Dark hair was common among Vikings, genetic study confirms

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https://www.theguardian.com/science...s-common-among-vikings-genetic-study-confirms

Writing in the journal Nature, Willerslev and colleagues report how they sequenced the genomes of 442 humans who lived across Europe between about 2,400BC and 1,600AD, with the majority from the Viking age – a period that stretched from around 750AD to 1050AD.The study also drew on existing data from more than 1,000 ancient individuals from non-Viking times, and 3,855 people living today.
Among their results the team found that from the iron age, southern European genes entered Denmark and then spread north, while – to a lesser extent – genes from Asia entered Sweden.
“Vikings are, genetically, not purely Scandinavian,” said Willerslev.

“The evidence for gene flow with southern Europe and Asia is striking, and sits well with recent research that argues for large-scale connectivity in this period,” he said.


Uh oh. Nordicists will not be happy.
:LOL:(y)
 

It's a bit of misrepresentation. The proxy population for "southern Europe" in this paper is Northern Italy. So what we are seeing is probably Bell Beaker related ancestry. It does seem there were remnant hunter gatherers who were in central Sweden rich in I1 and merged with the Battle Axe culture who came from the Baltic (R1a). At least this is my theory.

Some leaks have suggested Single Grave Culture was predominantly R-L51+, and these guys are the ancestors to Bell Beaker culture. Let's wait and see.

In terms of blondism, the Mediterranean people who spread from the Middle East 7500 years ago lacked it, but I suspect the hunter gatherers of the steppes and central-east Europe probably had it, along with rufism. I wasn't aware of any Scandinavian country being 100% blonde, so it shouldn't be a surprise that most of northern Europe will have a medium brown or lighter hair, even if it's not blonde. I'd be very surprised if there wasn't blonde hair among anyone in this study. Blonde hair was found among a couple of Yamnaya and even Roman Age Britons, so in the far north it's just some founder effect.
 
Still, it's gratifying putting another nail in the coffin of Nordicist fanatics' twisted dream of a pure, unadulterated ubermensch. They may not be large in number on this forum, but we all know the alternatives where this garbage is still venerated.
 
This study has been out in pre-print for a long time. Hardly anything shocking here. It rather clearly states pigmentation-associated alleles were distributed in the same frequency as in modern Scandinavians, except for an elevated polygenic risk-score for black hair. But that score is drawn from comparing samples from Viking age-samples all over Europe against modern day-Danes. Seems a bit misleading when you think about it. Most of these samples are mixed to some degree, owing to the whole nature of going Viking and all. There’s really no reason to expect that a set of samples of modern-day, native Danes would be perfectly similar to Vikings who had left their homeland, intermingled and mixed with other peoples, nor is it surprising that foreign gene flow into Scandinavia from Viking-activity would have made black hair somewhat more likely. It’d be more interesting to see what the frequencies were in the IA-samples, as that’d tell us something about what was the initial makeup of the first raiders.
 
I wasn't aware of any Scandinavian country being 100% blonde, so it shouldn't be a surprise that most of northern Europe will have a medium brown or lighter hair, even if it's not blonde. I'd be very surprised if there wasn't blonde hair among anyone in this study. Blonde hair was found among a couple of Yamnaya and even Roman Age Britons, so in the far north it's just some founder effect.
Yeah, most Scandinavians have some shade of dark blonde or brown hair (or red). Which was the trend among these samples as well, especially in the unmixed samples. They just aren't being reported to the media (except the shocking brown hair I guess :LOL:) because they are not very surprising nor make for a good headline. But it is likely that gene flow and admixture from the British isles and Southern Europe coming from Viking-activity would have altered the frequencies of black hair somewhat, which again is just you what you'd expect. Especially in Viking age-samples actually coming from those regions. I mean, why would they even have assumed otherwise?
 
Still, it's gratifying putting another nail in the coffin of Nordicist fanatics' twisted dream of a pure, unadulterated ubermensch. They may not be large in number on this forum, but we all know the alternatives where this garbage is still venerated.




Please folks, read this study with caution. I learned that you can‘t blindly trust any genetic paper. Therefore I take anything this study concludes with a big grain of salt.


Anyway, your comments of glee and gloat about Vikings being dark are silly, childish and you have been too early pleased.




