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

[Fire Haired]

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.

I totally dis agree, he or she probably knows more about making accurate claims with sources and a better critical thinker than any of us on this thread. How is he or she borderline narcissistic and Eurocentric? If he(takes to long) was Eurocentric he would be claiming European features were the original features of humanity, and making un sourced claims of sometype of European superiority. A special interest in European history and modern issues in Europe is not a bad thing, someone has to be. Is the European Union being Euro centric a bad thing? He gave a source for those claims anyways. I dis agree with what he is saying that is evidence of, but their real sources. Brown skin does exist in northwest Europe I know that as a fact and the black Brit, scot, and Irish thing is real.

[Gaston]

I totally dis agree, he or she probably knows more about making accurate claims with sources and a better critical thinker than any of us on this thread. How is he or she borderline narcissistic and Eurocentric? If he(takes to long) was Eurocentric he would be claiming European features were the original features of humanity, and making un sourced claims of sometype of European superiority. A special interest in European history and modern issues in Europe is not a bad thing, someone has to be. Is the European Union being Euro centric a bad thing? He gave a source for those claims anyways. I dis agree with what he is saying that is evidence of, but their real sources. Brown skin does exist in northwest Europe I know that as a fact and the black Brit, scot, and Irish thing is real.

Why do you always write very long posts ? Nobody wants to read a huge text you know. Have you ever realized that a significant part of your contributions is ignored for this very reason?


As for your answer, I didn't mention anything that you wrote so I don't know what your point is. I just gave a general impression of the blog Evo and Proud and pointed out the weird statement about the hair of modern Europeans (L'Oréal models) vs Paleolithic Europeans (dark frizzy people who can't grow long hair).

[Jackson]

Why do you always write very long posts ? Nobody wants to read a huge text you know. Have you ever realized that a significant part of your contributions is ignored for this very reason?


As for your answer, I didn't mention anything that you wrote so I don't know what your point is. I just gave a general impression of the blog Evo and Proud and pointed out the weird statement about the hair of modern Europeans (L'Oréal models) vs Paleolithic Europeans (dark frizzy people who can't grow long hair).

I like the fact he writes long posts. I mean one of the good things about a forum is that you can spend more time deciding what you are going to say, and saying more.

[Fire Haired]

Why do you always write very long posts ? Nobody wants to read a huge text you know. Have you ever realized that a significant part of your contributions is ignored for this very reason?


As for your answer, I didn't mention anything that you wrote so I don't know what your point is. I just gave a general impression of the blog Evo and Proud and pointed out the weird statement about the hair of modern Europeans (L'Oréal models) vs Paleolithic Europeans (dark frizzy people who can't grow long hair).

I know my posts are long and most people ignore them. I make them because some people read them, they help me learn, and I feel guilty if I don't put down all the details. If you know nothing about Evo and Proud besides those two quotes you shouldn't be claiming something so big.

What exactly is frizzy hair? I and some relatives have very thick and straight hair that can't grow long it just gets big, is that Frizzy?

Evo and Proud should not be generalizing how European people look. Greeks and Finnish share a very small amount of common ancestry but both are considered European. Only central, northern, and eastern Europeans have a significant amount of pre Neolithic European ancestry, southern Europeans have vast majority farmer or recent near eastern ancestry. I would except there would be skeletal differences, hair texture, etc. because of that.

[Argang]

Since the supposedly blue-eyed La Brana from mesolithic Iberia is somewhat related to the topic... Someone "in the known" says here that he had haplogroup C-V20 and not I, R1 or other more common haplos. The EUpedia mods say he's genuine. Might still be bullshitting but if he is, we should see within a month or so when the study is published.

[Prisoner Of Ice]

I don't know why(can't download the study) but he was reported as having a 52.7% probability for blue eyes, 26.8% probability of intermediate, and 20.7% probability for brown eyes.

It's because of gene expression. Sometimes genes are locked off so they don't function properly, so you don't always get their effects.

It is hard to believe my somewhat recent Mesolithic European ancestors may have been very dark skinned, and that light skin did not become dominate till their descendants mixed with brown eyed and dark haired near eastern farmers in the Neolithic. My family is 100% northwest European and there are multiple brown skinned people but most of us have pale skin and blue eyes and a bunch of us have light or red hair. I have not been isolated to my family though, I have known basically who I am genetically since I was very little and I know nearly all Europeans have light skin and southern Europeans are darker. I can easily recognize if someone is European especially if they are northern, central, or eastern European. It is hard to believe our signature features may have not existed as dominate traits in Europe during most of the Mesolithic.

There's lightening genes, but they don't do as much as simply not having the dark genes (of which there's many). In fact if you don't have the darkening genes, the lightening genes don't have any purpose. So it's ridiculous to assume they are very dark like africans just because they don't have the lightening genes. They are again making the big assumption people start off with a bunch of darkness genes then somehow lose them, but this is basically impossible, there's just too many of them for that to ever happen if everyone around you has them.

[Fire Haired]

It's because of gene expression. Sometimes genes are locked off so they don't function properly, so you don't always get their effects.



There's lightening genes, but they don't do as much as simply not having the dark genes (of which there's many). In fact if you don't have the darkening genes, the lightening genes don't have any purpose. So it's ridiculous to assume they are very dark like africans just because they don't have the lightening genes. They are again making the big assumption people start off with a bunch of darkness genes then somehow lose them, but this is basically impossible, there's just too many of them for that to ever happen if everyone around you has them.

