Why do many North Africans look "White" if they have a good amount of African ancestry?

[Petalpusher]

i have 25 23andme results of north africans and majority doesent score more than 2% SSA

You can multiply it by 10 on average for W&E Africa (roughly 75% SSA). These are the real figures :

K13 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...#gid=804264822
K8 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...XwUsAA/pubhtml
K7 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...gid=1051326962


23&me make clusters which means if they give you something like 95% North African, they are not going to give you again 20% SSA down in the breakdown (115% would be a problem). They don't give you things twice. It's already in the North Africa cluster, because this is what makes N.Africans part of North Africa. If you multiply the N.Africa score in spec x0.2 you will be very close to real reading of W&E African.

It's exactly the same thing for Italian scoring high.. Italian, with low amount of mena in the AC and being all surprised they get 30-40% of East med + Red sea or some middle eastern on let's say EUtest and several Gedmatch runs. Because it's already in the Italian (they pick an average for their model). What they show in the AC is the excess or more precisely the excess compared to their own balance of "countries", since you re very rarely 100% of something, they can adjust little components this way to best fit your datas and show close to real ancestry.

No one would seriously think some American would score more SSA than any North African, of course it sticks out like a sore thumb into Americans who are pred N.Europe, so they show these little portions and there's barely anything else embedded with what they are getting as other clusters.

[Sikeliot]

No one would seriously think some American would score more SSA than any North African, of course it sticks out like a sore thumb into Americans who are pred N.Europe, so they show these little portions and there's barely anything else embedded with what they are getting as other clusters.

This is also why I lose some SSA on 23andme.. it gets sucked into the Iberian cluster.

[Selurong]

Actually some North Africans are really white due to the historical Germanic Vandal invasion into North Africa.

[Petalpusher]

This is also why I lose some SSA on 23andme.. it gets sucked into the Iberian cluster.

It's possible that all other clusters turn into proxies for it at the moment you show SSA in the AC (its their own soup). It would be an interesting calculation to verify it compared to gedmatch. There is some in the MENA, 20% as usual in the NA, probably something like 10% in the middle eastern, 2% in the Iberian, and a bit in everything else actually as any country score some low level of it at least. It would still be very low amount when you multiply things like 5% of 10%, etc...The problem afterwards is sorting what is noise and what is real when it's low like this.

[pelikarski]

I don't see much difference in the skin tone of Portuguese, Greeks and even Levantines (the lighter types). Differences are minor. I have seen some very light pigmented Levantines.

Near Easterners have similar skin ones like Gypsies in Europe, the difference between Southern Europeans (incl)Balkans is not in pigmentation but facial features.

[Anthropologique]

It's because the SSA is hiden in the North African cluster....

Yep. The 2% likely would be doubled or tripled on deeper analysis.

If you measure at 0% SSA in 23 & me but have significant N. African you would likely get ~ 2% in Eurogenes testing.

The only non SSA N. African people were the ancient Berbers. They were depicted as "white" by the Greeks and Romans. The 7th and 8th centuries Arab advance into the Maghreb led to a great deal of mixing in North Africa.

[Demon Revival]

Lybian are berbers.
Egyptians are traditionnaly berbers too but are also a mixture of levant components and to a lesser extent, arabian ones. Egypt is a bridge between North Africa, Levant and Arabian peninsula

Modern Egyptians are certainly not Berbers and neither the ancients were. Linguistically, their branch of Afro-Asiatic is completely different. Culturally, their civilization predates the first recording of Berbers.

All North Africans have SSA admixture whether in ancient or recent form. North African component on 23andme is basically made up of basal East African groups + localized Middle Eastern farmer.

[Numidia]

North Africans are not genetic Arabs. They are Arabized Berbers, some having more SSA ancestry than others (due to the Arab slave trade).

negroid admixture doesn't mean slaves ancestors especially if you are in africa

Northern Africa used to be a hub for white slave trade. Thousands of Balkan slaves ended up in the slave bazaars there. Later on many French settled permanently there.

I've never heard that do you have sources ?

I was refering to the culture mostly; as far as I know Berbers have their own languages. Obviously, there is an Arabic either.

What about Carthaginians?

Carthaginians are north africans (even mummies were analyzed to reach that conclusion)

There are no Arabs genetically speaking in Maghreb. Native people of Maghreb are berbers and Arabian admixture in this region is a matter of few cases/exceptions. Arabian admixture is low. You have Berbers and Arabized Berbers but certainly not Arabs.
I am from an arabophone region in Algeria, I scored 0% Middle East and 84% North Africa (Berber) on 23andme. The rest is 14% European and 0,2% SSA.

There is no Arab admixture everywhere because arab is not a race, islam was spread by north africans real arabs tribes are a tiny minority

23andme group arabia peninsula with north africa

[Bloody]

During my time in France which I spend there one year as an exchange student from the UK (I am actually from Bahamas but decide to study in university in UK so I can spend some time with my dad's family), I interact with many North Africans and they look very heterogenous. Some of them look pretty "White" with a few minority even being able to pass as native euros while some others look like they have a lot of negroid influence.
I ask this because it does not make sense to me why do many North Africans look "white" if they have a good amount of African ancestry. Also this is because many North Africans mistake me for one of them despite the fact that I am a triracial Bahamian student of British-Afro Bahamian and Lucayan Indian ancestry. Why is that? Does this has to do with climate adaptations of ancient Berbers and other North Africans?

They dont, they stick out like a sore thumb in countries like Germany, netherlands or Denrmak.

[Maguzanci]

negroid admixture doesn't mean slaves ancestors especially if you are in africa



I've never heard that do you have sources ?



Carthaginians are north africans (even mummies were analyzed to reach that conclusion)



There is no Arab admixture everywhere because arab is not a race, islam was spread by north africans real arabs tribes are a tiny minority

23andme group arabia peninsula with north africa

Yes Negroid admixture in North Africa is actually very ancient and goes back to prehistoric times probably during the Green Sahara Period.

Actual tribal Arabs are indeed a minority.

Btw have you done any 23andme or other genetic tests like Gedmatch Admixture?