahura deities. My interpretation is that an Indo-European ruling class probably exercised sovereignty over early non-Indo-European Mesopotamian peoples, playing the roles of gods.” Source: Paradise Rediscovered: The Roots of Civilization, Volume 2, By Michael A. Cahill, page 783.

“After the victory in Assyria, the Medes conquered Northern Mesopotamia, Armenia and the parts of Asia Minor east of the Halys River, which was the border established with Lydia after a decisive battle between Lydia and Media, the Battle of Halys ended with an eclipse on May 28, 585 BC.” Source: Faith and philosophy of Zoroastrianim, By Meena Iyer, page 17. ​ SCYTHIANS

Besides their wealthy and powerful empire, the Iranian Scythians were also known for their well-dressed and well-trained horses. They were also known for their superb equestrian and exceptional weaponry skills. They controlled an area on what is now Crimea. As often happens with most powerful nations, they were eventually overthrown and their downfall coming by way of the Sarmatians.

The Greek historian Herodotus, born 484 BC in Turkey, lived among them for a time and tells us about how they lived. “Here, when the king dies, they dig a grave, which is square in shape, and of great size ... [he is carried] through all the different tribes ... to the tombs of the kings. There the body of the dead king is laid in the grave prepared for it, stretched upon a mattress; spears are fixed in the ground on either side of the corpse, and beams stretched across above it to form a roof, which is covered with a thatching of osier twigs. In the open space around the body of the king they bury one of his concubines, first killing her by strangling, and also his cup-bearer, his cook, his groom, his lacquey, his messenger, some of his horses, firstlings of all his other possessions, and some golden cups; for they use neither silver nor brass. After this they set to work, and raise a vast mound above the grave, all of them vying with each other and seeking to make it as tall as possible.” Source: Histories, Book IV, Herodotus.

“From their native seat between the Cimmerian Bosphorus and the mouths of the Rha, the Sarmatae, or, as the Greeks styled them, the Sacromatae, passing the Don, overspread this vast plain, and became divided into various nations. The Scythians had passed into the north-east of Europe at an earlier period, and with these the Sarmatae amalgamated, the country being sometimes called Scythia as well as Sarmatia.” Source: Outlines of ancient geography, with abstract of ancient history, By Scottish School-Book Association, page 28.

"The Sarmatians were of Iranian origin, and were nomadic cattle raising tribes of the Ciscaucasian valleys along the Don River and the Volga River, and included the Sinaki, Aorsi [later Alani], Lazyges and Roxlani. They were the main power in the steppes of the Northern Black Sea shore before being overrun by the Huns. In the 2nd century B.C., they joined the Scythians against Pontus. The language they spoke was Scythian, and an Indo-European language from the eastern Iranian family. Some of their descendants became known as the Alans and gave rise to the modern Ossetic ethnic group." Source: Online Encyclopedia Britannica (2007) Sarmatians.

“The collective term ‘Sarmatian’ does not characterise a specific ethnicity but rather numerous tribes of nomadic horsemen who spoke the same language and had comparable lifestyles, weapons and handicrafts, which differentiated them from the Scythians.” He goes on to say, “The factors moving these tribes were the Central Asia expedition of Alexander, the spread of Xiongnu mounted warriors to the west, a drying of the climate of the northern Caspian region and demographic pressure. There was also a power vacuum among the Pontic Scythians following the death of King Agaros. This westward movement became discernable when Sarmatian tribes of the Prokhorovo Culture west of the Urals crossed the Don and infiltrated the regions of the Kuban and the northern Pontic steppe. In the Kuban the Samartians coexisted with the native Maeotae; in the northern Pontic region they assimilated the majority of the Scythian tribes that did not flee to Crimea." Source: The Age of the Steppe Warriors, page 256, By Christoph Baumer.

​ALANS

Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinum wrote, “Nearly all the Alani are men of great stature and beauty, their hair is somewhat yellow, their eyes are frighteningly fierce.”

Professor Smirnov of Kazan, among the chief authorities of the Volga Finns, writes: “To the south lived tribes of more or less Iranian affinities, Sauromatae, Aorsi and Alans, marching with the Finnish an Ugrian tribes above them and with the Caucasians to the south. They carried on a profitable trade between the mines of the Ural and Iran, and also between the Mediterranean world and the Far East."

“The Alans continued to hold sway east of the Don – until the arrival of a new group of steppe nomads, the Huns. They were probably from Central Asia and probably spoke a language related to modern Turkish. Their mastery of horsemanship and archery was equal to that of the Scythians. They were fast, fierce, and unstoppable. Hun warriors swept into the Alan’s lands north of the Caucasus around 370. Then, having traversed the territory of the Alani, and having slain many of them and acquired much plunder, [the Huns] made a treaty of friendship and alliance with those who remained. After this, the story of horse-riding nomads in Europe belongs mainly to the Huns, who conquered all of the Sarmatians north of the Danube. The independent history of the Alans, however, was not quite over. In the early 400s most of the Alans broke away from the Huns and migrated into Western Europe.” Source: Scythians and Sarmatians, page 65, By Kathryn Hinds.

