Overview
Haplogroup R-FT20893 is a key middle-Holocene branch of R2a that emerged during a period of heightened cultural connectivity across the Iranian Plateau. Its estimated formation places it after the initial Neolithic expansions but before the major Bronze Age demographic movements in the region. The lineage’s phylogenetic position suggests that FT20893 developed among populations integrating early agricultural practices with increasingly mobile herding strategies. Today FT20893 occurs at low frequency in Iran, Afghanistan and occasionally in Pakistan’s western provinces. This distribution aligns with archaeological evidence for long-lived agro-pastoral communities in the Zagros foothills, the Helmand Basin and the borderlands of eastern Iran. The persistence of FT20893 implies that its carriers maintained regional continuity despite later demographic pressures from Indo-Iranian expansions and historical-era migrations. Ancient DNA has not yet yielded a direct FT20893 sample, but multiple upstream R2a signatures in Neolithic Iranian Plateau individuals and Chalcolithic Helmand material strongly support the regional antiquity of the lineage.