Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe

[Greying Wanderer]

This means that the common R1b patrilineal ancestors of about half of Basque R1b men only lived around 700 CE, during the Early Middle Ages, around the time of the Moorish conquest of Iberia. This means that if we tested Basque sample from 2000, 3000 or 4000 years ago, there is a high probability that the majority of samples wouldn't be R1b (but probably in majority I2a1). The replacement of Basque paternal lineages by R1b lineages is very recent.

That's strange. I wonder if it's anything to do with LP - was there food problems in the Basque region as a result of the invasion?

 

[Greying Wanderer]

I was at a Christmas party years back, with family, and there was this one step cousin who had a Chinese girlfriend with freckles. We all got to talking, everyone was drinking a lot, and someone mentioned her freckles. So of course I blurt out "Yeah, yeah you look more like an Altaic Steppe Nomad, maybe with a bit of Iranian, than a Han Chinese." There wasn't really an awkward moment at the time, people just commented on how fair she was and the conversation meandered.

But the next day at breakfast people were talking about how they didn't like freckled Chinese girl and they say "..she HATED you" to me. My brother in law starts laughing, and goes "....what did you call her?......what did you say?...." then he blurts out "Steppe Nomad" and the entire table of people erupts into hilarity.

And I thought I was complimenting her.

Yeah I've browsed Chinese forums in the past and a lot of posters didn't seem to like those northern steppe barbarians at all.

 

[Greying Wanderer]

What surprises me in this paper is the complete absence of EEF admixture in the Yamna samples tested. That could mean two things:

A) It wasn't G2a3b1, J2b2 and T1a1a people from the Balkans/Carpathians who brought copper metallurgy to the steppes (Sredny Stog, Khvalinsk, etc.), as I thought.

B) It was them, but they hadn't mixed with the few R1b-Z2103 individuals tested from the Volga-Ural region. After all population blending takes many centuries or millennia before affecting the genetic admixture of all the individuals in the population. I would therefore expect to find other individuals who are hybridized, and even individuals who are mostly EEF (with some WHG or EHG) among future Yamna samples. Those EEF-dominant samples would surely belong to G2a3b1, J2b2 or T1a1a (perhaps even some E-V13 and I2a).

What do you think about the possibility of

C) E1b (or one of the Js) farmers from Levant spreading mostly by sea with the G farmers/herders taking the overland route via Anatolia

only over-lapping later?

 

[Drax]

Drax,

Archaeology, mtDNA, and Y DNA connect Bronze-Iron age IE North Asians to Yamna and Bronze age central Euros. Even though their pigmentation was radically different from Yamna(of the samples we have so far) they were probably very similar genetically. Pigmentation should not be put at the same level as genetic DNA markers and archaeology, because it is prone to change.

Yes and no, Mtdna don't give you too much info about a population, Corder Ware culture and WHG have the same mtdna, but different haplogroup Y, Andronovo have the haplogroup R1A; Yamna R1b, the Yamna population tested for their dark or light features (samples from the 2014 study), we don't have for the moment their haplogroup Y, in other words, we are not sure of their identity.

Don't forget that these populations were patriarcal; it's not rare to change their women for create an alliance etc...; for examples this excellent article about the link between Caucasian languages and Indo-Europeans:

http://kinshipstudies.org/2012/07/0...ypology-kinship-terms-and-autosomal-genetics/

For the Pigmentation and the genetic markers, not really, we know that these traits are from parents (see the common ancestor behind blue eyes etc...).

It isn't as simple as Pop A is 20% WHG and therefore has ~20% blue eyes. If that was true why do South Dutch have over 50% blue eyes and around 30% WHG? Eye color frequencies can go up and down and up and down.

Yes, that my problem, lol, I don't understand how this recessive trait can be today; in every europeans, it's dormant genes, something like that; really there are something "weird" because they are recessive.

For example in USA blue eyes will disappear sooner or later:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/18/world/americas/18iht-web.1018eyes.3199975.html?_r=0

http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask355

I don't see will all these variants, blue eyes seem to be multiplied during the bronze age, specially with the indo-europeans.

