The evolution of skin pigmentation-associated variation in West Eurasia.

I can't imagine a setting where the ancient SHGs were not heavy consumers of fish though. Theres just not that much else here, and only the coast was icefree for a long time. Seems to me that the earliest cases of lightening skin seems to be about the time the snow and icefields go away. Might be a case of competing pressures. Getting extra vitamin D in addition to you diet is good, skin cancer bad. R

Exactly right. I had two bouts of terrible sun poisoning as a young woman, one on my face, with my face swelling hugely and covered with blisters. Once it was my arm. The first time was on a New Jersey beach because I fell asleep for about two hours lying on my stomach. The second time was in Mexico because I was holding on to a pole of an open jeep. Both times I had to have shots of steroids and stay indoors for three days. Even my eyes got burned in the summer sun of Florida, and I was told I had to wear wrap around sunglasses all the time.

I was told by numerous dermatologists that I had so little melanin that going sunbathing was absolutely out for me. Even high temperatures are a problem because my pores are apparently so small that I don't sweat enough and so my body gets overheated.

I did listen, either always hunting for shade or slathering myself with high level sunscreen, but the result was that I was diagnosed with Vitamin D deficiency a number of times, requiring prescription strength pills for two months each time.

Yet still, I've had three precancerous lesions burned off. Thankfully, squamous cell, not melanoma, but I have to have full body scans every six months. My father, whose skin pigmentation I inherited, had numerous squamous cell cancers removed, one that was pretty serious. His entire family lived in the high Apennines for at least six hundred years. I don't know if that had anything to do with it. It's winter for six months a year there, but I think it's also pretty cloudy.

Black people have the same problem in the U.S. for the opposite reason. No matter how long they stay outdoors, they can't get enough Vitamin D because they have too much melanin.

Also, it is reported that Africans around the equator carry snps to produce LOTS of melanin, to protect them from the sun.

It's all one of those unfair things in life because I adore the sun and the sea, and hate cloudy and rainy climates.
 
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@Real Expert
I agree with a lot of your points in this thread. Just we don't know how was precisely the pigmentation of our old HG's, spite I doubt they were so dark as say someones. But in a post of yours, you mention:

[ ... Originally Posted by MOESAN As for my personal opinion, I take the point that the WHG might have had skin lightening genes we don't recognize. Great. The question still remains, as Anfanger succinctly put it: why then did the WHG living in those northern climes select so strongly for genes we KNOW lighten pigmentation. It would be unnecessary, wouldn't it? I haven't seen that addressed at all.

To me that's illogical. If you don't see that and want to believe otherwise, fine, believe what you want.

Angela, you are right here, personally I believe since long ago that our HG's ancestors were rather brown skinned (maybe dark enough brown). I have just a big "touch of doubt" when I see the reconstruction of Cheddar man, so dark "chocolate"!!!...]

In fact, only the vertical letters are by myself. The inclined ones are by Angela.

To be honest, I don’t know, haven't figured out why WHGs selected so strongly for genes that lighten the skin when having a very dark skin as scientists assert was working fine for them in their environment. My speculation is that the strong selection was for very light skin. It's said that the development of light/pale skin was due to sexual selection. However, in nature nothing develops for aesthetic reasons only but there must be some benefits attached to it , too. Again, why did the WHGs strongly select for genes who make the skin lighter, in the first place, if being dark brown to black was not a problem and beneficial? The Australian Aborigines or Melanesians, for instance, didn’t select genes for light skin for obvious reasons. Besides, I can‘t speak for everybody, but I personally don’t ignore science, I’m just sceptical that predictions for pigmentation of modern people are as accurate as for archaic ones.
 
All SSAs look dark brown or even black(Nilotics) to me except the Khoi san and guys, there are maybe 20-30 threads where we have talked about ***mentation. Most of my posts on this forum are related to ***mentation. You can use the search option, by the way. We have talked about this paper when it was a preprint and now again and when exactly did I say you can't discuss ***mentation or anything else ?! What are we doing right now ? Discussing ***mentation ! If you have problem with Cheddar Mans skin colour go and contact the main genetics. I hope you have serious data that supports your notion of Cheddar Mans skin colour not being that dark because all I hear out of your posts is: "IN MY OPINION HE WASN`T THAT DARK! NO WAY! I DON`T HAVE DATA BUT NEVER EVER THAT DARK!."

