Ancient balts swarthy skinned ?

Robert22

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The Arab chronicler Ibn al-Faqih wrote that there were two types of saqaliba (arabian name for Slavs): those with swarthy skin and dark hair that live by the sea and those with light skin that live farther inland."

does that mean swarthy skinned slavs that live by the see are balts ? Both languages are related.
 
I believe it was speaking about some tribe living near the BLACK SEA, not the Baltic Sea???
how accurate was his knowledge about slavic qualitiy? I avow I don't know the geographic distribution of Slavs tribes at this Ibn Al-Faqih's time... Maybe did he some mistake about ethnicity of some people? (he would not be the only chronicler to do it) - if somebody can help us?
 
I heard once that the areas where balts live today, where once inhabitated by the Fenni, ancestors of the finnish people. Later the balts migrated north and settled there.
If i look at baltic people, they more resemble finnish people instead pf slavics, which can be quite dark skinned.however ancient writers said, the aesti people looked like the suebians.
 
I don't believe ancient Slavs was dark pigmented as a whole, rather a mix where light and mixed colours dominated dark ones in %s
and among Lithuanians you can find people that recall Finns and also other people that recall better Slavs -
old genuine Latvians was more on the side of Finns, with some ancient cromagnoid remnants (visible in body internal proportions) -
today Latvians are 66% of Russian very mixed stock, far more russianized than Estonians by genes!
 
The Arab chronicler Ibn al-Faqih wrote that there were two types of saqaliba (arabian name for Slavs): those with swarthy skin and dark hair that live by the sea and those with light skin that live farther inland."

does that mean swarthy skinned slavs that live by the see are balts ? Both languages are related.

He probably meant the Black sea, so Balts were certainly not swarthy. Slav ethnogenesis is believed to happened by mixture between mostly Balts and some southern peoples (f.i. Antes). I strongly believe that the latter were iranian speaking and genetically close to Caucasus peoples. Alternatively, the southern element could also have been Balkans related. This would match well the I2-Din concentrations, being high in the Balkans and Black sea coast, but fading out northwards, yet staying significant only among slavic speaking populations in the north. It could also be an explanation for the genetic differences and different looks between south slavs and other slavs, and also why the few non-slavic I2-Din occurences are in the Balkans (Albania, Greece).
 

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