Overview
Haplogroup R-Y9292 is a downstream R2a lineage that emerged in the middle Holocene during the major cultural transformations that reshaped South-Central Asia. Its formation age places it at the intersection of expanding agro-pastoral lifeways, increasing interregional mobility and the early stages of proto-urban development in regions such as Baluchistan, southeastern Iran and the Helmand River basin. Y9292 today appears in trace frequencies in Pakistan, Afghanistan and occasionally northwest India. Its distribution suggests that the lineage participated in localized yet persistent population structures occupying riverine foothills and semi-arid ecological zones. Such settings are known from archaeology to have hosted long-lived communities that bridged Iranian Plateau traditions with South Asian cultural developments. No ancient remains have been assigned to Y9292, but several R2a-affiliated Chalcolithic and Bronze Age individuals from the Iranian Plateau and the Indus-adjacent regions create a strong contextual framework. As an intermediate-level R2a branch, Y9292 contributes to understanding the mosaic of paternal diversity present in South-Central Asia prior to later demographic reorganizations.