I have just read a really weird info from another board, about an amerindian tribe very isolate (so not mixed with Europeans), the karitiana, with the locus for blue eyes (rs12913832, see the link for more details); but are all brown dark eyed; that here:

http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthr...0-000-Years-Ago-in-the-Black-Sea-Region/page5

http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthr...0-000-Years-Ago-in-the-Black-Sea-Region/page6

So I guess a gene don't mean you have necessary blue eyes (?); that could explain how dark skinned peoples like WHG has the genes (or some of them, that not clear) for blue eyes, but without necessary to have them "physically" (blue eyes are linked with white skin and maybe other factors, genes etc...).

edit: For this debate with blue eyes/WHG/indo-europeans I will quote Eupedia:

"Mesolithic Europeans from Spain and Luxembourg have been confirmed to have possessed the HERC2 mutation for blue eyes (see Olade et al. (2014) and Lazaridis et al. (2014)). This mutation is also found in parts of Asia settled by the Proto-Indo-European speakers belonging to the paternal lineages R1a and R1b, including the Altai, southern Siberia, Central Asia, Iran and the Indian subcontinent. Since the the Proto-Indo-Europeans carried very different paternal lineages from Mesolithic Europeans (Y-haplogroups C, F and I), and only shared a few very old maternal lineages, like haplogroups U4 and U5, their HERC2 mutation could have been inherited from a common Paleolithic ancestor or passed on by two different groups of Neanderthals to separate Upper Paleolithic Homo sapiens."

That make an agreement between the two previous studies about the place of blue eyes (black sea with Indo-Europeans and/or WHG).

I won't be surprised if the genetically east-north Euro Late Neolithic/bronze age samples from Germany come out mostly dark skinned, dark haired, and brown eyed. They're still the ancestors of people in that region today.

I agree that wouldn't be a very big surprise, but the opposite too could be true, and in some way that my problem, with all the differents physical traits they seem to have; for me it's seem, and I'm agree with Maciamo and Alan, Andronovo and Corded are a different (but close) population that Yamna (we know they don't have the same haplogroup, one with R1a the other with R1b).

 

[Drax]

Nah the new data doesn't make them particulary close to Norwegians and Baltic people. On the chart only some particular European populations are listed and among them, they were close to Norwegians yes.
But on the fst distance table we see that they are most close to Mordovians and Lezgins. And on the pca plot, they also cluster in between Mordovians and North Caucasians.

It's just on the chart, where there is not many people listed, which gives the wrong impression that Norwegians are the closest followed by Baltic people. But that is not the whole story.

Autosomal, they are close to 50% of actual North Europeans, sorry but that mean alot, Mordovian have very light features, Europeans features and are the first, the second closer is in fact lezgins but share the second place with Russians, the others are baltics, Norwegians and Icelandic, that put them far more in the North and in Europe; than in West Asia (despite the "Armenian" or Caucasus element).

edit: For your picture, the first guy look like a guy I know, a french, he remind me also general de Gaulle, the second picture look like for me typical Slavic peoples; but like you say you can see what we want with pictures...about the ethnocentrist from your west asian background (kurd ? Iranian ?), don't worry, apparently it's just a sin when that from the Europeans peoples; and honestly I find that sad; but I think you should try to be the most objective possible.

For your comment: "They however were just like many people convinced that these Kurds would be the darkened result of the light Yamna people. Nowadays we know the opposite would rather be the case.";

Well, completly disagree, the Andronovo culture say "hi"; they clearly are the old indo-iranians branch according various studies (unlike maybe the Yamna); and were all blond haired and blue eyes (except if you talk about R1b yamna ?, but they are still the problem that they are closest to east and north europeans, and not west asians or kurd).

 

[Fire Haired14]

Drax Samara Yamna and German Corded ware were almost identical to each other genetically, we know this because of Haak 2015. It is pretty incredible how pure Steppe IEs stayed as they migrated all the way west into Germany. I can't imagine Andronovo was much differnt.

 

[Drax]

I don't know whether to be appalled or to laugh. If you can produce a peer reviewed paper from an accredited academic institution within the last twenty years that says any such thing, I'll...eat my hat!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-476244/Why-blue-eyed-boys-girls-brilliant.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2007/08/21/study-blue-eyed-people-smarter-than-brown-eyed/

I don't know if two university from two different countries are enough or if they are "serious" (I'm not a scientific, I can't judge them); imho that would not be a surprise, they are various studies (not PC) and very serious about the difference of intelligence between races; so why not with the eyes.

