Overview
J1-FGC8472 is a downstream subclade of J1-Z1828 with strong demographic ties to the South Caucasus, eastern Anatolia and the northern Zagros range. Its early formation corresponds to middle Holocene upland communities practicing mixed agro-pastoral strategies, transhumance and early metallurgical production. These groups played a role in the formation and expansion of upland cultural complexes, including the formative phases of the Kura-Araxes tradition. During the Bronze and Iron Ages, FGC8472-bearing populations participated in highland socio-political systems characterized by tribal alliances, upland fortresses, mountain pass control and long-distance pastoral mobility. Its downstream phylogeny contains several geographically restricted microbranches, indicating continuity across multiple millennia in isolated upland valleys and plateaus.