-Both Mycenaean and Classical Greeks were heavily J2
-Anatolians the oldest branch of IE were J2
-Illyrian sample we have shared the exact same J2 as a bronze age Armenian
-Bactrians of historic times, as well as the bronze age ancestors of western Iranics in Iran were J2
-Thracian aristocratic inhumation burial containing rich grave goods that we have was J2
-We even have some Goths who were J2
You know, other than the fact that the map of distribution of J2 is a nearly perfect map of the IE world.
Maybe it's time to acknowledge that water is wet and the fantasy stories needed to rationalize this away are not realistic.
Yes, of course some J2 caldes are major markers in Indo-European-speaking populations, which is a statement completely different from asserting if/that J2 was a major marker in the first waves of PIE expansion. Two totally different issues. You're analyzing these markers in a very vague and generic way, which is just incorrect.
Just like, depending on which population you're talking about, I1, I2, E-V13 and even H (Gypsy people) may be associated with the spread of some IE languages later, it's totally probable, almost certain, that J2 was picked up by speakers of early IE branches and then the later migration waves spread IE languages together with some J2 clades. The IE expansion took place in different periods and places, it was layer upon layer of Indo-Europeanization, not just one massive wave and that was it.
Associating all of J2 is a very naive mistake. J2 is way too old and too widespread to be associated with PIE/Early IE languages alone. Its very high frequencies in places known to not be historically IE (e.g. many Caucasian ethnicities) or even to have never had indigenous IE languages, like the Levant and North Africa, are also an important caveat, but, more than that, J2 in the ancient DNA record is found in many places and times when/where IE languages are not supposed to have been spoken there (not yet).
Do you know what specific clade of J2 can be clearly shown to be present in all the IE-speaking world and to have started expanding right when the PIE language is supposed to have started splitting into several distinct branches as it dispersed to many different areas? J2 in India is mainly J2b AFAIK, it's mainly J2a in Italy, and so on. And it's not just that: are the J2b and the J2a clades exactly the same and starting from one major star-like boom some 4000-5500 years ago, as we can demonstrate for the
specific R1a-M417 and R1b-L23 clades? What's precisely the "R1b-L23" or the "R1a-MR17" of the "Indo-European J2" after all?
I think you might be underestimating the important demographic, genetic and cultural contribution of
other peoples that were not IE, but many of them came to be Indo-Europeanized linguistically, but not without changing the culture, genetics and phenotypes of the diverse IE peoples. The ancient world didn't revolve around PIE speakers, and the speakers of the discrete IE subfamilies most certainly went on to have their own genetic profile and cultural distinctiveness as they clearly
mixed extensively with other populations that they absorbed or merged with. You seem to be assuming that each and every time wherever IE languages arrived the PIE-derived people completely dominated the entire gene pool, or at least the paternal lineages, without changing their own genetics much, and without absorbing foreign lineages. It's like everything must come from the Proto-Indo-Europeans... lol
I also think that some of your claims are perhaps too bold. We have very few samples from the
entire BA Anatolia, let alone if we can be certain that the specificially IE Anatolians were mostly J2.
I can accept that
some specific subclades of J2 (mainly J2b IIRC) were probably present at least in the latest PIE population, but the J2 distribution as a whole? No way.