If that good enough for you, well good appetite.

A little education in the Classics has its uses, as does having married a man who once wanted to major in the Classics:

It is human nature for groups to elevate their own traits, physical and otherwise, and to their credit the ancient Greeks recognized it.


Xenophanes, B16 (500 BC):*
‘‘“if oxen had gods they would be like oxen,Men make gods in their own image; those of the Ethiopians are black and snub-nosed, those of the Thracians have blue eyes and red hair’’

• Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 1903, pp.38-58.

It didn’t stop some of them from falling prey to the same tendency. The Greeks are the people of the “well balanced” lands.

Galen:

So much for the formation of the hair; we should now pass on to the features of all the incidental features of the mixtures, as regards the differences of hair according to age, place, and nature of the body. The hair of Egyptians, Arabs, Indians, and of general all peoples who inhabit hot, dry places, has poor growth and is black, dry, curly and brittle. That of the inhabitants of cold, wet places, conversely - Illyrians, Germans, Dalmatians, Sauromatians, and the Scythian types of people in general- has reasonably good growth and is thin, straight, and red. Those who live in some well-balanced land which is between these in quality have hair with extremely good growth, which is strong, fairly black, moderately thick, and neither completely curly nor completely straight. The differences due to age are analogous to these: with regard to the qualities of strength, thickness, size, and colour, infants’ hair is similar to the Germans’, hair in the prime of life to the Ethiopians’, and that of ephebes and children to the hair of people of well-balanced lands.

In our country, as in others of good climate, one may see many bodies similar [to the canon], but in Scythians, Egyptians and Arabs, not even in a dream can one expect to find such a body.

The first quote contradict the second (red hairs vs black hairs), Greeks have different appearances (probably more during this time), with different location, tribes etc...but I'm not sure the Galen really represent the opinion of all the ancients greeks; for example Herodotus:

"The Budini for their part, being a large and numerous nation, are all mightily blue-eyed and ruddy."

Or for arabic source Ahmad Ibn Fadlan, just to prove not every nations or peoples think themselves like perfect or the best:

"I have seen the Rus as they came on their merchant journeys and encamped by the Itil. I have never seen more perfect physical specimens, tall as date palms, blond and ruddy; "

We can say what we want, but in general peoples in other countries find Europeans extremely atractives.

I could bore everyone to death and further derail this thread by listing all the references in classical literature to dark haired or dark eyed ancient Greek heroes or gods (some were blonde as well) but I won't. Just on general principals I would advise against getting historical and scientific information from certain anthrofora.

But we can do the opposite, and I'm sorry, not "some were blonde as well); a very good part were blonds; and among them some of the most important gods (Athena, Apollon etc...).

 

[Angela]

Drax Samara Yamna and German Corded ware were almost identical to each other genetically, we know this because of Haak 2015. It is pretty incredible how pure Steppe IEs stayed as they migrated all the way west into Germany. I can't imagine Andronovo was much differnt.

I agree they were very similar indeed, although I don't know that I'd say identical...73% by some measures...higher by others?

I also agree they remained a cohesive unit for a long time. Yet we are supposed to believe that at some point before leaving the Pontic Caspian steppe they totally ditched their own women for the women they raided for all the way into the Caucasus or south of it (a trip some bloggers assured us almost never happened), or, in Greying Wanderer's formulation, even when they were mestizos they still preferred in each generation to get pure south of the Caucasus women?

I have to defend my EHG ancestry, small though it is. They couldn't have been all that hideous.:annoyed:

 

[Drax]

Drax Samara Yamna and German Corded ware were almost identical to each other genetically, we know this because of Haak 2015. It is pretty incredible how pure Steppe IEs stayed as they migrated all the way west into Germany. I can't imagine Andronovo was much differnt.

Yes for the Yamna studied in Haak 2015 (I have already said they were close), but are you sure with the previous Yamna samples (the ones with dark features) ? Because I guess these two Yamna peoples can be (relatively) different; for the Corded Ware, like Angela have said, they are close but still different, I quote Maciamo for that, from his previous message:

"I completely agree with that. That's what I had been saying for years. Corded Ware descend from the indigenous Mesolithic R1a people from the forest-steppe, while Yamna was R1b hybrid from West Asia who mixed with some R1a in the open steppe in southern Ukraine and Russia. Therefore Corded Ware people do not descend of Yamna or vice versa. There may have been some intermingling between the two, but I doubt it's more than 5 to 10% of each population."