Since it was reported by a researcher that La Brana-1 had the same gene for blue eyes as modern blue eyed north Europeans, and now we know Loschbour had this so called blue eye gene, I think they would have also had pale skin. Either they didn't have blue eyes and had dark skin or had blue eyes and light skin. Who would argue that the blue eye gene in Mesolithic Europeans is not connected to the same gene that takes up a majority in so many parts of Europe today, not surprisingly in areas with the most Mesolithic ancestry. I think Loschbour had pale skin, black hair, and blue eyes. But I still consider the possibility he had very dark skin.

You will have to ask an expert on how genes and all that other stuff works. The light genes are mutations of genes that cause dark pigmentation, that's my interpretation. East Asians have the ancestral "Dark skin alleles" in those SNP's I name in this thread but they have light skin because there are other mutations(I think unknown) that cause their pale skin. Loschbour had the 'dark skin alleles" in all three of those SNP's that is why people are saying he had dark skin. Whoever said he was dark like Africans(sub Saharan or north).

If Loschbour truly had dark skin it would be at the darkest probably like southern Arabs or like north Africans. I made the point so many times that those so called white skin genes are about as popular in west asia as in Europe. West Asians are basically brownish skinned like Algerians and Arabs even though they have a low amount of these genes. So I think the effect they make on skin color is overrated and there are other factors to the very light skin in Europeans, especially the ones with high amounts of Mesolithic ancestry.

The Paper on La Brana-1(7,000 year old hunter gatherer northern Spain) should be out soon. It was reported by CLF(possible a researcher from the study on La Brana-1) on Eupedia that he had Y DNA C6-V20. A haplogroup that has been hypothesized as being descended from "Cro magnon" aka Upper Palaeolithic Europeans. He was reported by the real CLF as having that blue eye gene, we will probably learn what hair color he had and also if he had any of the three 'white skin" genes.

[Prisoner Of Ice]

Since it was reported by a researcher that La Brana-1 had the same gene for blue eyes as modern blue eyed north Europeans, and now we know Loschbour had this so called blue eye gene, I think they would have also had pale skin. Either they didn't have blue eyes and had dark skin or had blue eyes and light skin. Who would argue that the blue eye gene in Mesolithic Europeans is not connected to the same gene that takes up a majority in so many parts of Europe today, not surprisingly in areas with the most Mesolithic ancestry. I think Loschbour had pale skin, black hair, and blue eyes. But I still consider the possibility he had very dark skin.

They did not really do enough to show he has dark skin. I don't think it's certain he had pale skin, though. It was interesting to see the australoid mix in the mal'ta boy.

Could be that out of india is correct, and australoids were the first wave out (probably second, after pygmies/negritos), and in europe it's been largely washed away now.

You will have to ask an expert on how genes and all that other stuff works. The light genes are mutations of genes that cause dark pigmentation, that's my interpretation. East Asians have the ancestral "Dark skin alleles" in those SNP's I name in this thread but they have light skin because there are other mutations(I think unknown) that cause their pale skin.

There's darkening genes, and lightening genes. The lightening genes probably don't do all that much anyway, because like half the planet has them even though many are very dark.

This guy does not have the lightening genes, which is all they looked for, which seems pretty silly thing to do it's almost like they want to screw it up.

Loschbour had the 'dark skin alleles" in all three of those SNP's that is why people are saying he had dark skin. Whoever said he was dark like Africans(sub Saharan or north).

If Loschbour truly had dark skin it would be at the darkest probably like southern Arabs or like north Africans. I made the point so many times that those so called white skin genes are about as popular in west asia as in Europe. West Asians are basically brownish skinned like Algerians and Arabs even though they have a low amount of these genes. So I think the effect they make on skin color is overrated and there are other factors to the very light skin in Europeans, especially the ones with high amounts of Mesolithic ancestry.

The Paper on La Brana-1(7,000 year old hunter gatherer northern Spain) should be out soon. It was reported by CLF(possible a researcher from the study on La Brana-1) on Eupedia that he had Y DNA C6-V20. A haplogroup that has been hypothesized as being descended from "Cro magnon" aka Upper Palaeolithic Europeans. He was reported by the real CLF as having that blue eye gene, we will probably learn what hair color he had and also if he had any of the three 'white skin" genes.

Hmm. I guess again you could argue this supports "out of asia" if this is so.

[Graham]

Don't areas in the North East Europe show highly Mesolithic in genetics? But also are high in blue eyes & light hair. Perhaps it's difficult to compare the evolution of a country & sexual preference over thousands of years, to back then. It could have been mixed & You could look into a Population bottleneck. At what age though?

[blogen]

and now we know Loschbour had this so called blue eye gene, I think they would have also had pale skin.

Your problem, but this is the true about Loschbour:

"An interesting finding is that the Luxembourg hunter-gatherer probably had blue eyes (like a Mesolithic La Brana Iberian, a paper on which seems to be in the works) but darker skin than the LBK farmer who had brown eyes but lighter skin. Raghavan et al. did not find light pigmentation in Mal'ta (but that was a very old sample), so with the exception of light eyes that seem established for Western European hunter-gatherers (and may have been "darker" in European steppe populations, but "lighter" in Bronze Age South Siberians?), the origin of depigmentation of many recent Europeans remains a mystery. Ancient DNA continues to surprise at every turn."

So the Loschbour peoples were hardcore swarthies somewhere between the present Indians and South med peoples.