Did Mesolithic Europeans have dark skin, dark hair, and blue eyes?

[Jackson]

Germanics and Celts probably mainly descend from Indo Europeans that spread in west Europe from far eastern Europe during the metal ages, Finnish and Sami descend from Uralic's who spread in Scandinavia from far eastern Europe during the metal ages, Slavs and Balts may mainly descend from Indo Europeans and Uralic's who spread there in the metal ages from eastern Europe. These are the Europeans who have high amount of WGH ancestry, pale skin, and high amounts of light hair and eyes and it is very possible all of them trace most of their ancestry to around the same area of Russia just 6,000 years ago. Who knows how related their ancestors in Russia where but I am sure they were somewhat related because of how close they were to each other. This could mean there was a massive spread of light skin, hair, and eyes from far eastern Europe during the metal ages.

There needs to be a lot more ancient genomes to know if this is true or not, I still think it is more likely Mesolithic Europeans were very pale skinned, light haired and eyed, but still possible they were very dark skinned, haired, and eyed or very blue eyed. It is very hard to figure out when Europeans ancestors depigmentated it happened at some point. Evo and Proud seems to support the hypothesis that pale features became dominate because of sexual selection of females, and thinks it was complete 10,000-20,000ybp. I think it was recent based on constant age estimates of the three light skin genes, blue eyes, and blonde hair that are within the range of 10,000-20,000ybp. This major change in pigmentation also had a lot to do with genetics.

I'm considering that a possibility, if the ancestors of these populations were effectively a much lighter hunter-gatherer group/groups than the ones in western and central Europe, the differences between north and south could partly be explained by varying amounts of ancestry in this group. Although there are parts of Europe that are relatively dark but also high in R1, so that needs to be resolved.

[Jackson]

This passage is interesting on Evo and Proud:

When the last ice age ended some 10,000 years ago, it may be that only some European populations had acquired a fully ‘European’ phenotype, i.e., white skin, multi-hued eyes and hair, a more childlike face, and longer, straighter hair. This phenotype would have been most predominant on the former steppe-tundra of northern and eastern Europe. Moving outward from this region, one would have seen humans with more and more of the evolutionarily older traits, i.e., brown skin, uniformly brown eyes and black hair, a more robust face, and short, frizzy hair.

This older phenotype might have persisted well into the Holocene in peripheral and isolated parts of Europe. As Fleure (1945) notes:

In a few places in Sweden, Britain, and France, people have been noticed who show characteristics of the skull and face that remind one of late-Paleolithic man: these people are usually darker, in hair and eyes, than their neighbors; sometimes they even have swarthy skins.

Even in Scandinavia, we find references in folklore and mythology to an ancient dark-skinned population. A Norse poem, the Rigsthula, describes how the god Rig created a class of thralls who were black-haired, swarthy, and flat-nosed (Jonassen, 1951). This theme comes up elsewhere in Old Norse literature (Karras, 1988).

[Fire Haired]

I'm considering that a possibility, if the ancestors of these populations were effectively a much lighter hunter-gatherer group/groups than the ones in western and central Europe, the differences between north and south could partly be explained by varying amounts of ancestry in this group. Although there are parts of Europe that are relatively dark but also high in R1, so that needs to be resolved.

Y DNA I probably dominated Europe longer than any haplogroup. R1 and R itself may have originated in a non west Eurasian people, it came to west Eurasians through inter marriage. Y DNA is just a paternal lineage, so there is no surprise that high amounts of R1 exists in dark populations. Because of bottle neck, Indo Europeans spread mainly by conquering they replaced many native paternal lineages their overall ancestry wouldn't always survive well. So you could have dark or light Indo Europeans with direct male descendants who are the opposite in pigmentation. Y DNA N1c1 came originally from east Asia but Finnish, Sami, and Balts have more purely(pre Neolithic) European ancestry than anyone around today.

[Fire Haired]

This passage is interesting on Evo and Proud:

There is almost no way population isolates existed within Celts and Germans of the British isles, those so called black scots, Irish, etc, have the same genetic makeup as the rest of them. Those old Norse stories may very well be talking about Sami and Finnish who have a decent amount of east Asian ancestry and some can look east Asian. Flat noses were not dominate in any time frame of European history, from what I know Europe has always been dominated by tall and thin nosed west Eurasians aka Caucasians. Like I said in the thread there is brown skin in my family, people who were literally born with brown skin not just good at tanning. They also always have very dark hair and brown eyes, but through autosomal DNA test I know they are totally European and more farmer than hunter gatherer. The pre Celtic Neolithic people of the British isles would have been a lot like the LBK girl and Otzi, not Luschbour. The results of the LBK girl and Otzi in the three light skin genes is what would be excepted of an average modern west Asian or European. This mean those genes had already become dominate in the near east by probably 12,000 years ago, but who knows if they existed in Europe. There could be other factors for pale skin that Luschbour did have.

I don't know what child like faces Evo and Proud is talking about. I have never noticed Europeans have younger looking faces than non Europeans. What Europeans is she talking about either really only central, eastern, and northern Europeans should have phenotypes that are very similar to Mesolithic Europeans.

