Early Slavic phenotypes (6th - 10th centuries)

[Peterski]

Regarding primary sources (Early Medieval ones) about early Slavic appearance, check this article in Polish (link below):

http://www.archeo.uw.edu.pl/swarch/S...B-s205-212.pdf

Here a chart from last pages of that article:



And a short English summary text (the whole article is in Polish):



And here are some of the sources that author of that article used (translated to English):

"Phenotype of old Slavs, 6th to 10th centuries", by Łukasz M. Stanaszek.

I. Byzantine sources:

1. Procopius of Caesarea (6th century):

- "(...) Valerian chose one of the Sklaveni who are men of mighty stature. (...)"

- "(...) Nay further, they do not differ at all from one another in appearance. For they are all exceptionally tall and stalwart men, while their bodies and hair are neither very fair or very blonde, nor indeed do they incline entirely to the dark type, but they are slightly ruddy in color. (...)"

2. Theophilact Simokatta (describing events from year 595):

"(...) The Emperor was with great curiosity listening to stories about this tribe, he has welcomed these newcomers from the land of barbarians, and after being amazed by their height and mighty stature, he sent these men to Heraclea. (...)"

3. Theophanes the Confessor (describing the same event from year 595):

"(...) The Emperor was admiring their beauty and their stalwart stature. (...)"

4. Pseudo-Maurice (Strategikon) - late 6th century / early 7th century:

"(...) Tribes of Sclaveni and Antes (...) are very resistant to hardships, they easily endure both heat and cold, rain and lack of garment. (...)"

5. Constantine Porphyrogennetos (10th century):

About ancestors of Balkan Croats and ancestors of Balkan Serbs:

"(...) their ancestors were Pagan Croats and Serbs, known also as White [Croats and Serbs]. Great Croatia, called also White [Croatia], until today is still Pagan, just like neighbouring [Lusatian] Serbs [Sorbs] (...)"

II. Muslim and Sephardi Jewish sources:

6. Al-Baladuri (late 7th century):

"(...) Slavs are a tribe of ruddy complexion and fair hair. (...)"

7. Ibn Qutajba (describing events from years 691 - 694):

"(...) If only Prince wanted, outside of his doors would be black Sudanians or ruddy Slavs (...)"

The same information is repeated also by 8. Al-Baladuri (9th century).

9. Al-Ahtal (late 7th century):

"(...) Birds of the desert saw in those people a crowd of fair-haired Slavs. (...)"

10. Jaqut (13th century, but using much older primary sources):

"(...) Slavs are a tribe of ruddy complexion and fair hair. (...)"

11. Ibn Al-Kalbi (late 8th century / early 9th century):

"(...) Slavs are a numerous nation, fair-haired and of ruddy [pink] complexion. (...)"

12. Al-Gahiz (early 9th century):

"(...) Among Slavs, abominable and ugly are their smoothness of hair [as opposed to curly hair] and delicateness, as well as blond or ruddy colour of their hair and beards, and also whiteness [bright blond colour] of their eyelashes (...)"

Al-Gahiz:

"(...) Tell me friend, after how many generations a Zang became black, and a Slav became white? (...)"

13. Abraham ben Jacob (years 965 - 966):

"(...) What is peculiar [when it comes to Slavs], most of Bojema people [Bohemians / Czechs] are of swarthy complexion and dark hair, while fair colors are rare among them [compared to frequencies among other West and East Slavs]. (...)"

Abraham ben Jacob:

"(...) Slavic people are often haunted by two diseases (...) these are two types of rash: redness and abscess (...)"

14. Ibn Al-Faqih (10th century):

"(...) There exist two kinds of Slavic people. First kind are people of swarthy complexion and dark hair. They live near the coast of the [Mediterranean] Sea. The other kind are fair people, who live inland. (...)"

Ibn Al-Faqih:

"(...) Inhabitants of Iraq are people (...) who are not born with hair colour intermediate between russet, blond, matt-white and white [bright blond], as it happens among children born from Slavic women. (...) People of Iraq are free from russet hair colour of Slavs. (...)"

