You've been lied to about Globular Amphora Culture

[Vessna]

By the way, here is exactly what your tool predicted for me

[~Elizabeth~]

By the way, here is exactly what your tool predicted for me

I saw a photo of you once in the Member's section that was soon deleted. What this tool predicted for you is way, way off. Looks nothing like you.

[Live The Magic]

Hair color is not 100% genetic. Large-scale twin studies estimate that the heritability of natural hair color falls somewhere between 73% and 99% depending on the specific color (for instance, black and red hair are more rigidly genetic, while varying shades of brown and blonde are more susceptible to other factors). The remaining variance is driven by environmental factors and time.

[AndreiDNA]

By the way, here is exactly what your tool predicted for me

this isn't armenoid. And this here was the closest 2 way morph, which looks even more european:

[Vessna]

this isn't armenoid. And this here was the closest 2 way morph, which looks even more european:

Whether the morph is classified as Mtebid, Carpathid, Armenoid or something else isn’t really the issue for me. The issue is that I don’t think the prediction looks much like the person it was supposed to be predicting. That raises uncomfortable questions about the accuracy of the calculator especially when these predictions are used in YouTube videos to make claims about ancient phenotypes. If the model cant accurately predict the appearance of a living person whose phenotype and ancestry are known then it’s reasonable to be skeptical about its ancient reconstructions.

Edit: I don’t look like that updated morph either, not even close.

[Vessna]

the way my phenotype predictor works, mtedid (your #1 pheno) is nowhere near armenoid. It is a intermediate pigmentation caucasoid type with long nose, much more similar to carpatid than armenoid.
You scored hazel eyes (that aligns with mtebid), dark brown hair (once again aligns with mtebid, olive skin(once again aligns with mtebid, not with armenoid though), wavy hair (aligns with mtebid), and a strongly greek nose shape (once again aligns with mtebid).
My phenotype predictor uses the qualities listed above ^ together with morphology-related genotypes to predict phenotype.
For morphology calculator, you scored 5.5% NE Europe, 60.2% Mideast/West Asia, 6.63% West Europe, and 27% South Asia.
When you combine the results of these two calculators you get a light west asian pheno, such as Mtebid, which is what you scored.
You keep saying "Armenoid" though... When your result is in fact very very far from it.

5.5% NE Europe, 60.2% Middle East/West Asia and 27% South Asia for a person who is overwhelmingly Northeastern European? I’ve taken multiple genetic tests and this result is just nonsense.

If a calculator can turn a Belarusian into 60% Middle Eastern and 27% South Asian then I think skepticism is more than justified.

[cass]

Could it be that your sample and your husband's sample were accidentally switched?

When it comes to the phenotype predictions, they may not be fully refined, but the recombination patterns responsible for pigmentation are fairly well understood. You can check a few of them yourself in the Excel file.

[AndreiDNA]

5.5% NE Europe, 60.2% Middle East/West Asia and 27% South Asia for a person who is overwhelmingly Northeastern European? I’ve taken multiple genetic tests and this result is just nonsense.

If a calculator can turn a Belarusian into 60% Middle Eastern and 27% South Asian then I think skepticism is more than justified.

this isn't an ethnicity calculator. this is a morphology calculator. it's not supposed to yield 100% NE europe for every belarusian, its supposed to yield whatever your morphology resembles.

[AndreiDNA]

According to Vessna, these two belarusians should score the same thing (100% NE Europe) for morphology

[Vessna]

Could it be that your sample and your husband's sample were accidentally switched?

When it comes to the phenotype predictions, they may not be fully refined, but the recombination patterns responsible for pigmentation are fairly well understood. You can check a few of them yourself in the Excel file.

No, the samples definitely weren’t switched. Those are my results and the tool came up with a questionable phenotype prediction for my husband as well.

Even if pigmentation genetics are relatively well understood the tool still failed to predict my pigmentation. It gave me a greater than 90% probability of olive skin which doesn’t match my actual appearance and also doesn’t match my 23andMe results.

My bigger concern is how these probabilities are being used. The calculator gives a range of possible traits, each with its own probability. A person can end up anywhere within that range, including outcomes that aren’t the most likely. Taking only the highest-probability traits and stitching them together into a single reconstructed phenotype can easily result in a face that looks completely different from the real person. This is what I should look like according to AndreiDNA:



I wouldn’t mind looking like this but I look like an ordinary potato. There are many examples online where even 23andMe get trait predictions wrong or only partially right despite being based on well-studied genetics. Predicting someone’s appearance from DNA is very difficult.

The problem is even bigger when the same approach is used to reconstruct ancient samples. In my case the tool classified me as Mtebid which contradicts my actual appearance and my actual ancestry. It also produced a questionable result for my husband. If our samples were from an ancient Corded Ware burial those reconstructions could then be presented in videos as approximations of what CW individuals supposedly looked like

AndreiDNA predictions of phenotypes for me and my husband:





That’s where my skepticism comes from. If his methodology has trouble predicting the appearance of living people whose looks are known I think he should be careful about how much confidence he places in reconstructions of people who lived thousands of years ago.