This Viking paper stated that not all Vikings were Scandinavian, so of course some Vikings wouldn't have resembled the Scandinavian Vikings. Southern Europeans often joined the Vikings on their raids,hence these Vikings would have resembled Southern Europeans. This is no rocket science. However, I have an issue with the woke undertone when discussing phenotype and pretending that all Vikings looked generally like Southern Europeans or part Asian and were super diverse. I read comments that prove that the public who read this article on daily mail, NG etc. believe now that Vikings all looked like Southern Europeans.

In my opinion genetic studies should be written in a strictly neutral way to avoid being politicised.

Besides, there other papers that concluded that the Vikings were mostly red- or blond haired people, hence confirmed the stereotype about them:

DNA research shows that many of the Vikings of Denmark had red hair, while the Vikings of Northern Scandinavia had blonde hair.

https://en.natmus.dk/historical-kno...1050-ad/the-viking-age/the-people/appearance/


Furthermore, the stereotype of flax- blond, blue-eyed tall Vikings arised from ancient and medieval sources and accounts, long before Nordicists showed up. Ancient Romans, Byzantines, Arabs and medieval Europeans that have encountered the Vikings, independently stated that they were very blond, blue-eyed tall people. So fully Scandinavian Vikings were mostly blond,
red-haired but not always since some of them had other origin. So what?


Here the thing, the ugly truth about stereotypes is that they are actually often true, just not always true. So the blond Viking stereotype was likely often true but not always. That's all. This is not an earth-shattering discovery.
 
Yeah, most Scandinavians have some shade of dark blonde or brown hair (or red). Which was the trend among these samples as well, especially in the unmixed samples. They just aren't being reported to the media (except the shocking brown hair I guess :LOL:) because they are not very surprising nor make for a good headline. But it is likely that gene flow and admixture from the British isles and Southern Europe coming from Viking-activity would have altered the frequencies of black hair somewhat, which again is just you what you'd expect. Especially in Viking age-samples actually coming from those regions. I mean, why would they even have assumed otherwise?


Indeed, blond hair comes in different shades from nearly white looking, over strawberry and ash till dirty blond and many shades in between. With that being said, back then and today there were and are plenty natural flax- blond, platinum blond Swedes, Danes and Norwegians out there. Even Germany has still many natural blondes. Unfortunately in our present political and social-cultural atmosphere you can't talk relaxed and laid back and innocently about hair or eye color without some people getting suspicious or triggered. But no matter how you look at it: Scandinavians back then and today have the highest percentage of light haired and light eyed people of all population. Anyway, it was so predictable that the Viking paper in the same fashion as the Roman or Cheddar man study would be sensationalized and politicized. Therefore, I always use my common sense and read genetic studies with a critical mind.
 
It seems funny that so many people subscribe to Nazi corruptions of Nitzchean ubermensch...
Do not get me wrong, right now Scandinavian culture is apex in my book. But that has to do with the marketplace of ideas rather than genes.
But what does pigmentation have to do with ubermensch? Eye color and hair color have more to do with sexual selection than natural selection...

Other than that, what did these Vikings even contribute to human advancement?
Muh alphas raiding betas... As if Mongols or Berbers weren't even more known for raids/piracy. Guess they were tall, blonde, light eyed alphas as well xD

PS: To all the posters claiming anyone with dark hair were mud-blood mixed south Europeans, you make me sick. As if having dark hair is mutually exclusive with being a "Viking".
 
Some leaks have suggested Single Grave Culture was predominantly R-L51+, and these guys are the ancestors to Bell Beaker culture. Let's wait and see.

In terms of blondism, the Mediterranean people who spread from the Middle East 7500 years ago lacked it, but I suspect the hunter gatherers of the steppes and central-east Europe probably had it, along with rufism. I wasn't aware of any Scandinavian country being 100% blonde, so it shouldn't be a surprise that most of northern Europe will have a medium brown or lighter hair, even if it's not blonde. I'd be very surprised if there wasn't blonde hair among anyone in this study. Blonde hair was found among a couple of Yamnaya and even Roman Age Britons, so in the far north it's just some founder effect.

Blonde hair in Yamnaya ?? Show me the study and samples. CWC had some but not Yamnaya if I am not mistaken.
 
