University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2015 Genetic Diversity in Svaneti and Highland Western Georgia Aram Yardumian University of Pennsylvania,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Biological and Physical Anthropology Commons, Genetics Commons, and the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons Recommended Citation Yardumian, Aram, "Genetic Diversity in Svaneti and Highland Western Georgia" (2015). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2114. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2114 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2114 For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Genetic Diversity in Svaneti and Highland Western Georgia Abstract This study investigates the genetic diversity and ethnohistory of Svaneti and its neighboring highland Georgian and breakaway regions in order to better understand the complex population history of the South Caucasus. The objectives of this project are to (1) document the biological diversity in contemporary settlements in the region of Svaneti; (2) compare patterns of gene diversity with Svaneti’s western and eastern neighbors, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, respectively; and (3) determine whether gene frequencies in Svaneti are evently distributed across geographic space by characterizing any village- level structuring. We will contextualize the findings within broader studies that address major regional population settlement events during the Upper Paleolithic, Neolithic, and Metal Ages, as well as the putative ‘Alan migration’ in the 4th century AD. To accomplish these goals, biological samples were collected from participants in Svaneti for genetic analysis, providing a more thorough coverage of village districts in Svaneti than has been achieved in previous studies.