Claudius Marius Victor, a rhetorician, writes briefly about “primitive” religions and comments about the Alans and, “making of sacrifices to the spirits of one’s ancestors,” he goes on to say it's, “even more primitive than the polytheism of the Greeks and the Romans.” Source: A History of the Alans in the West: From Their First Appearance in the Sources of Classical Antiquity through the Early Middle Ages, By Bernard S. Bachrach, page 32.

“The Alans chose their chief from among their most experienced warriors, their deity was a god of war, and his symbol was a naked sword thrust into the ground. Men who died were regarded as having died happily and seem to have been venerated by their descendants.” Source: A History of the Alans in the West: From Their First Appearance in the Sources of Classical Antiquity through the Early Middle Ages, By Bernard S. Bachrach, page 23.

The Hun invasion fractured the Alans dispersing one group into the mountains, and another "joined" the service of the mongols until freeing themselves and removing to Gaul before arriving in northern Italy.

“For the past century and a half it has been known that the Ossetians, a people through the Alains, the last descendants of the Scythians; they all belong to the vast group of Northern Iranians.” Source: The Mirror of Herodotus, The Representative of the Other in the Writing of History, By Francois Hartog, page 5.

In a study conducted in 2014 by V. V. Llyinskyon on bone fragments from 12 Alanic burials on the Don River, 6 samples made a strong argument for direct Alan ancestry since the major haplogroup among Ossetians is G2.

The Nart sagas found within these various groups have an ancient Iranian origin.​

OSSETIANS

”Most Ossetians are Christian, though some, mostly in North Ossetia, are Muslim. They traced their ancestry to the Alans, an Indo-European people which appeared in the north Caucasus – north, that is, of Georgia – in the sixth century CE. Groups of Ossetians began crossing the Caucasus Mountains into Georgia after the Mongol invasions.” Source: Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War, By Stuart J. Kaufman, page 87.

”The territory of North Ossetia has been inhabited for thousands of years by the Vainakh tribes, being both a very fertile agricultural region and a key trade route through the Caucasus Mountains. The ancestors of the present inhabitants were people called the Alans, a warlike nomadic people who spoke an Iranian language, part of the Alan people eventually settled in the Caucasus around the 7th century AD. By about the 9th century the kingdom of Alania had risen and had been converted to Christianity by Byzantine missionaries. Alania became a powerful state in the Caucasus, profiting greatly from the legendary Silk Road to China, which pass through its territory. Polytheism is characteristic of the world beliefs of Nomads, and the Samartian Alans were no exception to this. Batraz was the Alan god of war, and there was a mother goddess who was equivalent to the Greek Potnia Theron.” Source: Georgia Through Earth, Fire, Air and Water, By Michael Berman, page 26.

”The Nart sagas, which are not sagas in the usual sense of semihistorical accounts of a prominent person’s life, closely resemble the myths of the pagan Norse (Davidson 1964)” Source: Nart Sagas from the Caucasus: Myths and Legends from the Circassians, Abazas, Abkhaz, and Ubykhs, By John Colarusso, page 5.

In comparing the Norse and Nart sagas, the following similarities are found:

Odin [Wotan], of the Norse sagas, owns a horse named Sleipnir, the fastest horse in the world. Wardana, of the Nort sagas, was a man who rides the fastest horse in the world. Odin [Wotan] has two ravens Hugin and Munin and Wardana has a brother who is named after the word for “raven.”

Nart Saga - [Tlepsh, a blacksmith diety, was in need of knowledge to fabricate items needed by his people, and he went to Satanaya, matriach of the Narts, requesting that she remember this knowledge, which indicates she was also a seeress. He was told he must go to the edge of the earth in search of this knowledge, and he soon arrives at the land of the Lady Tree.] “The women [disciples of Lady Tree] lead Tlepsh to their ruler. Partly human and partly deciduous, Lady Tree has roots reaching down into the depths of the earth. Her cloudlike hair reaches high into the sky, but she has two arms and a lovely human face. Lady Tree instantly falls in love with Tlepsh, feeds him, and invites him to rest. Late at night, however, Tlepsh remembers his quest and announces his departure. When Lady Tree objects, saying he is the first human to have found her, Tlepsh replies that he is one of the gods and makes love to her. Then he explains his mission: to travel to the edge of the earth to discover knowledge for the Narts.” To them a son was born and Lady Tree gave the child the knowledge which was needed. Source: The Woman of the Myths: The Satanaya Cycle, By John Colarusso.