The article reminded me of the Jutland Denmark exhibition with which I have Deep Dive

Rise47

Celt + Belgae (4.061)
Celt + Saxon (6.032)
Celt (6.367)
Belgae + Vandal (6.82)
Belgae + Saxon (7.133)
Celt + Frank (7.454)
Saxon (8.904)
Vandal (12.35)
Frank (13.0)
Belgae (13.04)

Well, I had found it as a Nordic culture but Y dna vascon lineage and in MTA it was classified like that and now I see that it has changed

BronzeAgeJutlandDennmarkRise47.jpeg
 
i think the truth might be somewhere in the middle
maybe they were not blond and not black hair :unsure:
more like brown or light brown ( like this danish actor)

https://www.seoghoer.dk/nyheder/peter-gantzler-viking-i-mit-blod

The truth was Scandinavian Vikings were usually blond or red-haired but not all. There were exception to the rule.
Here some pics of modern Italians who are native to places in Italy where Germanic tribes settled and established their Kingdom. Hence, these blond Italians have for sure some old Germanic admixture. Therefore, they look like Northern Europeans. I find it intellectually highly disingenuous to take this misleading study to pretend or translate it into there were NO real blond Vikings back then, only swarthy ones despite eyewitness accounts of Romans, Arabs and medieval Europeans who saw them in real saying otherwise. This is getting ridiculous.

Besides,
I provided a link where DNA research found out that Vikings from Denmark were rather red- haired while the Norwegian Vikings were blond not black or brown haired.

Blond Italians with Germanic hair color and look.
blob


xVy6gW0.png


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jKSsybU.png

I15bopv.png


Oxwtpex.jpg


eweuBRn.png
 
It seems funny that so many people subscribe to Nazi corruptions of Nitzchean ubermensch...
Do not get me wrong, right now Scandinavian culture is apex in my book. But that has to do with the marketplace of ideas rather than genes.
But what does pigmentation have to do with ubermensch? Eye color and hair color have more to do with sexual selection than natural selection...

Other than that, what did these Vikings even contribute to human advancement?
Muh alphas raiding betas... As if Mongols or Berbers weren't even more known for raids/piracy. Guess they were tall, blonde, light eyed alphas as well xD

PS: To all the posters claiming anyone with dark hair were mud-blood mixed south Europeans, you make me sick. As if having dark hair is mutually exclusive with being a "Viking".

I don't understand why you are upset, seriously. The authors of the study themselves stated that those Southern European Vikings or the mixed ones were brunette. They made clear that many Vikings were ethnically speaking not Scandinavians at all. So be mad at them. The point is that some Vikings were dark- haired but some folks translate this fact, full of glee, into all or almost all Vikings were dark-haired. Have some discernment for heaven's sake.

If people claim that Southern Europeans were blond people get mad. When people state Southern Europeans are dark- haired, people get mad.

As I already mentioned it's beyond frustrating and annoying that we can't discuss hair and eye color without people seeing Nordicism, Neo- Nazis, white supremacy everywhere. Bringing up deflecting remarks about the uebermench or gloating isn't helpful either. I'm sick and tired of that.

I want to talk about phenotype in a forum about anthropology, genetics relaxed and chilled without people feeling triggered, personally attacked or overreacting. This has to stop. Don't forget this is a forum for discussing anthropology, genetics, archaeology and history. So it should be possible to debate about hair- or eye color without assuming the worst of the people you are debating with.
 
The truth was Scandinavian Vikings were usually blond or red-haired but not all. There were exception to the rule.
Here some pics of modern Italians who are native to places in Italy where Germanic tribes settled and established their Kingdom. Hence, these blond Italians have for sure some old Germanic admixture. Therefore, they look like Northern Europeans. I find it intellectually highly disingenuous to take this misleading study to pretend or translate it into there were NO real blond Vikings back then, only swarthy ones despite eyewitness accounts of Romans, Arabs and medieval Europeans who saw them in real saying otherwise. This is getting ridiculous.

Besides,
I provided a link where DNA research found out that Vikings from Denmark were rather red- haired while the Norwegian Vikings were blond not black or brown haired.

Blond Italians with Germanic hair color and look.
blob


xVy6gW0.png


blob


jKSsybU.png

I15bopv.png


Oxwtpex.jpg


eweuBRn.png


Most northern Italians absolutely don’t look like that. Also, please provide verification for the name and ethnicity of each person except the redhead.
 
The truth was Scandinavian Vikings were usually blond or red-haired but not all. There were exception to the rule.
Here some pics of modern Italians who are native to places in Italy where Germanic tribes settled and established their Kingdom. Hence, these blond Italians have for sure some old Germanic admixture. Therefore, they look like Northern Europeans. I find it intellectually highly disingenuous to take this misleading study to pretend or translate it into there were NO real blond Vikings back then, only swarthy ones despite eyewitness accounts of Romans, Arabs and medieval Europeans who saw them in real saying otherwise. This is getting ridiculous.

