Dark hair was common among Vikings, genetic study confirms

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Zzzzzz... did anyone with a modicum of knowledge really expect all Vikings to be blonde and blue-eyed when no modern Scandinavian people is like that (from Iceland to Sweden generally non-blond people average between 25% and 35%) and Vikings were obviously (this is really "viking history for dummies" stuff) were not synonymous with being Norsemen, but just a very cosmopolitan and mobile pirate+raider+explorer+merchant activity (not all vikings were Norse - chiefs usually were, though -, not all Norse were vikings)? Many people, both the "wokes" and those who get way too upset about the questioning on the blondeness of the ancient vikings, can really make a storm in a cup of tea. lol
 
4- Vikings changed with time and this cannot be falsified: here they speak of Picts among them (I ignored it, so I learn something her), but we knew already the Gael-Gal's of ireland, mixes of Gaels and Norwegians, we knew the weight of R1b-L21-L22 among Western Norwegians of today (yesterday, maybe!) who cannot be only the result of Irish male slaves for more than a reason.: The too strong proportions of Y-R1a and Y-Q1a among ancient western British Vikings settlements and relatively high levels of Y-Q1a too in current Iceland and Scandinavia which points to something eastern.

IIRC the Q1a subclade relatively common in Scandinavians and Scandinavian-related people is long diverged from the other Q1a subclades more commonly found in eastern populations from the Urals eastward. So it may be simply a very ancient Northeastern European clade that was picked up by Scandinavians still in Antiquity, either since the times of CWC or later in contact with non-IE people from Northeast Europe.
 
IIRC the Q1a subclade relatively common in Scandinavians and Scandinavian-related people is long diverged from the other Q1a subclades more commonly found in eastern populations from the Urals eastward. So it may be simply a very ancient Northeastern European clade that was picked up by Scandinavians still in Antiquity, either since the times of CWC or later in contact with non-IE people from Northeast Europe.

I was not thinking in East-Ural pops but in relatively eastern Baltic people, compared to the bulk of Scandinavians; Even if the Y-Q1a in cause are old enough in Scandinavia (uneasy to tell yet), we could think the ancient high proportions in the Isles in Vikings settlements supposed to be Norwegian, which are very higher than in today Scandinavia (maxi around 4-5%), could be the result of kind of a selection, maybe from previously rather eastern Scandinavians, when todate western Norwegians and Danes are rather poor for this haplo. It seems that the Gotland island in middle of the Baltic sea would be the richer today for this haplo. Arrived there from where? I agree this is not very decisive.
Concerning the pigmentation case, I disagree with you. The media interpretations (in titles or abstracts) are pretty misinforming, it isn't a detail, they don't come close to any reality. Agree with you that all Scandies are not blond or neatly fair haired, but the dark hues (very very dark brown to black) don't reach more than the 6% (more often 3,5/4%), far from a swarthy blackish pop. The brownish hues are the most often light brown and middle brown, you are not in front of Portugueses (I know, these last ones are not black haired all of them!). OK, pigmentation is not the whole question, but on purpose misinformation is very unpleasant to me.
That said, I read your posts with attention and respect for your analyse mind and clarity, and agree the most of the time with you, spite I cannot read in time every thread.
 
Perhaps a definitive conclusion should be reached once we have hundreds of Viking DNA results.

A few more or less dark haired individuals means nothing at this point.

Not that it needs justification, but of the tip of my head a non-scientific reason could be that the Vikings could have been mostly (or at least initially) from the coastal regions, where it is known throughout Europe that coastal people are on average darker, indicating a more Med admixture.

On the other hand, the coastal Algerians tend to be lighter since their Northern neighbours across the sea are also lighter.
 
Perhaps a definitive conclusion should be reached once we have hundreds of Viking DNA results.

A few more or less dark haired individuals means nothing at this point.

Not that it needs justification, but of the tip of my head a non-scientific reason could be that the Vikings could have been mostly (or at least initially) from the coastal regions, where it is known throughout Europe that coastal people are on average darker, indicating a more Med admixture.

On the other hand, the coastal Algerians tend to be lighter since their Northern neighbours across the sea are also lighter.

Coastal North Dutch are not darker on the contrary......
 
Perhaps a definitive conclusion should be reached once we have hundreds of Viking DNA results.

A few more or less dark haired individuals means nothing at this point.

Not that it needs justification, but of the tip of my head a non-scientific reason could be that the Vikings could have been mostly (or at least initially) from the coastal regions, where it is known throughout Europe that coastal people are on average darker, indicating a more Med admixture.

On the other hand, the coastal Algerians tend to be lighter since their Northern neighbours across the sea are also lighter.