15. Al-Masudi (10th century):

He writes that dominant complexion among Slavic people is fair, not dark.

III. German sources:

15. Saint Bruno of Querfurt:

He wrote that in Poland having a beard was a common custom among men.

Please note that word "ruddy" has had several meanings in English language.

Some people think that "ruddy" is redhead but this is wrong, ruddy is rather about various darker shades of blonde, brown, brown-orange, etc.

Tacitus when describing Ancient Germanics also called them ruddy, using the same word as later many sources when describing Slavs.

But here is explanation why translating this word as redhead is probably wrong:

For example, the adjective in relation to hair colour is rutilus, used by Tacitus in his "Germania" and when describing the Caledonians. It is cognate with english 'ruddy'. But, the same adjective is used to describe a lion, gold and the sun. Sounds very much like a tawny colour, reddish-yellow or brown-orange. Other commentaters use rufus and flavus, blonde. So Tacitus is not alone in using this description.

(...)

And by the way the same or similar words were used later by early sources describing hair of Slavic people.

And here an excerpt from another article:

The earliest Arabic-Slavic contacts can probably be traced all the way to the 500's, and most likely occured on or near the territory of the East Roman (Byzantine) Empire. The earliest Arabic sources describe the Slavs as a people with pale skin, that turns "red" while under the sun, and blond hair. The Arabs even referred to a certain kind of a white coloured bean as Saqalibiya (Slavic), as we learn from the Kitab al-Filaha, a treatise on agriculture written by Ibn al-'Avvam at the end of the 12th century; the bean's colour apparently reminded them of the colour of the Slavs' hair. The first confirmed instance of the Slavs meeting the Arabs is mentioned by the Byzantine chronicler Teofanes (Teophanes), who wrote in the early 9th century; according to him in 664 a group of 5 000 Slavic (Sklavinoi) mercenaries in the Byzantine service joined the victorious army of the Omayyad (Umayyad) Caliph Mu'avyi I (reigned 661-680) who was returning from a campaign in Asia Minor. The caliph settled these Slavs in an area near the city of Apamea in northern Syria.

Pseudo-Caesarius of Nazianzus (6th century) when describing Slavs did not mention hair colour, only that "they are numerous and tall".

He confirms info given by Procopius and others who lived during the 6th century, that Slavs were "exceptionally tall".

=================================

Abraham ben Jacob (a 10th century Sephardic Jewish traveller from Muslim Spain):

"(...) Slavic countries extend from the Mediterranean Sea to the Northern Ocean. (...) Generally speaking, Slavs are warlike and violent, and if not their internal discord and lack of unity, no other nation would be able to match them in strength. (...)"

What can be observed is increasing differentation of Slavic people when it comes to appearance throughout centuries.

This is most sharply visible when we compare appearance of West and East (North) Slavs with that of South Slavs.

But also North Slavs started to differ in appearance, for example due to mixing with and assimilating other peoples (like Uralic or Baltic tribes).

[Amud]

Slavs have a lot of R1A. This must be an early Nordic type, which was the main element among Slavs before the Baltid/Neo-Danubian phenotypes and others entered.

[Peterski]

But let's also add that "bright blond" in Arab / Muslim or even Mediterranean sources can mean anything from brown to medium blond as well. They simply had different standards because they were mostly very dark-haired so for them everyone with brighter hair was "very blond".

Also light hair exposed to sun for a long time usually becomes even lighter (and pale skin exposed to sun usually turns red).

And if someone migrated from cloudy northern regions to sunny southern regions, they had more exposition to sun.

[Hevo]

Reconstruction of a Radimich woman



Kryvich woman:

[Not a Cop]

Reconstruction of a Radimich woman



Kryvich woman:

That's already Medieval times, but thoose a couple of Kriviches also

[Rugevit]

....but thoose a couple of Kriviches also

The man is Krivich, while the woman is Vyatich if I am not mistaken. I've seen the picture of this reconstruction elsewhere.

[aherne]

All descriptions point at people of Aryan race. Hardly surprising, given the proximity of Slavs and Aryans' homeland (there was continuous flow of Aryan blood into the region, during Corded as well as Scythian times). However, a certain amount of Baltid influences is to be expected too, since it was Baltids who used to inhabit the marshes of Upper Dnepr before the Aryans.