Besides,
I provided a link where DNA research found out that Vikings from Denmark were rather red- haired while the Norwegian Vikings were blond not black or brown haired.

Blond Italians with Germanic hair color and look.
blob


xVy6gW0.png


blob


jKSsybU.png

I15bopv.png


Oxwtpex.jpg


eweuBRn.png

Wow. These guys are much, but much white. Below, in first pic, my son and, in the second pic, my nephew. The first one, half Iberian and half Italian. The second, 25% german and 75% Iberian. Near these guys from northern Italy they look black.

eyUpzfR.jpg

ICTSJVh.jpg
 
I don't understand why you are upset, seriously. The authors of the study themselves stated that those Southern European Vikings or the mixed ones were brunette. They made clear that many Vikings were ethnically speaking not Scandinavians at all. So be mad at them. The point is that some Vikings were dark- haired but some folks translate this fact, full of glee, into all or almost all Vikings were dark-haired. Have some discernment for heaven's sake.

If people claim that Southern Europeans were blond people get mad. When people state Southern Europeans are dark- haired, people get mad.

As I already mentioned it's beyond frustrating and annoying that we can't discuss hair and eye color without people seeing Nordicism, Neo- Nazis, white supremacy everywhere. Bringing up deflecting remarks about the uebermench or gloating isn't helpful either. I'm sick and tired of that.

I want to talk about phenotype in a forum about anthropology, genetics relaxed and chilled without people feeling triggered, personally attacked or overreacting. This has to stop. Don't forget this is a forum for discussing anthropology, genetics, archaeology and history. So it should be possible to debate about hair- or eye color without assuming the worst of the people you are debating with.

Upset? I was taking the p*ss.
You can talk about phenotype all you like, but thinking any population is homogeneous and anyone that is not a blond blue eyed viking is Southern European is a straight up garbage pov.
The images you posted are not typical in Northern Italy. From my experience maybe the area of Lazio has something close in small percentages, but even then not that stereotypicaly German.

You somehow think all blonde Italians have German blood, and all dark haired Swedes have South European blood.
Then you fail to detect sarcasm and irony, my words on ubermensch* are not my opinions, it is me larping as your typical Nordicist, open or closeted.

PS: I would agree that some Vikings might not have been Scandinavian linguistically. But how do you even go about proving that??
Do you seriously not grasp that even a genetically homogeneous population has variance in looks (yes a "pure blood"** ubermensch*** too might have Brown hair), let alone a population that had input from other populations, a fact for 99% of populations on earth.


PSS:

Since you would like to discuss phenotypes:
Just because he is light eyed and light haired does Ignazio Abate look German to you?

abate-spaziomilan-1000x600.jpg

16631-1571989633.jpg

Ignazio-Abate.jpg


Compare him to the individuals you posted, that I even doubt are Italians. At least not your typical Italian:

blob

xVy6gW0.png


I see 0 phenotypical semblance.

Compare to De Rossi:

Daniele-De-Rossi-Roma-2.jpg

872623674.jpg.0.jpg

Daniele%20De%20Rossi
 
Most northern Italians absolutely don’t look like that. Also, please provide verification for the name and ethnicity of each person except the redhead.

I know that for sure. These are cherry- picked Italian INDIVIDUALS who don't even look like blond Italians but full- blown Germans, Northern Europeans.

However, I travel regularly to Italy and saw some Northern Italians who looked like these people in real life but they are definitely not representative for the regular Northern Italian look. You can believe me I don't make things up. Take, for instance, Abate, he is even from Napoli and from a region that was once populated by Germanic tribes. I got this information from Italians.

Here a pic from Abate.

7edc160f668818db158c27d8dfe0307c.jpg




I love Italy and I regularly travel to Italy and ask directly Italians about their history and culture.

This is a Sicilian woman married to a German actor. Her name is Tina Ciamperla. And yes she is a very atypical looking Sicilian.
blob


schauspieler-jochen-horst-mit-freundin-tina-ciamperla-bei-der-yves-picture-id170680082


The point I was trying to bring across is that some Italians have ancient Germanic input that, here and there, pops up in the phenotype.

So we can safely assume that many Germanic folks were as blond as the different ancient or medieval accounts described them, and that genetic studies who seem to debunk these accounts, have to be read with caution and in context.

I ask you Angela not to be suspicious towards me and not to question my intellectual integrity. I'm really only interested in facts, historical accurate things and discussion genetic papers in the most objective way possible. Everything I write here is sincere and I have no intention to push any agenda whatsoever.

