Accepted_test

The Caucasus is a predominantly mountainous region on the border of Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The Caucasus stretches for more than 1000 km between the Black and Caspian seas, however, it has always remained semipermeable to the moving streams of ancient cultures. Located at the junction of Europe and Asia, the territory of the Caucasus for thousands of years was a connecting link between the cultures of Mesopotamia, Iran, Asia Minor, the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe, whichled to mutual influence on both the cultural image and the gene pool of the population. Considering the special value of studying the archaeogenomics of the ancient population of this region, it should be noted that long historical periods of the Caucasus history have not yet been covered. This is especially true of the late Bronze Age (late II - early I millennium BCE) and the period from the early Middle Ages to the modern period (5th century CE - early 20th century CE).

DNA was extracted from archaeological materials (teeth, temporal bone, auditory ossicles) of 100 individuals, followed by low-depth whole-genome sequencing and analyzed in the context of ancient and modern genetic variation in both the study area and nearby regions. Genome coverage was 0.0001-0.300X (median coverage 0.0911X and endogenous DNA content 30.16%).