Show me data and a plausible explanation and I change the idea of WHGs being dark in a second.

You would have to use the prediction model (hirisplex-s) to understand why the predictions are so flawed, and compare them to modern populations.

Loschbour was predicted 0.89 for 'intermediate' when compared to La Brana who was predicted 0.75 'Dark to black', despite only three small differences on lesser effect snps.

And it appears that Loschbour is the only correct and consistent prediction of the three WHGs in the study- La Brana is predicted only as having 'dark' skin, if you swap the HERC2 alleles associated with blue eyes he had with the ancestral brown eye alleles. On modern predictions the HERC2 blue eye alleles will give the effect of a slightly lighter skin prediction also, which is consistent with the Loschbour prediction.

I would post screenshots but as I am a new user it does not permit me to post links at current.
 
I don't know if the WHG had relatively lighter skin than has been argued.

However, from the data we have, they selected for de***mentation snps only in the far northeast, where it is extremely foggy, with few days of sun. They didn't select strongly for the "modern" de-***mentation snp arriving from the Near East in places like Iberia, at least while maintaining their traditional diet, which is another factor. On the old threads where this was discussed to death, the incoming farmers are darker than farmers in, say, the Balkans, because there were more WHG with whom they admixed, although the percentages aren't large.

Also, if the WHG had de-***mentation snps which produced relatively lighter skin, why select at all for the modern de***mentation snps of which we're aware?

Furthermore, the connection of paler skin with modern de-***mentation snps in certain environmental conditions like more northern latitudes, and particularly areas in northern latitudes with very foggy, low sunlight levels, and snps for "darker" skin in areas with levels of solar radiation is clear. There's a reason the Africans living around the equator are extremely dark, and we have found the snps which code for more melanin, so this isn't just speculation.
 
I don't know if the WHG had relatively lighter skin than has been argued.

However, from the data we have, they selected for de***mentation snps only in the far northeast, where it is extremely foggy, with few days of sun. They didn't select strongly for the "modern" de-***mentation snp arriving from the Near East in places like Iberia, at least while maintaining their traditional diet, which is another factor. On the old threads where this was discussed to death, the incoming farmers are darker than farmers in, say, the Balkans, because there were more WHG with whom they admixed, although the percentages aren't large.

Also, if the WHG had de-***mentation snps which produced relatively lighter skin, why select at all for the modern de***mentation snps of which we're aware?

Furthermore, the connection of paler skin with modern de-***mentation snps in certain environmental conditions like more northern latitudes, and particularly areas in northern latitudes with very foggy, low sunlight levels, and snps for "darker" skin in areas with levels of solar radiation is clear. There's a reason the Africans living around the equator are extremely dark, and we have found the snps which code for more melanin, so this isn't just speculation.

Should remember that WHG were almost fully derived on many of the HERC2/ OCA2/ IRF4/ APBA2 ect variants - in particular IRF4 is especially associated with the palest complexions in Europe. Even on hirisplex it is number 2 on the rankings out of 36 and the most significant contributor to the very pale and pale categories. This alone is evidence that they were selecting towards lighter complexions - so many of them have been found to be homozygote derived - remember most modern Europeans do not have this.

Although SLC24A5 and SLC45A2 are known to have stronger effects, we should also be asking, what is the actual effect of these two genes? Most studies seem to suggest the derived alleles might lighten the skin by around 15 melanin units combined. All East Asians are ancestral on the two main loci on these two genes - of course they have a couple of differing variants that result in de***mentation, however not all have the HERC2/ OCA2 variants that WHG have been found to have, and none have IRF4. Maybe the selection for these genes occurred for the simple reason they are stronger effect but also more advantageous than say IRF4 which has has also negative consequences such as far greater likelihood of sunburn and freckling.

