Eye colour and Skin pigmentation in KPK and Punjab

[Septentrion]

15% blue eyes in Punjab??? That is the same level as Turkey! Just LOL.

Good point for once, Tooting Carmen! By the way, only 4% of the Turkish population is blue-eyed, so 15% blue-eyed for the entire Punjab is way too high. It is even higher for the frequency of blue eyes in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Bulgaria and Greece. For example among the Greeks, nearly 15% have blue or green eyes. So yes, I think there's a problem with classification.
Turkish people are 17% honey or hazel - eyed, 8% green - eyed and 4% blue - eyed. I don't by any means believe that some Punjabi there in India are lighter-eyed than them. This is nothing, but garbage.

[Avicenna]

Good point for once, Tooting Carmen! By the way, only 4% of the Turkish population is blue-eyed, so 15% blue-eyed for the entire Punjab is way too high. It is even higher for the frequency of blue eyes in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Bulgaria and Greece. For example among the Greeks, nearly 15% have blue or green eyes. So yes, I think there's a problem with classification.

4% for Turks is too low. I've been to Turkey and I have observed it at a higher rate . I trust my eyes more than some oversused recycled data that has been circling the forums. Either post some data and studies or just accept you are just confirming your own biases. Greeks in that study I posted, done by Greeks themselves, looking at 150 students did not find pure blue at 15%. Light + Light mixed was at 15%, however pure light was lower . Ofcourse, I'm not concluding this for all of Greece, however I tend to go by academic studies rather than some oversused data which has no actual primary source.

[Avicenna]

Good point for once, Tooting Carmen! By the way, only 4% of the Turkish population is blue-eyed, so 15% blue-eyed for the entire Punjab is way too high. It is even higher for the frequency of blue eyes in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Bulgaria and Greece. For example among the Greeks, nearly 15% have blue or green eyes. So yes, I think there's a problem with classification.
Turkish people are 17% honey or hazel - eyed, 8% green - eyed and 4% blue - eyed. I don't by any means believe that some Punjabi there in India are lighter-eyed than them. This is nothing, but garbage.

Here's a academic study done on Turks in Istanbul, 149 unrelated individuals randomly selected except for 4 red haired individuals who were invited as red hair is rare.

Eye colors were classified into three categories: brown (61.07%), intermediate (25.50%), and blue (13.42%).

38 individuals had intermediate eyes.


picture upload online

It's quite clear that the intermediate eyes category is just green/hazel.

More than 4% that's for sure.

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/13/11...genes-13-02094

[Melkiirs]

That Nuristani study is just one study done a very long time ago, a more recent study done on Pashtuns in Swat KPK found 9.4% pure light eyes among 267 individuals. I know for certain they did not include light mixed as light since it was observed + DNA based around Irisplex . So they were extra caution in only including pure light .



Only 3 from above was classified as blue, the rest were brown or intermediate .



The other study done on Malakand division in KPK found around 9% light eyes, the sample size was 150 individuals. Now if you remove the 20 individuals from the sample who were from Chitral( non pashtuns northern Pakistanis) the pure light eyes percentage increases to 10%.

10% pure light is still much closer to Herrlich’s result and it is very possible certain regions are actually lighter eyed than Nuristanis. The Punjab at least is not known for light eyes and it is likely that the figure is significantly lower than 10% there.

This study also using IrisPlex found only 1-2% blue in a Pashtuns sample from the Shangla Valley:

“ The data analysis of the current study indicated that brown-colored eyes were even more prevalent in the Shangla population, where they accounted for 87.16% of the sample, intermediate colored eyes accounted for (11.51%), while blue-colored eyes were quite rare (1.33%). Our study also showed that out of 226 samples female samples were 81 and male samples were 145. Females were found higher in brown eye color (91.35%) blue was (1.23%) and intermediate was (7.42%). Brown eye color in males sample were (84.92%), blue was (1.47%) and intermediate was (13.61). The collated samples were also divided into four different age grouped and the analysis showed that group 1st that started from 11-20 year of age consisted of brown eye color was (27.91%), intermediate was eye was (26.92%) and blue was (33.33%), similar in the age group started 21-30 having brown eye color (23.35%), blue (33.33) and intermediate (23.07%), Similar to age group 31-40 the brown eye color was (26.90%), intermediate (23.07%) and blue was (33.33%). In the age group of 41-50 the percentage of blue eye color (21.84%), brown eye color and intermediate eye were (26.92)”

https://researcherslinks.com/current...was%20(13.61).

