Overview
J2a-Y20048 is a downstream highland-centric lineage of J2a-M67 and is primarily connected with communities inhabiting the eastern Anatolian volcanic highlands, the Armenian plateau and adjacent upland basins of northern Mesopotamia. Its formation corresponds with early Holocene upland agricultural expansions, during which highland societies developed terrace farming, orchard-based subsistence and extensive transhumant pastoralism. Archaeological patterns indicate strong involvement in obsidian trade, early metal experimentation and durable networks linking the Caucasus, Taurus and northern Zagros. Bronze Age populations bearing this lineage likely participated in the landscape of fortified highland centers, metallurgical hubs and early polities situated between major cultural regions. Y20048 displays internal structuring that mirrors ecological compartmentalization across upland valleys, plateau basins and mountain corridor systems. Iron Age and classical upland populations of Armenia, eastern Turkey and northwest Iran preserve paternal signatures consistent with the clade’s downstream diversification, suggesting long-term demographic continuity.