Also have noticed that a few WHG have some of variants found in neanderthals that have been associated with both lighter (and darker) complexion as mentioned in a study from a few years back - one of which is much less common in Europe today.
 
Should remember that WHG were almost fully derived on many of the HERC2/ OCA2/ IRF4/ APBA2 ect variants - in particular IRF4 is especially associated with the palest complexions in Europe. Even on hirisplex it is number 2 on the rankings out of 36 and the most significant contributor to the very pale and pale categories. This alone is evidence that they were selecting towards lighter complexions - so many of them have been found to be homozygote derived - remember most modern Europeans do not have this.

Although SLC24A5 and SLC45A2 are known to have stronger effects, we should also be asking, what is the actual effect of these two genes? Most studies seem to suggest the derived alleles might lighten the skin by around 15 melanin units combined. All East Asians are ancestral on the two main loci on these two genes - of course they have a couple of differing variants that result in de***mentation, however not all have the HERC2/ OCA2 variants that WHG have been found to have, and none have IRF4. Maybe the selection for these genes occurred for the simple reason they are stronger effect but also more advantageous than say IRF4 which has has also negative consequences such as far greater likelihood of sunburn and freckling.

Also have noticed that a few WHG have some of variants found in neanderthals that have been associated with both lighter (and darker) complexion as mentioned in a study from a few years back - one of which is much less common in Europe today.

I've said this what seems like a million times. I've worked with the hirisplex system professionally, and I can tell you categorically that if you have only HERC2/ OCA2/ IRF4/ APBA2 variants for de***mentation, i.e. not SLC24A5 and SLC4502 you will NOT come out as having pale skin. PERIOD.

Could they have had de-***mentation snps of which we're not aware? Yes. However, if so why the hell would there have been such strong selection for the "modern" de***mentation snps from the Caucasus and Anatolia? Why would they need them so much that there's this massive sweep?

Believe what you want, of course. Out.
 
I've said this what seems like a million times. I've worked with the hirisplex system professionally, and I can tell you categorically that if you have only HERC2/ OCA2/ IRF4/ APBA2 variants for de***mentation, i.e. not SLC24A5 and SLC4502 you will NOT come out as having pale skin. PERIOD.

Could they have had de-***mentation snps of which we're not aware? Yes. However, if so why the hell would there have been such strong selection for the "modern" de***mentation snps from the Caucasus and Anatolia? Why would they need them so much that there's this massive sweep?

Believe what you want, of course. Out.

It is not just these variants, there are lots of of other variants that could be included - and btw I am not suggesting they were red head pale skin, but I certainly see no reason why they could not have been similar to say a lightish complexion East Asian - or just tinted skin - if you have worked with hirisplex professionally then you should be at least questioning why alleles most unique to Europe and associated with blue eyes are directly contributing to dark to black predictions? I can provide the data and it seems to be a problem on this prediction model that is unique to WHG... even Sunghir 2 and Kostenki 14 only get predicted dark, and they obviously predate WHG considerably.

P.S have a look at the Whitehawk woman reconstruction of a neolithic farmer - do you agree this is an accurate portrayal? Given we actually have living populations living in far hotter climates (Sardinians) that have very similar ***mentation variants to EEF and in no way look anything like the Whitehawk reconstruction..
 
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An interesting fact, that the Peştera Muierii woman from 34, 000 years ago was predicted to have intermediate/ olive skin color. This old European woman big times predates the Anatolian farmers who carried genes for light skin.


