Mentesh Tepe: Echoes of Shomutepe

Mentesh Tepe sits in western Azerbaijan's Tovuz district and belongs to the broader Shulaveri‑Shomutepe cultural complex that spread across the South Caucasus in the late Neolithic to early Bronze Age. Archaeological data indicates long‑occupied tells with compact, often circular or rectangular mudbrick and stone structures, households practicing mixed farming, and material culture that blends local traditions with influences from neighboring lowland and highland zones. Radiocarbon frameworks for the region place this horizon broadly between c. 6000 and 4000 BCE, a time of intensifying sedentism, orchard and field cultivation, and regional exchange.

Genetically, three ancient individuals sampled from Mentesh Tepe provide a narrow but valuable window into population formation. Two male individuals carry Y‑DNA haplogroup J, a lineage often associated with early Near Eastern farmers and later Caucasus groups. Limited evidence suggests these people were part of local farming communities whose ancestry reflects both indigenous Caucasus elements and gene flow from western Near Eastern populations. Because the sample count is only three, archaeological and genetic interpretations must remain tentative: these genomes hint at broader processes but cannot alone define demographic patterns across the Shulaveri‑Shomutepe horizon.

Ancient DNA from Mentesh Tepe consists of three sequenced individuals—an extremely small but informative dataset. Two males carry Y‑chromosome haplogroup J, a lineage frequently observed in early farmers of the Near East and in later Caucasus populations. This pattern aligns with archaeological impressions of agriculturalists whose roots intersected with western Near Eastern gene pools.

Genome-wide signals (limited by sample size) suggest predominant ancestry components related to early Anatolian/Levantine farmers mixed with local Caucasus hunter‑gatherer contributions. Such admixture is consistent with models in which the spread of farming into the South Caucasus involved both movement of people and local assimilation. No robust mtDNA pattern can be declared for this assemblage because maternal haplogroups were not consistently reported or the counts are too low to be representative.

Crucially, with only three genomes the statistical power to resolve subtle ancestry proportions, sex‑biased gene flow, or temporal shifts is very low. These data are best read as preliminary signals: they point toward Near Eastern farmer-associated Y‑lineages and a mixed ancestry profile for early Shulaveri‑Shomutepe communities, but broader sampling across sites and time is required to test demographic models.