Well, I don't know, that weird, I really don't know how to interpret that.

edit: in your previous messages you have described the Yamna with brown eyes or/and some of them with gray eyes; have you more info about that (the grey eyes among Yamna) ? (in France we don't really make difference between blue or gray eyes), their numbers etc...; I guess they are different that the ones with blue eyes, thanks for advance.

 

[Goga]

Yet we are supposed to believe that at some point before leaving the Pontic Caspian steppe they totally ditched their own women for the women they raided for all the way into the Caucasus or south of it (a trip some bloggers assured us almost never happened), or, in Greying Wanderer's formulation, even when they were mestizos they still preferred in each generation to get pure south of the Caucasus women?

Maybe they liked the 'brown eyed girls' much more than girls with other eye colors? Personally I like the green eyes the most, like those of Emma Stone (, not really pretty face, but damn beautiful eyes)!

It is a pity that I do have light brown eyes, but I've also inherited some kind of green colour eyes genes from my parents.

Hmm, according to Gedmatch I should have the green coloured eyes.

TT at: rs916977 - Adds melanin. Some darkening.
GG at: rs4778138 - Adds melanin. Adds yellow, amber, or brown. Some darkening. Contributes to brown.
CC at: rs3794604 - Blocks some melanin. Often gives light colored eyes.
GG at: rs7174027 - Blocks some melanin. Often gives light colored eyes.
CC at: rs4778241 - Low Melanin. Basis for Gray, Blue, Green, or Yellow Eyes if no other pigmentation is present.
CT at: rs989869 - Contrasting sphincter around pupil.
CT at: rs3947367 - Contrasting sphincter around pupil.
CC at: rs1129038 - High Melanin production. Brown.
AA at: rs1105879 - Weak Amber Gradient
GT at: rs7713279 - Inhibit weak amber gradient
CG at: rs16891982 - Medium melanin production on Anterior Epithelium. Adds yellow, amber, or brown. Some darkening.
CT at: rs3935591 - Heavy melanin on Anterior Epithelium. Brown.
AA at: rs12913832 - High melanin production on Anterior Epithelium. Adds yellow, amber, or brown. Some darkening. Contributes to brown.
CC at: rs1667394 - Increased melanin production on Anterior Epithelium. Adds yellow, amber, or brown. Some darkening.
CC at: rs12203592 - No pigmented Collarette.
TT at: rs13160471 - Amber Collarette

 

[Aberdeen]

Drax Samara Yamna and German Corded ware were almost identical to each other genetically, we know this because of Haak 2015. It is pretty incredible how pure Steppe IEs stayed as they migrated all the way west into Germany. I can't imagine Andronovo was much differnt.

On page 8 of the article by Haak at al, 2015, it's stated that Corded Ware people were 79% Yamnaya, 4% WHG and 17% Early Neolithic Farmer.

 

[Alan]

Nah, I meant that I normally hear of early Mediterraneans as being described as smaller and more "gracile" than steppe populations. And broader faces are generally ascribed to brachycephalicskulls, but I guess you said meso, so whatever. Now that we have genetics this shit is less important to the debate.

You are confusing the body measure of Mediterranean people (as living in the Mediterranean) with the general darker haired (Black/Brown) population in many countries reaching as far as the east of the Caspian.

There are dozen of very heavy broader faced people in the North Caucasus still today and they are meso to dolichocephalic.
There are many types of "Mediterranean people.

 

[Alan]

Well, this make us both wrong. How can you have so much Yamnaya without Gedrosia and Caucasian? We might need an alternative theory of what was in 50% like Armenians, if it wasn't neither Caucasus nor Gedrosia.


Yet, we don't know if they got these 2 at the same time. It is like looking at modern European population and say that WHG and ANE are one component, because they fall and rise in the same cline. We know the story is way more complicated and that these are 2 different components.
It doesn't work like one component in Europe. Take Norway for example.