Phenotypic analysis

We used HIrisplex-S77
to predict ***mentation phenotypes for PM1. HIrisplex-S uses 41 SNPs to predict eye, skin and hair color and it has been shown to perform well on modern Eurasians. This prediction is associated with some uncertainty in ancient individuals as we do not know if there were functional alleles in these populations that are unknown today. The presence of unknown functional variants is not unlikely considering the complex genetic architecture of ***mentation phenotypes.124
,125

We did not include the insertion polymorphism rs312262906 into the prediction model. The HIrisPlexS model predicts the following phenotype for PM1: brown eyes (p = 0.995), brown (p = 0.566) to black hair (p = 0.382) with dark shade (p = 0.931) and intermediate skin color (p = 0.999). These results are similar to other European hunter-gatherers who are mainly ancestral for the known ***mentation variants.14
,126


https://www.cell.com/current-biolog...m/retrieve/pii/S0960982221005923?showall=true
 
Thanks, very interesting to know, most EEF score darker than intermediate also - seems hirisplex-s cannot actually distinguish between med European complexions versus darkish South Asians
 
@matp:
I'm tempted to support your points of view, partly at least. I don't think the most of European Meso HG's were truly black or even very dark. But what we have today don't help us to precise the kind of intermediary hues their skins had. Apparently not light ones, even "olive"; Concerning effectiveness Angela has a point when she speak of the 2 principal mutated genes selected at SLC24A5 SLC45A2; now the partly lightening genes among WHG's could have helped to an even lighter ***mentation, when EEF and WHG's mixed? Maybe I'mnaive?
BTW? We ar'nt sure the ***mentation, even in average, was exactly the same among all foragers groups.
 
It’s hard to know the exact de***mentation effects of the so called ‘derived’ genes.
If a rely on the maps of distribution of the mutated forms for SLC24A5 and SLC45A2 in the world, and on what I think I know about all these people skin ***mentation, i’m tempted to say :
- SLC24A5 is almost alone or very very dominant in Europe (a bit less roughly said in South, the lest in Sardigna) and in Levant and Northern Arabia ; it’s very dominant too among northern Iranians and ethnic Afghans, even more north-east, Hindu Kush and north of western Himalaya ; Mozabites have significantly less, but they are not on the maps I’ve. In western Algeria (Sahel) it accounts for around 80% (what ethny?) so les than in the northern Indo-Iranian lands.
- SLC45A2 is still very dominant among Europeans, but less than SC24A5 ; the doc I’ve is unprecise for some regions, and I don’t know precisely but it seems the derived alleles spite dominant, are very less present in a southern region of Italy (Sicily ? Basilicate ? Calabre?) ; in Levant and Nth-Arabia, it represents about 50 %, and in Iran, Hindu Kush and around it’s around 20 % only. In western Algeria (Sahel), it’s around 40-45 % so more than in northern Indo-Iranian lands.
So, what about the « whiting power » of these derived alleles ?
In Europe, the skin colours are very close (light or very light) in winter time, from milky white to yellowish olive, not as dark (brunet white) as Levantines and Nth-Arabians or Iranians and Afghans.
I have to say that at the individual level, Levantines, eg Druzes and Kurds, show often the same skin colour than the most of darkest Europe regions inhabitants (Southerners is a « bag term » in Europe which covers a lot of different and diverse people, all Mediterranean are not ‘mediter’like) ; Jordanians, Saudi Arabs and Asia ‘europoids’ are a bit darker but not so much.
I don’t speak about the pops with more ‘mongoloid’ crossings, where the specific east-asian mutation has produced visible lightening effects, whatever would be the %’s of specific Europoid mutations.
I see that SLC24A5 derived alleles has surely more effects than SLC45A2 derived alleles, since the Iranian, Afghan and Tadjik pop’s, very dominant for the SLC24A5 mutation close here to Europeans but very poor for the SLC45A2, opposed here to Europeans and even neatly poorer than Levantines Arabians, have skin colours not too far from the darkest Europeans, if not so close (and this could be discussed but the reflectance measures of not exposed skin colour confirms it: Sth-West Asia, Near-East, Nth of Sth-Asia and NW Africa are very close one to another : the slightly darkest would be due too to some input of SSA genes, concerning the Semitic-Hamitic pop’s. (BTW, among the less dark ones, we have some Kurds and Northern Amazighs).
I avow that my conclusion about both SLC’s is a bit fast made, because I don’t know the input that could have other loci, even if weak everyone of them… Just a bet.