[Comte Arnau]

According to some data from Wikipedia about the Cro-Magnon, and the fact that both light skin and eyes are said to be not much older than 6,000 or 8,000 years old, Upper Paleolithic Europeans would rather have had:

-long low skull
-wide face
-prominent nose
-moderate prognathism
-tan skin
-brown eyes
-straight or slightly wavy hair, but possibly braided

Mesolithic Europeans might have been a sort of transitional stage, depending on how early the area would have been affected by Neolithic waves.

[Jackson]

There is almost no way population isolates existed within Celts and Germans of the British isles, those so called black scots, Irish, etc, have the same genetic makeup as the rest of them. Those old Norse stories may very well be talking about Sami and Finnish who have a decent amount of east Asian ancestry and some can look east Asian. Flat noses were not dominate in any time frame of European history, from what I know Europe has always been dominated by tall and thin nosed west Eurasians aka Caucasians. Like I said in the thread there is brown skin in my family, people who were literally born with brown skin not just good at tanning. They also always have very dark hair and brown eyes, but through autosomal DNA test I know they are totally European and more farmer than hunter gatherer. The pre Celtic Neolithic people of the British isles would have been a lot like the LBK girl and Otzi, not Luschbour. The results of the LBK girl and Otzi in the three light skin genes is what would be excepted of an average modern west Asian or European. This mean those genes had already become dominate in the near east by probably 12,000 years ago, but who knows if they existed in Europe. There could be other factors for pale skin that Luschbour did have.

I don't know what child like faces Evo and Proud is talking about. I have never noticed Europeans have younger looking faces than non Europeans. What Europeans is she talking about either really only central, eastern, and northern Europeans should have phenotypes that are very similar to Mesolithic Europeans.

Yeah i would agree in general, although these darker traits do exist alongside the lighter traits in people who are genetically very similar as you say. A lot of people who rely on physical anthropology seem to have a hard time understanding this.

[Fire Haired]

According to some data from Wikipedia about the Cro-Magnon, and the fact that both light skin and eyes are said to be not much older than 6,000 or 8,000 years old, Upper Paleolithic Europeans would rather have had:

-long low skull
-wide face
-prominent nose
-moderate prognathism
-tan skin
-brown eyes
-straight or slightly wavy hair, but possibly braided

Mesolithic Europeans might have been a sort of transitional stage, depending on how early the area would have been affected by Neolithic waves.

Luschbour had no near eastern farmer ancestry, he was from what we know a pure European(pre Neolithic) and the only genome of one published in detail. La Brana-1 had some farmer admixture but was mainly of the same blood as Luschbour, he was reported as having blue eyes while 2/2 farmers had brown eyes and their closest modern relatives Sardinia have the lowest amount of blue eyes in Europe. It is an assumption all European paleness descends from Near eastern(important to remember) farmers. We desperately need more ancient DNA to know the pigmentation history of Europe. I doubt Mesolithic Europeans were in a transitional stage because there were so many different ones, they all couldn't be evolving the same way at the same time.

[Fire Haired]

Yeah i would agree in general, although these darker traits do exist alongside the lighter traits in people who are genetically very similar as you say. A lot of people who rely on physical anthropology seem to have a hard time understanding this.

I thought the people on this forum who are so focused on anthropology were fools, but I can see how it can be a very good tool when used with DNA genetic studies. It is very unlikely there are isolate populations within known ethnic groups that have Luschbour like blood and features.

[Jackson]

I thought the people on this forum who are so focused on anthropology were fools, but I can see how it can be a very good tool when used with DNA genetic studies. It is very unlikely there are isolate populations within known ethnic groups that have Luschbour like blood and features.

Yeah i agree, the common ground needs to be found between the two fields.

[Gaston]

When the last ice age ended some 10,000 years ago, it may be that only some European populations had acquired a fully ‘European’ phenotype, i.e., white skin, multi-hued eyes and hair, a more childlike face, and longer, straighter hair. This phenotype would have been most predominant on the former steppe-tundra of northern and eastern Europe. Moving outward from this region, one would have seen humans with more and more of the evolutionarily older traits, i.e., brown skin, uniformly brown eyes and black hair, a more robust face, and short, frizzy hair.

This older phenotype might have persisted well into the Holocene in peripheral and isolated parts of Europe. As Fleure (1945) notes:

In a few places in Sweden, Britain, and France, people have been noticed who show characteristics of the skull and face that remind one of late-Paleolithic man: these people are usually darker, in hair and eyes, than their neighbors; sometimes they even have swarthy skins.

Even in Scandinavia, we find references in folklore and mythology to an ancient dark-skinned population. A Norse poem, the Rigsthula, describes how the god Rig created a class of thralls who were black-haired, swarthy, and flat-nosed (Jonassen, 1951). This theme comes up elsewhere in Old Norse literature (Karras, 1988).

WTF? Does he work for L'Oréal or something?

Evo and Proud is not the best thing to quote because there is little science there and the author is borderline narcissistic and Eurocentric.