🇬🇪 Georgia Mesolithic Trialetian Kotias Klde (CHG) genetics

Western Georgia before farming

The excavation report places Kotias Klde in a western Georgian landscape between the Greater and Lesser Caucasus and the Black Sea. It discusses an important archaeological problem: how to establish the regional sequence from hunting and gathering to agriculture using excavation and radiocarbon dates rather than tool typology alone.

This is the context for the Mesolithic label. Trialetian is an archaeological designation in the database, not a modern ethnicity. A site can contain material from several periods, so the shared name Kotias Klde does not make all its finds contemporary.

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The published Kotias genome

The 2015 genetic paper reports a Mesolithic burial dated to approximately 9,700 years ago. DNA from a molar produced relatively high genome coverage. The researchers grouped Kotias with the older Satsurblia individual as Caucasus hunter-gatherers, abbreviated CHG.

Their genetic similarity supported continuity between the two sampled periods, while distinguishing these genomes from western European hunter-gatherers. CHG is a useful analytical category, not evidence that every person across the Caucasus shared one unchanged ancestry.

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Which Kotias reference is this?

The local catalogue also contains a separately labelled Upper Palaeolithic Kotias Klde entry. This page instead loads the Mesolithic Trialetian CHG reference, with n=1. The labels should remain separate even when a search for the site returns both.

The published Mesolithic genome provides the scientific context for the name. The local coordinate file itself does not include an accession number linking its processed coordinates to a specimen. A modern closest match therefore remains a coordinate comparison, not proof of a direct line of descent from that burial.

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What is Georgia Mesolithic Trialetian Kotias Klde (CHG) DNA closest to?

In the World Genetics modern G25 comparison, the closest non-self match for Georgia Mesolithic Trialetian Kotias Klde (CHG) is Svan. Other nearby references include Hinukh, Mingrelian Kurzu, Mingrelian Obuji, and Abkhazian. This gives the Georgia Mesolithic Trialetian Kotias Klde (CHG) profile its nearest modern genetic context inside the current reference database.

What does Georgia Mesolithic Trialetian Kotias Klde (CHG) ancestry look like?

The ancestral breakdown below loads the best-fitting World Genetics calculator for the Georgia Mesolithic Trialetian Kotias Klde (CHG) average. It should be read as a model of deep ancestry components, while the closest-match table is the better guide to which modern populations are most similar in G25 space.

Where is Georgia Mesolithic Trialetian Kotias Klde (CHG) DNA closest on the map?

The heatmap gives the Georgia Mesolithic Trialetian Kotias Klde (CHG) profile a geographic shape. Warmer areas mark regions where available modern reference populations sit closer to the Georgia Mesolithic Trialetian Kotias Klde (CHG) average, while cooler areas represent more distant matches.

Sources and further reading

1. Jones et al. (2015), Upper Palaeolithic genomes reveal deep roots of modern Eurasians
2. Meshveliani et al. (2007), Mesolithic Hunters at Kotias Klde, Western Georgia: Preliminary Results