Concerning « black » skin, let’s remember that SSAfricans have derived alleles for reinforced ***mentation so we aren’t obliged to believe our far ancestors in Africa were « blackish black » skinned (BTW it seems their ***mentation has changed there and then, according to families, darker or lighter).
 
P.S have a look at the Whitehawk woman reconstruction of a neolithic farmer - do you agree this is an accurate portrayal? Given we actually have living populations living in far hotter climates (Sardinians) that have very similar ***mentation variants to EEF and in no way look anything like the Whitehawk reconstruction..

Given the fact that the Whitehawk woman was a Neolithic farmer, it is rather likely that she was several shades lighter than the reconstruction. That said, the researchers explained that they think the Whitehawk women's complexion was that dark due to the fact, that she had significant WHG admixture. So, to these researchers the WHG genetic input didn't lighten the Anatolian farmers' complexion, but made them rather darker.
 
So far as I know there is no dna available for the "Whitehawk" Neolithic woman, so it's impossible to gauge the accuracy of the skin tone.

I personally know people who are homogeneous derived for SLC24A5, but heterogeneous for derived SLC45A2 who look like normal Mediterranean Europeans, although slightly on the darker side. That combination is pretty common in parts of Iberia. However, the ones I know have other depigmentation snps. I don't know any Europeans who are completely ancestral for SLC45.

As I've said a thousand times, you can't tell predicted pigmentation without a bunch of snps, as pigmentation is CUMULATIVE in nature.


What I can say is that if you go back and check the pigmentation snps of the early farmers in the Balkans, and compare them to the early farmers in Iberia where the farmers have more WHG, the farmers in Iberia would be predicted to be "darker".

As always, these things are relative.

Has anyone run La Brana through the online calculator? Are there enough good quality snps to fit the requirement for the calculator?
 
So far as I know there is no dna available for the "Whitehawk" Neolithic woman, so it's impossible to gauge the accuracy of the skin tone.

I personally know people who are homogeneous derived for SLC24A5, but heterogeneous for derived SLC45A2 who look like normal Mediterranean Europeans, although slightly on the darker side. That combination is pretty common in parts of Iberia. However, the ones I know have other depigmentation snps. I don't know any Europeans who are completely ancestral for SLC45.

As I've said a thousand times, you can't tell predicted pigmentation without a bunch of snps, as pigmentation is CUMULATIVE in nature.


What I can say is that if you go back and check the pigmentation snps of the early farmers in the Balkans, and compare them to the early farmers in Iberia where the farmers have more WHG, the farmers in Iberia would be predicted to be "darker".

As always, these things are relative.

Has anyone run La Brana through the online calculator? Are there enough good quality snps to fit the requirement for the calculator?

Again, I've posted these before, but for newcomers...

jlc44O6.jpg


This is the only study of which I'm aware that has data for each province. That's because the data is from a melanoma study.

However, Lucotte et al has spotty data from the rest of West Eurasia for 374f or 45A2:





Table 1. Distribution of 374F allele frequencies in 32 populations of West Europe and North Africa (N = sample size).
No.
Country
Region/population
Latitude (°)
N
Frequency of 374f
References
1
Germany
Northrhine-Whestphali
50.9
241
0.965
Yuasa et al. (2006)
2
Munich
48.1
93
0.962
3
France
Rheims
49.2
98
0.893
4
Italy
Genoa
44.5
97
0.85
5
Denmark
Copenhagen
56
51
0.98
Lucotte et al.(2010)
6
England
London
51.5
56
0.955
7
Belgium
Brussels
50.5
53
0.934
8
France
Lille
50.5
64
0.945
9
Rennes
48
52
0.971
10
Marseilles
43.2
312
0.888
11
Perpignan
43
101
0.827
12
Corsica
42
328
0.878
13
Germany
Mulheim
50
59
0.975
14
Switzerland
Basel
47.2
51
0.961
15
Italy
Roma
41.9
64
0.898
16
Napoli
41
128
0.859
17
Sicily
38
39
0.833
18
Sardinia
40
100
0.805
19
Spain
Barcelona
41
59
0.856
20
Sevilla
37.5
71
0.725
21
Portugal
North
42
79
0.725
22
South
38
59
0.780
23
Morocco
Tangier
35.8
123
0.691
24
Algeria
Algier
36.5
141
0.709
25
Tunisia
Tunis
36.5
73
0.610
26
England
Orcades
59
16
1
Norton et al. (2007)
27
France
46
29
0.91
28
Basque
43
24
0.94
29
Italy
Bergamo
46
14
0.96
30
Tuscan
43
8
0.94
31
Sardinia
40
28
0.68
32
Algeria
Mozabite
32
30
0.40