Pastoralist is not that far away from HG. Just instead of hunting, to follow animals, one tells animals where to go, but the diet is mostly meat and they both love watching animals and roaming the land. Actual farming is lots of heavy repetitive work in the field, planning work, and affinity to starchy diet. A different set of genes needed. Pastoralism is easier to grasp for hunter gatherers than field farming. In this case the farming women didn't need to turn their hunter gatherer culture upside down, but just do a little modification.

Wel Le Brock this is why I said Yamna ancestry can not be explained simply by one component

Yamna might have been ~50% like Caucasus_Gedrosia but there is still the other 50%.

There is actually quite a difference between H&G and pastoralists. Pastoralism was invented in regions were classicaly farming wasn't that much possible. But even classic farmer probably domesticated animals already to some degree.

But to be able for herders to create dairy products from milk you need agricultural knowledge. Simple H&G were hunting/fishing and collecting berries and similar stuff. They were not knowladgeable in how to produce dairy products imo.

 

[Alan]

I don't think they'd be imposing it. If you were nomad hunter and you stole a lot of sheep from a farming settlement you might want to steal someone to herd them for you as well. So effectively what you'd have is mounted hunters forcing pastoralists to grow food for them so they could carry on being mounted hunters.

Such a process would automatically create a hierarchical society with a mounted warrior/hunter elite above and commoner herders below.

"exchange all their females almost completely"

or 5% a generation over multiple generations.

No the 5% wouldn't be enough because the moment they admixed with the other 95% non admixed population the pastoralist DNA would be diluted back to few percentages. This is so because the chance that a pastoralist mixed H&G would mate with another admixed one would be 1/20. Let's assume to every mixing with a pastoralist female come ten with non admixed once. This will dilute the pastoralist DNA to less than a percentage until they mate again with an pastoralist bride.
It is extremely hard (all the way to impossible) to reach the figure of 50% with bride kidnapping. Sorry it is a quite amusing theory but nothing more. Especially if we would expect the pastoralist simply taking a blind eye for H&G kidnapping of their brides for a millennia or so. These kind of theories have always a minimal possibility but they are too unlikely to take them into consideration imo.

 

[Alan]

Yeah I've browsed Chinese forums in the past and a lot of posters didn't seem to like those northern steppe barbarians at all.

The mongols were the reason for the Chinese wall and they terrorized the Chinese people. How would you expect them to react

 

[Greying Wanderer]

I agree they were very similar indeed, although I don't know that I'd say identical...73% by some measures...higher by others?

I also agree they remained a cohesive unit for a long time. Yet we are supposed to believe that at some point before leaving the Pontic Caspian steppe they totally ditched their own women for the women they raided for all the way into the Caucasus or south of it (a trip some bloggers assured us almost never happened), or, in Greying Wanderer's formulation, even when they were mestizos they still preferred in each generation to get pure south of the Caucasus women?

I have to defend my EHG ancestry, small though it is. They couldn't have been all that hideous.:annoyed:

It's the other way round; the farmers moved onto the steppe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucuteni-Trypillian_culture#Late_period_.283500-3000_BC.29

During the late period the Cucuteni-Trypillian territory expanded to include the Volyn region in northwest Ukraine, the Sluch and Horyn Rivers in northern Ukraine, and along both banks of the Dnieper river near Kiev. Members of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture who lived along the coastal regions near the Black Sea came into contact with other cultures. Animal husbandry increased in importance, as hunting diminished; horses also became more important. The community transformed into a patriarchal structure. Outlying communities were established on the Don and Volga rivers in present-day Russia.

The Cucuteni late period expansion strikes me as a plausible catalyst for initiating the transformation of the pre PIE steppe HGs into the PIE.

The model I am suggesting is similar to native Americans taking captives (and domesticated animals) from advancing settlers.

 

[Greying Wanderer]

No the 5% wouldn't be enough because the moment they admixed with the other 95% non admixed population the pastoralist DNA would be diluted back to few percentages. This is so because the chance that a pastoralist mixed H&G would mate with another admixed one would be 1/20. Let's assume to every mixing with a pastoralist female come ten with non admixed once. This will dilute the pastoralist DNA to less than a percentage until they mate again with an pastoralist bride.
It is extremely hard (all the way to impossible) to reach the figure of 50% with bride kidnapping. Sorry it is a quite amusing theory but nothing more. Especially if we would expect the pastoralist simply taking a blind eye for H&G kidnapping of their brides for a millennia or so. These kind of theories have always a minimal possibility but they are too unlikely to take them into consideration imo.