PS. I will provide the names of these rest of the Italians, of course.
 
I don't understand why you are upset, seriously. The authors of the study themselves stated that those Southern European Vikings or the mixed ones were brunette. They made clear that many Vikings were ethnically speaking not Scandinavians at all. So be mad at them. The point is that some Vikings were dark- haired but some folks translate this fact, full of glee, into all or almost all Vikings were dark-haired. Have some discernment for heaven's sake.

If people claim that Southern Europeans were blond people get mad. When people state Southern Europeans are dark- haired, people get mad.

As I already mentioned it's beyond frustrating and annoying that we can't discuss hair and eye color without people seeing Nordicism, Neo- Nazis, white supremacy everywhere. Bringing up deflecting remarks about the uebermench or gloating isn't helpful either. I'm sick and tired of that.

I want to talk about phenotype in a forum about anthropology, genetics relaxed and chilled without people feeling triggered, personally attacked or overreacting. This has to stop. Don't forget this is a forum for discussing anthropology, genetics, archaeology and history. So it should be possible to debate about hair- or eye color without assuming the worst of the people you are debating with.
I completely agree. It's getting rather tiresome with all the politicization, which cannot be denied at this point. Some of the claims made by the media regarding this study have been outright bizarre and should rightly be scrutinized. The strawman made in the press and from some of the scientists about the supposed "uniformly blonde, blue-eyed, tall group of Nordic warriors" is completely ridiculous. People seriously exaggerate how widespread such ideas are in the modern world, aside from some fringe-circles on the Internet. Nobody with a functioning intellect who set their foot in a Northern European country ever believed such a thing, not even the Nazi-ideologues of the 30's. But instead of striving for some objectivity, the media seems to have gone off completely on the opposite end. The worst of the offenders will now have you believe that blonde hair hardly existed in Scandinavia during the VA, which is completely silly and seriously misleading. Having said that, I'll hold off on commenting more on phenotype until I have seen pigmentation-data on the individual samples in detail.
 
I know that for sure. These are cherry- picked Italian INDIVIDUALS who don't even look like blond Italians but full- blown Germans, Northern Europeans.

However, I travel regularly to Italy and saw some Northern Italians who looked like these people in real life but they are definitely not representative for the regular Northern Italian look. You can believe me I don't make things up. Take, for instance, Abate, he is even from Napoli and from a region that was once populated by Germanic tribes. I got this information from Italians.

Here a pic from Abate.

7edc160f668818db158c27d8dfe0307c.jpg




I love Italy and I regularly travel to Italy and ask directly Italians about their history and culture.

This is a Sicilian woman married to a German actor. Her name is Tina Ciamperla. And yes she is a very atypical looking Sicilian.
blob


schauspieler-jochen-horst-mit-freundin-tina-ciamperla-bei-der-yves-picture-id170680082


The point I was trying to bring across is that some Italians have ancient Germanic input that, here and there, pops up in the phenotype.

So we can safely assume that many Germanic folks were as blond as the different ancient or medieval accounts described them, and that genetic studies who seem to debunk these accounts, have to be read with caution and in context.

I ask you Angela not to be suspicious towards me and not to question my intellectual integrity. I'm really only interested in facts, historical accurate things and discussion genetic papers in the most objective way possible. Everything I write here is sincere and I have no intention to push any agenda whatsoever.

All of the people in this particular post look Italian. It’s not a question of hair color; it’s a question of features. Foreigners can’t be expected to see the difference no matter how often they visit Italy, but we can. Plus, I hate to break it to you, but all the women are dark brunettes who bleach their hair. :) Don’t feel bad. My husband always falls for it too:)

Abate looks completely and utterly Italian, blonde hair or not. Pigmentation can be very misleading.

As for the original pictures, the redhead is probably Italian. Some of the rest of the men have clearly bleached their hair; one example is the young boy in the pool. I have never in my life, in person or media seen an Italian adult with hair naturally that light. IF it’s natural they may come from the Alto Adige or Istria or Valle D’Aosta in which case they’re Italian citizens but not ethnically Italian.

I’m by no means accusing you of dishonesty. Maybe you went to google and put in blonde Italians and they came up. If so, follow the link to get their names. Or maybe those pictures are floating around on anthrofora

Otherwise, they’re wrongly showing up in google as Italian men or someone is giving you incorrect information. The black man is wearing an Italian top. Is he ethically Italian as well? We’re discussing genetics here.
 
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