There appears to be significant regional variation even within the same ethnic group.

[Avicenna]

10% pure light is still much closer to Herrlich’s result and it is very possible certain regions are actually lighter eyed than Nuristanis. The Punjab at least is not known for light eyes and it is likely that the figure is significantly lower than 10% there.

This study also using IrisPlex found only 1-2% blue in a Pashtuns sample from the Shangla Valley:


There appears to be significant regional variation even within the same ethnic group.

Yes I've seen that as well. Shangla is well within the Indus region
.However what's confusing is that the age groups show 33% and yet the overall was 1.3%?

[Melkiirs]

Yes I've seen that as well. Shangla is well within the Indus region
.However what's confusing is that the age groups show 33% and yet the overall was 1.3%?

The age group percentages are perhaps the distribution of age groups for each eye color not the eye colors of each age group? Even then the total for blue eyes is ~122%, which makes no sense. Maybe there was some kind of mistake.

[Avicenna]

The age group percentages are perhaps the distribution of age groups for each eye color not the eye colors of each age group? Even then the total for blue eyes is ~122%, which makes no sense. Maybe there was some kind of mistake.

Not sure, 1.3% is far too low for pashtuns, I have heard that shangla has Alot of pashtunised hindkos, perhaps that had a major impact on the result. In the Malakand study where the sample was 150 individuals from a number of district's, around 70% of the population had atleast one allele CT or CC for the snp rs12913832.

I think we should look at studies where they have actually given us a reference for the eye colour, as like I mentioned earlier some studies like the Iraqi one, counts dark mixed eyes almost fully brown eyes as intermediate. Other studies like the Swat one included very light mixed eyes as intermediate and light brown almost hazel/amber as brown .

[thisismyaccount]

What study are you talking about? The first one? Chitral is only one of many district's of KPK. I don't know why that should concern you. KPK also has hindkos, why don't you mention that?

In another study I posted, the Chitral district actually brought the average down, out of 20 individuals only 1 had intermediate eyes. No blue eyes.

I should have been clearer, the first study looks at KPK, not only pashtuns but possibly the vast majority of the KPK participants would have self identified as pashtun. In any case Khos make up 1% of the KPK population . ( 414,000 out of 40 million people).

Oh yeah, forgot about hindkos too.

Isnt it just one study?

Bit suprised thats the case with chitral. What about skin colour? Theyre quite light often

[Avicenna]

Oh yeah, forgot about hindkos too.

Isnt it just one study?

Bit suprised thats the case with chitral. What about skin colour? Theyre quite light often

No OP is a study which looked at KPK ( doesn't specify about not including certain groups, so it's not bold to assume that most were pashtuns, pashtunised local Indus and other minorities). The only thing that's bugging me about the study is they didn't quite specify the exact eye colours, rather they just gave a vague spectrum of eye colour which isn't really that helpful as eye colour is very varied. That leaves all sorts of questions and doubts especially people with pre conceived notions about the populations in the study.

There were other studies I have mentioned like the Swat one where Blue eyes was 9.4% and intermediate eyes ( green) was 15%. In another study looking at Malakand division, blue was 8.6% and intermediate was 17.3%. I've posted the eye colour categories in which they used.

In regards to Chitral, no idea about the OP study however the study took place in University of Punjab, I'm assuming they included participants who were already living/studying there and not actually go to the regions. Which means I highly doubt Chitralis was included in OP study. The other study ( Malakand ) had individuals from a number of district's, Swat, Buner, Lower Dir, Chitral, Shangla and Malakand. The Chitral district had only one intermediate out of 20 samples. Not sure about skin tone however I would imagine the vast majority of chitralis would be white /beige.

[Lucas]

Even light mixed would be much higher than what I thought for Punjabis, so even then it's still a mystery.

The categories were mentioned , even intermediate was labeled as green/hazel which we can all agree on, however light brown was categorised as brown.

Not really for some reason the said that C color is "green or light brown/green/hazel". So they counted light brown as what?