01-28-2016, 09:08 AM
Alan, I don't think that you fully appreciated the importance of the information in my post. You are describing modern populations and Ancient/Medieval illustrations, I was describing Ancient DNA. Of course there are minorities in Asia and elsewhere with light hair and light eyes, Ghengis Khan is described as red-haired, as, indeed, is Timur. Also, from the perspective of the Chinese, who called themselves "The Black-haired People", and who are overwhelmingly black haired and dark-brown of eye, any level of lighter hair and eye colouring will be noteworthy.
In the past the relatively light hair and eyes of a minority of Afghans and others in the surrounding region were explained in terms of the historical Greco-Macedonian influx. Otherwise they were explained as being derived from the Indo-European expansion. This categorically cannot be done any more.
Population genetics studies of recent years showed that the population of Europe had three components - the proportion varies between countries. One component was identified to indigenous hunter-gatherers, another to the Neolithic farmers of Middle Eastern origins and the third was unknown. The use of DNA extracted from burials of the Early Bronze Age Ukraine, of people of the Yamnaya Culture, have identified the third component of European ancestry. A mass migration of these people in the Early Bronze Age resulted in the transmission of their genes to almost all Europeans - the Sardinians seem to have no Yamnaya ancestry and they are exceptional. From the point of view of "what is most likely" the Yamnaya are the best candidates as being the original proto-Indo-European speakers - they also were the originators of the R1b marker. The Yamnaya also migrated into Central Asia to give rise to the Afanasevo Culture (proto-Tocharian?).
What the researchers on Ancient DNA were able to do is look at some markers, "genetic height", mutations associated with light skin colour, and mutations associated with light eye colour.
This has demonstratively shown that those characteristics once associated with "Nordic" features did not originate in one original population. Modern Europeans are a mosaic of features from different ancestors which have been worked upon in situ by selection (natural and/or sexual) since they became combined.
Yamnaya were tall, had relatively light skin, but had brown (or not blond) hair and brown eye alleles.
The Western European Hunter Gatherers (WEHG - Mesolithic aborigines) had blue (light) eye alleles (100%!), and dark skin - not just swarthy, dark like today's tropical peoples. However, the Scandinavian Mesolithic Hunter Gatherers seem to have had lighter skin.
The Neolithic peoples were relatively short, light-skinned and had intermediate levels of eye colour, but generally a majority of dark eye alleles.
The take-home message is that any light eyed or blond-haired people in Central Asia were not the result of the original Indo-European expansion, as the original Indo-Europeans were dark of hair and eye - as shown by their preserved DNA. Quite possibly some early Siberian populations may have had lighter colouring, or some reflux eastern movement of mixed Yamnaya/Early Farmer/WEHG populations may have occurred, no one knows.
In the past the relatively light hair and eyes of a minority of Afghans and others in the surrounding region were explained in terms of the historical Greco-Macedonian influx. Otherwise they were explained as being derived from the Indo-European expansion. This categorically cannot be done any more.
Population genetics studies of recent years showed that the population of Europe had three components - the proportion varies between countries. One component was identified to indigenous hunter-gatherers, another to the Neolithic farmers of Middle Eastern origins and the third was unknown. The use of DNA extracted from burials of the Early Bronze Age Ukraine, of people of the Yamnaya Culture, have identified the third component of European ancestry. A mass migration of these people in the Early Bronze Age resulted in the transmission of their genes to almost all Europeans - the Sardinians seem to have no Yamnaya ancestry and they are exceptional. From the point of view of "what is most likely" the Yamnaya are the best candidates as being the original proto-Indo-European speakers - they also were the originators of the R1b marker. The Yamnaya also migrated into Central Asia to give rise to the Afanasevo Culture (proto-Tocharian?).
What the researchers on Ancient DNA were able to do is look at some markers, "genetic height", mutations associated with light skin colour, and mutations associated with light eye colour.
This has demonstratively shown that those characteristics once associated with "Nordic" features did not originate in one original population. Modern Europeans are a mosaic of features from different ancestors which have been worked upon in situ by selection (natural and/or sexual) since they became combined.
Yamnaya were tall, had relatively light skin, but had brown (or not blond) hair and brown eye alleles.
The Western European Hunter Gatherers (WEHG - Mesolithic aborigines) had blue (light) eye alleles (100%!), and dark skin - not just swarthy, dark like today's tropical peoples. However, the Scandinavian Mesolithic Hunter Gatherers seem to have had lighter skin.
The Neolithic peoples were relatively short, light-skinned and had intermediate levels of eye colour, but generally a majority of dark eye alleles.
The take-home message is that any light eyed or blond-haired people in Central Asia were not the result of the original Indo-European expansion, as the original Indo-Europeans were dark of hair and eye - as shown by their preserved DNA. Quite possibly some early Siberian populations may have had lighter colouring, or some reflux eastern movement of mixed Yamnaya/Early Farmer/WEHG populations may have occurred, no one knows.
Martin
Fac me cocleario vomere!
Fac me cocleario vomere!