I would say this woman (who shows significant amounts of Baltid influence on top of Aryan) would have been fairly common:

[Peterski]

This must be an early Nordic type, which was the main element among Slavs before the Baltid/Neo-Danubian phenotypes and others entered.

This is also what Niederle, Czekanowski and Koneczny were saying. BTW - check these links (all three in English):

http://pl.scribd.com/doc/110656020/C...cal-Facts-1962

http://sci.pam.szczecin.pl/~fasting/...zny/strona.htm

https://genographic.nationalgeograph...e-populations/

And some data from these links posted above:

1) According to National Geographic's Genographic Project, modern Russians are genetically more Nordic than modern Germans:





2) Percentages of various anthropological types among Belarusians, Russians, etc. (from Czekanowski, 1962 - first link):







Also (from Koneczny - second link):

Thhis was a victory for Niederle's thesis, once regarded as bold. that the original Slavs were of Nordic type, and that Slavonic expansion was undoubtedly, from an anthropological point of view, expansion by the Nordic race. By the end of the first millenium, the predominant type among Slavs was long-headed (...) Adequate attention was at length paid to the fact that ancient authors (notably the Byzantines and Arabs) describe the Slavs as light-haired. It was also at last realised that the present zone of short-headed Slavs is an inconsiderable part of Slav territory, and includes for the most part lands which became Slav only in historic times, as for instance everything south of the Carpathians.[413]

(...)

There is no lack of doubts, which is not strange, since progress in science is born of doubt. The leading German authority on these matters, Eugen Fischer, complicates the issue still further by collecting features drawn from archaeology (considering for example that line graves are a Nordic feature) lists seven "anthropological circles", and these are divided into races, geographically extremely mixed (chiefly as a result of wanderings). All German scholars are particularly intent on following up the range of the long-headed blond, in the mistaken opinion that these features are indubitable indications of German or at least Germanic blood. But it has already been established that they are by no means racial features of the mass of Germanic peoples today,[416] while Scandinavia itssif reveals quite a number of the short-headed.

[Peterski]

Slovenes have mostly North Slavic ancestry (as I wrote on page 3) - see Dienekes:

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2007/03...n-ukraine.html

(...) The most apparent genetic distance was found between the northern (Eastern and Western) and Southern Slavs, who at the end of the 9th century were separated by the invasion of Finno-Ugric Hungarians [...] The observed northern Slavic Y-STR genetic homogeneity extends from Slovakia and Ukraine to parts of Russia and Belarus, but also involves Southern-Slavic populations of Slovenia and western Croatia, and is the most probably due to a homogeneous genetic substrate inherited from the ancestral Slavic population. However, due to the Y-STR proximity of linguistically and geographically Southern-Slavic Slovenes and western Croats to the northern Slavic branch, the observed genetic differentiation cannot simply be explained by the separation of both Slavic-speaking groups by the non-Slavic Romanians, Hungarians, and Germanspeaking Austrians [...] Thus, the contribution of the Y chromosomes of peoples who settled in the region before the Slavic expansion to the genetic heritage of Southern Slavs is the most likely explanation for this phenomenon. On the other hand, our results indicate no significant genetic traces of pre-sixth-century inhabitants of present-day Slovenia in the Slovene Y chromosome genetic pool. (...)

Other South Slavs - such as Macedonians - are more mixed with previous, local Ancient Balkan populations, than Slovenes and western Croats.

Slovenes and western Croats are geographically, linguistically & culturally South Slavs, but genetically they are closer to West Slavs.

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More from Dienekes (he is Greek, by the way):

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2009/11...group-r1a.html

Interestingly, the Slavs of FYROM have an R-M458 frequency of 3.8%, barely different from that of Greeks at large, suggesting that (i) the claims of some Greek nationalists that the Slavs of FYROM are newcomers to the Balkans are wrong (...) The actual truth is that the Slavs of FYROM are largely of old Balkan (pre-Slavic) stock (...)