A bit simplistic: Northener answered you for some regions - I 'll do it for others: maritime regions can be more mixted than some inland regions, (an even there, we have to distinguish easy access shores from others hard to accost), but for North Africa, the Mediterrenean coast does see more less dark haired pops only in Small Kabylie and eastern coast of Tunisia, and very inland you have the western Aures region (Berberic too) with less dark haired people too, spite far from sea. Bit visible pigmentation is not the only way to appreciate admixture, it's true!
 
A bit simplistic: Northener answered you for some regions - I 'll do it for others: maritime regions can be more mixted than some inland regions, (an even there, we have to distinguish easy access shores from others hard to accost), but for North Africa, the Mediterrenean coast does see more less dark haired pops only in Small Kabylie and eastern coast of Tunisia, and very inland you have the western Aures region (Berberic too) with less dark haired people too, spite far from sea. Bit visible pigmentation is not the only way to appreciate admixture, it's true!
Of course, that is why I said off the top of my head, if one is really looking to find theories. My take for now is to test more and wait and honestly I don’t think the Danes just got blonder in the last 1000 years.

As for Algeria, there are far more “lighter” individuals on the coastal regions than among the Berbers. Actually the Berbers on average with the exception of few tribes have more African admixture.

Northerner, I believe what you say although just FYI as I said it’s not really my theory it was just an idea that if we want to find reasons for Vikings having been darker, we can find hundreds of them. Even the situation in today’s northern Netherlands doesn’t mean much as the population could have gone through many changes.

Similarly, the British could have been slightly darker before the Anglo-Saxons and later Vikings considering how tied the island has been to Iberia historically.
 
Of course, that is why I said off the top of my head, if one is really looking to find theories. My take for now is to test more and wait and honestly I don’t think the Danes just got blonder in the last 1000 years.

As for Algeria, there are far more “lighter” individuals on the coastal regions than among the Berbers. Actually the Berbers on average with the exception of few tribes have more African admixture.

Northerner, I believe what you say although just FYI as I said it’s not really my theory it was just an idea that if we want to find reasons for Vikings having been darker, we can find hundreds of them. Even the situation in today’s northern Netherlands doesn’t mean much as the population could have gone through many changes.

Similarly, the British could have been slightly darker before the Anglo-Saxons and later Vikings considering how tied the island has been to Iberia historically.

No, the northern coast of Maghreb which contains less dark people is the place(s) where Berbers maintained some cultural continuity: same in Rif (Marocco), Kabylie (Algeria); and Berberic Chaouis of W-Aurès are not on the coast! The very dark (for skin too) Berbers are the nomadic Touaregs/Tirghi trading with South Sahara, who by time mated a lot with SSA women; and even then, in some clans, the "upper classes" maintained more Eurasian traits during a long time. That said, a lot of berbers clans were very dominantly dark haired: the group of languages has been spread over a too vaste territory to be homogenous.
What I say is that the more fair haired mean is not the result of only admixtures from outside on coasts.
 
By the way, todate we don't know what could have been exactly the possible input of BB's, Rome empire,Vandales and maybe Alans in North Africa.
 
[QUOTE = verdadeiro especialista; 612848] Por favor, pessoal, leia este estudo com cautela. Aprendi que não se pode confiar cegamente em nenhum papel genético. Portanto, considero qualquer coisa que este estudo conclua com um grande grão de sal.


De qualquer forma, seus comentários de alegria e se vangloriar Vikings sendo escuro são tolas, infantil e você tem b een para o início agradou.




Este artigo viking afirmava que nem todos os vikings eram escandinavos, então é claro que alguns vikings não se pareciam com os vikings escandinavos. Os europeus do sul frequentemente se juntavam aos vikings em seus ataques, portanto, esses vikings se pareciam com os do sul da Europa. Isso não é ciência de foguetes. No entanto, eu tenho um problema com o tom de acordado ao discutir o fenótipo e fingir que todos os vikings em geral se pareciam com europeus do sul ou parcialmente asiáticos e eram superdiversos. Eu li comentários que provam que o público que leu este artigo no correio diário, NG etc. acredita agora que todos os vikings pareciam europeus do sul.

Em minha opinião, os estudos genéticos devem ser escritos de forma estritamente neutra para evitar serem politizados.

Além disso, outros artigos concluíram que os vikings eram, em sua maioria, ruivos ou loiros, portanto confirmaram o estereótipo sobre eles:



https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050- ad / the-viking-age / the-people / looks /


Além disso, o estereótipo de vikings altos, loiros e de olhos azuis, surgiu de fontes e relatos antigos e medievais, muito antes do aparecimento dos nórdicos. Os antigos romanos, bizantinos, árabes e europeus medievais que encontraram os vikings, afirmaram independentemente que eles eram muito loiros, pessoas altas de olhos azuis. Então, totalmente Vikings escandinavos eram em sua maioria loiros,
vermelhos cabelos, mas nem sempre já que alguns deles teve outra origem. E daí?