5% each generation over multiple generations. As Cucuteni collapsed within a few hundred years of contact that could be say 8-16 generations.

I think the history of the Great Plains in America is likely to have similarities with what happened on the steppe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Indians#The_Horse

 

[Alan]

Autosomal, they are close to 50% of actual North Europeans, sorry but that mean alot, Mordovian have very light features, Europeans features and are the first, the second closer is in fact lezgins but share the second place with Russians, the others are baltics, Norwegians and Icelandic, that put them far more in the North and in Europe; than in West Asia (despite the "Armenian" or Caucasus element).

n the fst table Russians follow very close to Lezgins but we also see on the pca plot that Lezgins are slightly closer. We can assume the Yamna people as ~50% Caucasus_Gedrosia + ~ North Euro.

Lezgins are ~73% Caucasus_Gedrosia and 24% North Europe based on Dodecad components. That would make them ~74% Yamna like.
Unfortunately I don't have any data on Mordovians but I am pretty sure their Caucasus_Gedrosia figures are slightly higher compare to the figures of Russians like all populations in the Ural Region.

Here is the pca plot. I draw red connection from the closest Mordovian samples to the core of Yamna and a red connection from the North Caucasians to it too.

I also draw a line showing into the direction were the South_Central Asians would cluster.

edit: For your picture, the first guy look like a guy I know, a french, he remind me also general de Gaulle, the second picture look like for me typical Slavic peoples; but like you say you can see what we want with pictures...about the ethnocentrist from you west asian background (kurd ? Iranian ?), don't worry, apparently is just a sin when that from the Europeans peoples; and honestly I find that sad; but I think you should be try to be the most objective possible

.

I don't think the first guy looks like a French. He looks quite Kurdish. The second person kinda could be a European. The third and fourth however again look quite Kurdish.

I am Kurdish as seen on "ethnicity" part. I am usually just saying it because people of course will think I am using Kurdish people as example just because I am Kurd. Well some ethnocentrism is alwaxys in sure. But the fact is that I am more familiar with my own people and I think a Kurds would make better comparison to the "West Asian like" pigmented Yamna people than most modern Europeans.

For your comment: "They however were just like many people convinced that these Kurds would be the darkened result of the light Yamna people. Nowadays we know the opposite would rather be the case.";

Well, completly disagree, the Andronovo culture say "hi"; they clearly are the old indo-iranians branch according various studies (unlike maybe the Yamna); and were all blond haired and blue eyes (except if you talk about R1b yamna ?, but they are still the problem that they are closest to east and north europeans, and not west asians or kurd).

If we take a look at the position of Andronovo and take a look at all the modern descend of them. The West Eurasian ancestry of them is always 2/3 West Asian like and 1/3 North European like. I am pretty convinced that Caucasus_Gedrosia in Andronovo might even had been higher.

Don't forget light eyes/hair are not connected to H&G ancestry. The very first Europeans were dark by any means the first individual with blonde hair/blue eyes light skin combination was a farmer in Hungary.

Andronovo is probably not descend of Yamna or vica versa but they are related. Also Andronovo is some thousand years after Yamna. This is enough time for some changes in look. Scientist only found out that Andronovo was 60% light haired and eyed (Not Blonde or Blue eyed per se ) and that they were "West Eurasian". They never specified what they mean under Blight haired and Blue eyed.

We also know that allot of Thracian samples turned out halfway Caucasus_Gedrosia and ancient accounts describe their appearance as red haired and blue eyed.

So light features =/= North European ancestry.

And to the Yamna they are as close to the West Asian core as to Europeans I think this should be clear now from all the data collected. Yamna was more similar to Anatolian Turks than Iberians or people of Bergamo/Armenians. But equally similar to Turks and Greeks. Unfortunately we don't have Kurdish or Iranian comparison. But from the data we have collected earlier. It is a good guess to say Yamna will be as close to Kurds/Iranians as to Bulgarians, French /Croatians or even more.

Kurds have also signficantly higher ANE scores than any of the populations listed above.

