Ancestry populations · Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer
Iranian Neolithic Farmer
The early farmers of the Zagros mountains, a deeply divergent West Asian lineage that seeded ancestry from the Caucasus and Arabia to the Indus. One of the 13 curated source populations in the Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer era of the Ancestrify qpAdm ancient-DNA analysis.
Who they were
- Period
- 8000 – 5000 BC
- Era in the analysis
- Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer
- Region
- Zagros mountains, western Iran
- Role in the model
- Source (left) population — a reference qpAdm tests against
The Iranian Neolithic farmers are the people of the earliest farming settlements of the Zagros, sampled from Ganj Dareh, Tepe Abdul Hosein and Wezmeh Cave. Their genomes showed that the Fertile Crescent's first farmers were not one population: the Zagros group was as different from the Anatolian farmers as Europeans are from East Asians today, and descended from a lineage that had diverged from other West Eurasians tens of thousands of years earlier (Lazaridis et al. 2016; Broushaki et al. 2016).
Rather than moving west into Europe, this ancestry spread east and south. It is the main Near Eastern component in the pre-Indus populations of the Indo-Iranian borderlands and, mixed with a local hunter-gatherer lineage, forms a large part of the Indus Valley's genetic heritage (Narasimhan et al. 2019); it also flowed into the Caucasus, Anatolia and Arabia through the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. In the model it is closely related to the Caucasian Hunter Gatherer source, and the two share the deep 'eastern' lineage that distinguishes them from the Anatolian farmer.
In Ancestrify's qpAdm service, Iranian Neolithic Farmer is a source in the "Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer" era. The report shows its weight with a standard error and a Z-score, so you can see not only how much of the model it carries but how confidently that share is separated from zero, and a model that cannot support it is rejected rather than published. For genomes from Iran, the Caucasus, the Gulf and South Asia it is usually the anchoring source; elsewhere its weight should be read together with the Caucasian and Anatolian sources it overlaps.
Y haplogroups G2b, J2 and R2, and mtDNA J1, K1 and X2, are among the lineages reported from Zagros farmers. A haplogroup alone is never evidence of a share.
In your reportArtwork is an AI-generated artistic interpretation informed by the archaeological record — not documentary evidence.Represents the early farming populations of the Zagros Mountains (~10,000 BCE), exemplified by individuals from Ganj Dareh who show evidence of early goat domestication. Though genetically closest to Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers, Zagros farmers were deeply divergent from contemporary Anatolian Neolithic Farmers, having separated approximately 46,000–77,000 years ago. They made little direct contribution to European populations, suggesting relative geographic isolation from other Fertile Crescent groups. Their genetic legacy instead flowed eastward, with modern Pakistani, Afghan, and Iranian Zoroastrian populations showing the closest affinities. The genetic data support a model of multiple, independent transitions to agriculture by distinct populations across southwestern Asia.
Where this population sits in the model
The Ancestrify qpAdm analysis models your genome once per era. The Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer era has 13 curated source populations, and Iranian Neolithic Farmer is one of them: every candidate model for that era is a combination of these sources, tested against a fixed set of outgroup populations, and only a model that passes the statistical fit check is published — with a p-value, and a standard error on every proportion.
A reference, not a verdict: every population on this page is a source the model tests your genome against — a well-sampled point in ancient genetic space that a mixture of ancestries can be expressed in terms of. A weight on it means your genome is well described as partly resembling those people; it is never a statement that they, specifically, were your ancestors, and a population that fits well is not the only one that could.
Read how the method works on the qpAdm analysis page, or the definitions in the glossary.
Model it yourself for free
The Ancestrify Lab runs in your browser, with no account. Paste a Global25 row into an admixture calculator that covers the Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer era, rank the closest ancient populations in the distance tool, or run f4, qpWave and qpAdm on the public panel in the AdmixTools 2 workbench. These are Global25 fits and exploratory statistics, not the formal qpAdm model of the paid analysis.
Questions
Who were the Iranian Neolithic Farmer (8000 – 5000 BC)?
Iranian Neolithic Farmer is one of the 13 curated source populations in the Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer era of the Ancestrify qpAdm analysis: a group of published ancient genomes from one archaeological context, pooled as a single reference the model can test your genome against.
Does Iranian Neolithic Farmer in my result mean they were my ancestors?
No. A source population is a reference the model tests against, never a statement about who your ancestors were. A coefficient on this source means the ancestry those burials represent helps explain your genome to within statistical noise — similar ancestry composition, not descent from those individuals. Ancestrify never claims a population is your ancestor.
What does a Iranian Neolithic Farmer percentage in a qpAdm model mean?
qpAdm estimates the mixture proportions that best explain your genome as a combination of the chosen sources, given a fixed set of outgroup (right) populations, and reports a p-value for whether the model is statistically acceptable together with a standard error for every proportion. The percentage is that estimated share, with its uncertainty published beside it.
How do I get a qpAdm model that uses Iranian Neolithic Farmer?
Order the Ancestrify qpAdm analysis (€29.99, one-time) and upload the raw file you already have from a consumer test. Your genome is merged into the AADR reference panel and modelled across both eras; each era's model is built from that era's source populations, so a model for the Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer era draws on Iranian Neolithic Farmer where it improves the fit.
Can I model Iranian Neolithic Farmer ancestry for free first?
Yes. The Ancestrify Lab runs Global25 admixture calculators, a nearest-populations distance tool and an AdmixTools 2 workbench in your browser with no account, and several calculators cover the Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer era. Those are G25 fits, not formal qpAdm models — the paid analysis is the one with a p-value.
More populations from the Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer era
Browse the full directory of source populations, or continue with another population from the same era:
Anatolian Neolithic Farmer8500 – 6000 BC
Ancestral South Indian10000 – 2000 BC
Caucasian Hunter Gatherer13000 – 7000 BC
Eastern Hunter Gatherer12000 – 5000 BC
Iberomaurusian15000 – 8000 BC
Native American15000 – 1500 BC
Natufian12000 – 8000 BC
North African Farmer5200 – 4000 BC
Northeast Asian6000 – 2000 BC
Sub Saharan African
Western Hunter Gatherer12000 – 6000 BC
Western Steppe Herder5000 – 2800 BC