Aqui, a verdade nua e crua sobre os estereótipos é que eles costumam ser verdadeiros, mas nem sempre são verdadeiros. Portanto, o estereótipo Viking loiro provavelmente era verdadeiro, mas nem sempre. Isso é tudo. Esta não é uma descoberta surpreendente. [/CITAR]

You seem to imply that any non-blond Viking had 'another origin' - which is absolutely untrue. Even today there are Nordics with brown or dark blond hair and no reason to believe that any non-blond Viking would necessarily have another origin.
 
I had a good laugh with this topic. I am Brazilian and gay. My boyfriend - Iberian ancestry - is blond even on his lashes. Would anyone here start to imply that he has some 'Germanic' ancestry? Anyone who thinks that being blond in southern Europe remote Germanic ancestry can only be telling jokes. In fact: in my family there are 10 - 15% of sub-Saharan ancestry and everything else is Iberian and Italian. We still have blondes in the family. Blond phenotype is not a sign of 'purity', much less a necessary bond with Germanics
 
The blond phenotype occurs in many parts of the world - regardless of the frequency difference. The Spanish actor Nacho Vidal is an example among several other blondes from Iberia, Italy or anywhere without a link with Germans.

ator-porno-nacho-vidal-detido-por-uma-morte-em-ritual-com-veneno-de-sapo-1268189077326540800.webp



img_nmunoz_20190829-140553_imagenes_md_otras_fuentes_nacho_vidal_instagram-k75B-U481586024158rhC-572x646@MundoDeportivo-Web.JPG
 
I don't give a darn about hair color, but it is clear from genetics that some of the "Viking" samples we have are not completely Scandinavian like, or Scandinavian like at all. Perhaps "Viking" may have been more a way of life than an absolute description of the origin of the raider. They were perhaps a mixed group, like Scythians, some of whom were quite Mediterranean like. Scandinavians may have gone "a Viking", but they may have accepted men from other areas, as well as having children with women from other regions.

Just in terms of aggression levels, I've always found it hard to reconcile the behavior of "Vikings" with what I know about Scandinavians, and I mean that as a compliment. There's nothing to admire, imo, about cold blooded thieves, sackers of towns, rapists and torturous killers. Not to mention that their main source of income was the slave trade.
 
All hair colours are beautiful even the dyed ones and we also appreciate the coats of some animals especially, I believe that hair is and has been of great importance in humanity, cultures and civilizations.
 
The blond phenotype occurs in many parts of the world - regardless of the frequency difference. The Spanish actor Nacho Vidal is an example among several other blondes from Iberia, Italy or anywhere without a link with Germans.

ator-porno-nacho-vidal-detido-por-uma-morte-em-ritual-com-veneno-de-sapo-1268189077326540800.webp



img_nmunoz_20190829-140553_imagenes_md_otras_fuentes_nacho_vidal_instagram-k75B-U481586024158rhC-572x646@MundoDeportivo-Web.JPG

Don't push it too far: fair hairs were not common all around the world before the diverse Europeans colonisations.
a seemingly late Western Eurasion group, with fair hairs occurrences acccentued in North, diffuse in South (with more than a mutation in cause), and a separate group of pop's among some Oceanian archaic pop's.
 
I don't give a darn about hair color, but it is clear from genetics that some of the "Viking" samples we have are not completely Scandinavian like, or Scandinavian like at all. Perhaps "Viking" may have been more a way of life than an absolute description of the origin of the raider. They were perhaps a mixed group, like Scythians, some of whom were quite Mediterranean like. Scandinavians may have gone "a Viking", but they may have accepted men from other areas, as well as having children with women from other regions.

Just in terms of aggression levels, I've always found it hard to reconcile the behavior of "Vikings" with what I know about Scandinavians, and I mean that as a compliment. There's nothing to admire, imo, about cold blooded thieves, sackers of towns, rapists and torturous killers. Not to mention that their main source of income was the slave trade.

With historical texts, plus recent auDNA surveys we know it without any doubt. And the details in the reliable survey discussed recently never came close to some media "big titles" concerning Vikings aspect.
Concerning Vikings (thieves for you) and today genuine Scandinavians, they still share this cold blooded aspect, as other North germanic people. I have no admiration for Vikings but they did what others did along history, when force was on their side. They showed more than a skill to make their way. It's why after some time more than an "honorable Scandinavian" wanted to become Viking.
 
