Pilgrimage to Kotias Klde Cave with Local Villagers and Possible Descendants of 9700 ybp Hunter Gatherer

May 4, 2019 4d Comments

Article about male lineages in the Caucasus related to the ancient hunter gatherer

Georgians celebrate Easter Sunday by having a picnic accompanied with wine and toasts at ancestors cemetery. This is the new cemetery in Sveri, in Imereti near the city of Chiatura.
Me, Elene, her uncle and his cousin set off from Sveri village to the Kotias Klde cave. The cave is of personal interest to us because these men may turn out to be related along the male line to the hunter gatherer found in the cave who lived 9,700 years ago. Nature article
When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
A possible shortcut
Jemali follows his instinct as my GPS tells us we are within 150 m of the cave.
We actually found the cave! Thanks Besarion Gugushvili for providing me the coordinates.
With light in hand, Jemali fearlessly strides into Kotias Klde Cave. Luckily he was not attacked by bears.
There are many small stalagmites in the cave.

 

We celebrate the successful expedition with Zurab’s homemade white wine in his house in Sveri.

Watch the video of our expedition

4 thoughts on “Pilgrimage to Kotias Klde Cave with Local Villagers and Possible Descendants of 9700 ybp Hunter Gatherer”

    1. These men turned out to be J1, so I as a J2b am more closely related to the KK1 sample who is J2a. Then this year it was released that another 10,000 year old sample from the same cave, NEO281, is also J2b like me. That particular line of J2b died out but I’m more closely related to that sample than 99.9% of living Georgians…

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