 
So far as I know there is no dna available for the "Whitehawk" Neolithic woman, so it's impossible to gauge the accuracy of the skin tone................



[FONT=cartogothic_stdregular]The researchers indirectly gauged the complexion of the Whitewawk woman by comparing her to other Neolithic Brits, and by going from the information they've got from the "Cheddar Man" team.
From recalling reading the British Neolithic folks had substantial WHG genetic input.[/FONT]


[FONT=cartogothic_stdregular] The same team of scientists released results of research to the public in 2018 about ‘[/FONT]Cheddar Man[FONT=cartogothic_stdregular]’, a ten thousand year old modern human from the Mesolithic Period, whose ancient DNA demonstrated that he was dark skinned.[/FONT]
[FONT=cartogothic_stdregular]While DNA could not be retrieved from Whitehawk Woman, the ‘Cheddar Man’ team advised that she would probably have had dark skin of a southern Mediterranean/Near Eastern/North African colour, brown hair and brown eyes. This is based on the genetic analysis of ancient individuals dating to the Neolithic from around Europe as well as from Britain specifically. This information was passed on to our forensic artist who included it within the facial reconstruction on display in the new gallery.[/FONT]
[FONT=cartogothic_stdregular]The same analysis produced predictions of lighter skin for other individuals included in the gallery and these predictions were also included in their facial reconstructions.[/FONT]
[FONT=cartogothic_stdregular]In each instance where ancient DNA was not recoverable from our individuals, we followed the same scientific advice on likelihood of their physical characteristics.[/FONT]

https://brightonmuseums.org.uk/discover/2019/02/25/why-does-whitehawk-woman-has-dark-skin/
 
[FONT=cartogothic_stdregular]The researchers indirectly gauged the complexion of the Whitewawk woman by comparing her to other Neolithic Brits, and by going from the information they've got from the "Cheddar Man" team.
From recalling reading the British Neolithic folks had substantial WHG genetic input.[/FONT]




https://brightonmuseums.org.uk/discover/2019/02/25/why-does-whitehawk-woman-has-dark-skin/

Sorry to be a pain in the neck, but unless I see all the snps they used from these other Neolithic people and then some evidence those snps were run through the algorithm, color me sceptical.

If you take a look at the parts of Europe where the people are 100% derived for SLC 24A5, as were most of the Early Neolithic farmers, and had only one or no derived SLC 45A2, they are no where near as dark as that.

So, everything depends on which "modern" depigmentation snps those "other" Neolithic farmers carried in addition to derived SLC24A5. It's unlikely the early ones carried derived SLC45A2, but there are other depigmentation snps coded on the newest algorithms.
 
Sorry to be a pain in the neck, but unless I see all the snps they used from these other Neolithic people and then some evidence those snps were run through the algorithm, color me sceptical.

If you take a look at the parts of Europe where the people are 100% derived for SLC 24A5, as were most of the Early Neolithic farmers, and had only one or no derived SLC 45A2, they are no where near as dark as that.

So, everything depends on which "modern" depigmentation snps those "other" Neolithic farmers carried in addition to derived SLC24A5. It's unlikely the early ones carried derived SLC45A2, but there are other depigmentation snps coded on the newest algorithms.


I’m actually skeptical, too. As you can see from my response to matp, I doubt that she was that dark. However, I brought the arguments of the researchers why they assume that she was of a dark complexion.
 
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