With historical texts, plus recent auDNA surveys we know it without any doubt. And the details in the reliable survey discussed recently never came close to some media "big titles" concerning Vikings aspect.
Concerning Vikings (thieves for you) and today genuine Scandinavians, they still share this cold blooded aspect, as other North germanic people. I have no admiration for Vikings but they did what others did along history, when force was on their side. They showed more than a skill to make their way. It's why after some time more than an "honorable Scandinavian" wanted to become Viking.

Should we focus just on the "North Germanic people. I make no excuses for them or anybody. But look at former Imperial Japan they were brutal in their day - much different then current Japan. Further the Roman Empire didn't get to be who they were because they were nice guys. Roman-Gallic wars in 58BC almost 1,000,000 Celts killed. 50 AD the invasion of Britannia approx 100,000 to 250,000 killed. The siege of Carthage approx 650,000 killed. Further I heard Genghis Khan wasn't such a nice guy either.
 
Wow, all these admirers of Vikings. As for the misleading media headlines, I don't know the headlines in question. I know I read the paper, and all of the samples were not 100% Scandinavians either genetically or phenotypically.

All empires were created by force; that's beyond obvious. However, empires like the Japanese Empire, the Chinese Empire, the Roman Empire, even the Islamic Empire, were empire builders by definition who "created" civilizations in the areas they conquered. In the Roman Empire within thirty years the former conquered could be "Romans" and the "local" landlords could become Senators.

From everything I've read the Vikings were raiders and slavers, not Empire builders, whether that was England, Scotland, Ireland or Italy. I've read many of the contemporary accounts. I also was born very close to the city of Luni which they completely looted and destroyed and then sailed away. They had no interest in anything but the slaves and the loot.

The northerners who settled areas like the Danelaw etc. eventually took all the land they could grab for themselves, pushing many of the Celts further and further west onto marginal, poor land, and made the "locals" a lower order of "citizen" with fewer rights. They certainly weren't absorbed on an equal basis. That applies to what the Angles and Saxons did to the Celts of Britain as well. I've read the legal decrees.

I'll grant you that Genghis Khan was the worst of the worst. He created no lasting civilization behind him. It took a thousand years for some areas to recover.

That's how I see it. You're welcome to see it however you like.
 
With historical texts, plus recent auDNA surveys we know it without any doubt. And the details in the reliable survey discussed recently never came close to some media "big titles" concerning Vikings aspect.
Concerning Vikings (thieves for you) and today genuine Scandinavians, they still share this cold blooded aspect, as other North germanic people. I have no admiration for Vikings but they did what others did along history, when force was on their side. They showed more than a skill to make their way. It's why after some time more than an "honorable Scandinavian" wanted to become Viking.

how are modern scandinavians cold blooded? even back then as you already said they did what others were doing already. many christians were slavers themselves and a lot of people in northern and southern europe participated in this trade. or look at how other religions or just slightly different versions of christianity were treated in certain places all over europe. i have no admiration for vikings, for me they were simple robbers. with really nice ships and with skilled seafarers though. but they do not really stand out in terms of cold blooedness. look at the history of many other people in europe or the world and you will find the exact same things.
 
how are modern scandinavians cold blooded? even back then as you already said they did what others were doing already. many christians were slavers themselves and a lot of people in northern and southern europe participated in this trade. or look at how other religions or just slightly different versions of christianity were treated in certain places all over europe. i have no admiration for vikings, for me they were robbers with really nice ships and with skilled seafarers. but cold bloodedness is a trait you will find everywhere. probably every empire in history would not have existed without it.

Maybe I should have verified the meaning English put into the word "cold blooded"? In my mind "cold blooded" means "who put some distance between himself and events of any sort. Not a moral quality but a useful condition in practice; it can lead to objectivity on the good side and to lack of sensitivity on the bad side; It was my point, concerning common people, not concerning moral persons like states or some of the leaders of these states. I am not a "sociological psychologist", so my thoughts on the matter have not too much worth, if you want. Only impressions. I 'm not tempted to consider the most of Southern Europe people as "coldblooded" as a whole, even to date with all the exchanges our societies know. Opinion is opinion. That doesn't put Northerners above Southerners, it's only at the reactions level.

Concerning Vikings, I have no special admiration for them. The first ones, someones wrote, were kind of banished people, asocial ones, considered as bad persons (offenders, wrongdoers). But it seem that when the echoes of their finds began to be known, "respectable" members of the Norse society re-considered the question of what is bad and what is good, as everywhere or almost (look at the not-Norse people joining them)!!!
I have not special admiration for force, power (or strenght, spite I like sportive competition as a game). I have no more admiration for empires builders: Vikings had their kind of empire, only it was different. As empires builders they incorporated strangers, they created a trade network. Where is the deep difference IN NATURE (I don't speak of architecture skills)? They began to create at a smaller scale, land settled territories after they had been only plundering sailors...
No, I'm not a fan of Vikings, not at all, you can be sure of that.
 
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