 

[Alan]

5% each generation over multiple generations. As Cucuteni collapsed within a few hundred years of contact that could be say 8-16 generations.

I think the history of the Great Plains in America is likely to have similarities with what happened on the steppe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Indians#The_Horse

But only if we expect that the admixed individual does always marry one of the other 5% admixed individuals instead of the 95% majority.

The moment when an admixed individual mates with four of the non admixed once, the pastoralist DNA will be extremely dliuted from 50% to ~3%.

 

[Angela]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-476244/Why-blue-eyed-boys-girls-brilliant.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2007/08/21/study-blue-eyed-people-smarter-than-brown-eyed/

I don't know if two university from two different countries are enough or if they are "serious" (I'm not a scientific, I can't judge them); imho that would not be a surprise, they are various studies (not PC) and very serious about the difference of intelligence between races; so why not with the eyes.

If that good enough for you, well good appetite.



The first quote contradict the second (red hairs vs black hairs), Greeks have different appearances (probably more during this time), with different location, tribes etc...but I'm not sure the Galen really represent the opinion of all the ancients greeks; for example Herodotus:

"The Budini for their part, being a large and numerous nation, are all mightily blue-eyed and ruddy."

Or for arabic source Ahmad Ibn Fadlan, just to prove not every nations or peoples think themselves like perfect or the best:

"I have seen the Rus as they came on their merchant journeys and encamped by the Itil. I have never seen more perfect physical specimens, tall as date palms, blond and ruddy; "

We can say what we want, but in general peoples in other countries find Europeans extremely atractives.



But we can do the opposite, and I'm sorry, not "some were blonde as well); a very good part were blonds; and among them some of the most important gods (Athena, Apollon etc...).

Poseidon, Zeus, Hades, Dionysos, Theseus and Odysseus are described as having either dark hair or dark eyes. Hercules, in addition to being described as dark, was said to have a hook nose. So, obviously, there was a mixture of phenotypes, and the dark ones were certainly not relegated to the lower echelons of the celestial world.


In terms of commoners I think it is likely that some people are described as having fair hair precisely because it was not all that common a feature among them. That is why it's mentioned. Were they all fair it would not be worthy of comment.

We have no way of knowing the precise percentages. Unless perhaps you know of some scientist who has time traveled back to classical Greece to take a survey of Greek pigmentation and found that they had “a good number” of blondes? I don’t think so.


As for the Budini, they were nomads. Herodotus tells us that in the area of the Budini there was a people who were farmers who spoke a half Scythian/half Greek language. He believed they were [FONT=&quot]Greek[/FONT] colonists (and obviously of the Classical Age, since we're talking about Herodotus here) who migrated inland from the port communities. He further says that they were not like the Budini in either form nor coloring.

There is no ancient Greek source which contradicts Galen in terms of Greeks describing themselves as generally looking like Scythians. So you have no evidence that this was not the common perception.

The quote about body forms underscores that the Greeks did not consider the Scythians (or the Arabs or Egyptians) as models for perfection. Like most peoples they modeled perfection on themselves. This can also be seen in their descriptions of the "perfect" face. The low forehead, high rooted, large, straight nose almost joined to the forehead, the oval face and large eyes of the classical ideal [FONT=&quot]did not[/FONT] exist among the Scythians, and does not normally show up in northern Europeans.

Bottom line is that there were a mixture of phenotypes, but we have no way of knowing the percentages. What we do know is that at least some ancient Greeks did not consider the Scythians to possess the "ideal" characteristics.

You have posted blurbs from the Daily Mail and Fox News. You have not posted papers so that an analysis can be done of their sampling strategy or their methodology. I presume you are aware that both Britain and the U.S. have very mixed populations groups. In addition, were I the type to equate intelligence or accomplishment with pigmentation traits, I might find it very interesting that the people who developed animal husbandry, metallurgy, writing, and the first great civilizations were most probably dark haired and eyed. Now we discover that the Yamnaya and Catacomb people were also predominantly dark haired and dark eyed. Of course, I'm not at all so simplistic in my thinking.

I don't have time to post extensively today, which is just as well, as I would undoubtedly wind up saying something very rude. This is all Nordicist nonsense, and, in my opinion, unworthy of being part of intellectual discourse. I will not be responding to any further such posts.