Norse Saga - The god Odin is described as having hung himself on the cosmological tree Yggdrasil to gain knowledge of the runic alphabet, which he passed on to humanity. He is associated closely with death, wisdom, and poetry. Odin is portrayed as the ruler of Valhalla, where half of those slain in battle may be fetched to Valhalla by valkyries. Odin's wife is the powerful goddess Frigg who can see the future but tells no one, and together they have a beloved son, Baldr. Source: The Poetic Edda, By Henry Adams Bellows. Each of the above sagas closely resemble each other. They are both gods in search of knowledge throughout the world, both interact with a cosmological tree to gain knowledge, both interact with powerful women who are a seeress, and both have a son born to them.

A recent study "analyzed 40 SNP and 19 STY Y-chromosomal markers in the Caucasus and 254 additional individuals representing potential source population." Results show, "the Caucasus region has unmatched levels of gene-language co-evolution within geographically isolated populations." And, "haplogroup G2a3b1-P303 comprised at least 21% (and up to 86%) of the Y chromosomes in the Shapsug, Abkhaz and Circassians. ... These populations live in the western part of the Caucasus, and linguistically belong to the Abkhazo-Adyghe language group." Linguistically and genetically the Circassia, Shapsug, Abkhaz and Ossets [Alans] matched. Source: Parallel Evolution of Genes and Languages in the Caucasus Region, By Oleg Balanovsky, ?2011.

The Alans / Ossetians traveled extensively while conducting trade with other tribes. Their main trading post was located at the intersection of the Volga River and the Kama River. They eventually established a number of permanent settlements in what is now Germany and Norway as can be ascertained by their common worship of Odin / Wotan and Thor.

​VIKINGS

The earliest reference by Muslim writers about the Norse Vikings was made at the beginning of the ninth century by Ibn Khurradadhbih. In 844 he wrote about the travels of the Saqaulibah, a term generally used for fair-haired, ruddy complexioned Europeans. They came in their boats, “bringing beaver-skins, and black foxes, and swords from the furthest part of the Slav lands down to the Black Sea.” An ancient trading post at Kazan at the intersection of the Volga River and the Kama River were found to have coins buried of Indo-Scythian kings among the many treasures found. Source: Caspian expeditions of the Rus’, Wikipedia. The Arab writers did not call the tall, blond traders “Vikings,” but by the ethnonym Rus (pronounced “Roos”). Source: Aramco World – Issue 3, page 37.

"The Alans chose their chief from among the most experienced warriors, their deity was a god of war, and his symbol was a naked sword thrust into the ground. Men who died were regarded as having died happily and seem to have been venerated by their descendants." Source: A History of the Alans in the West: From Their First Appearance in the Sources of Classical Antiquity through the Early Middle Ages, By Bernard S. Bachrach, page 23. It is known the Norsemen selected their leaders in this same manner. They both held in high regard a deity who was a god of war; and when a man died in battle, both the Alans and the Vikings regarded them as having died happily.

Ibn Fadlan whose ninth century Risala (letter) is the richest account of all, a journal that details his encounters with the Rus along the Volga. He wrote in 921, “I have never seen more perfect physical specimens, tall as date palms, blond and ruddy,” ... “Each man has an axe, a sword, and a knife and keeps each by his at all times.” The men, he observed, were tattooed with dark green figures “from fingernails to neck.” Source: The Remarkable Account of Ibn Fadlan, By Judith Gabriel, Volume 60, Number 6.

The Muslim historian Miskawayh descried them as men with “vast frames and great courage who carried an impressive arsenal of weapons, including swords, spears, shields, daggers, axes and hammers, which are in great demand for their sharpness and excellence. Norse Vikings made their way east with furs and nodules of amber and met Muslim traders who paid for Norse wares with silver coins which the Vikings coveted." Source: The Remarkable Account of Ibn Fadlan, By Judith Gabriel, Volume 60, Number 6.

“Oseberg ship was constructed in c. AD 820, while the ship burial took place in AD 834. ”Viking Trade and Settlement in Continental Western Europe, edited by Iben Skibsted Klaesoe, page 30. The ship was found beneath an incredibly large mound containing the remains of two woman in a Viking ship. The burial chamber was dug behind the ship’s mast to accommodate the vast array of items placed inside. “The walls were decorated with fantastic woven tapestries and the dead women lay on a raised bed. The women had a number of burial gifts with them such as clothes, shoes and combs, ship's equipment, kitchen equipment, farm equipment, three ornate sledges and a working sledge, a wagon, five carved animal heads, five beds and two tents. There were fifteen horses, six dogs and two small cows. Investigation of the skeletons showed that the older woman was about 70 to 80 when she died, probably of cancer. The other woman was younger, a little over 50.” Source: The Oseberg Finds, Museum of Cultural History, publication November 26, 2012. Note: The older woman is assumed to be Queen Asa of Agder, and the younger a slave sacrificed to join her mistress in death.