Mine is just an addendum that likely the choice of Thracians isn't a good choice: though they are referred to by Greeks as read-haired it is very unlikely that the Thracians could have looked different from the Greeks, since there is no reason to think of any substantial genetic, hence phenotypic, difference between them besides a probable "clinal difference" (maybe a tiny bit more steppe in Thracians).
That woman depicted has the skin tone of every woman I've seen in south Italy, in fact it has already been noted in this thread that Greeks referred to "pale skinned" when talking both about northern barbarians and their women, which means that Greeks' untanned natural skin was of the approximate same hue (as their women's).
I do not know if there is the need to make it explicit, but the fact that a woman whose hue is perfectly in the normal range for southern Europeans has been brought as an example of pale northeners (though even geographically the Thracians weren't "northeners" in any conceivable way given they are not even "central south Europe", at around Rome's latitude) makes me think it cannot at least do any harm: Southern Europeans' skin tone is universally, untanned, pinkish, with few that can be milk white (here in Italy called "Mozzarelle", who can't tan usually), even in Sicily where I live (at least "even" if I speak keeping in mind the stereotypes that many Americans have about Sicilians).
For this reason I find it a bit perplexing to see someone talk about how a predicted phenotype for skin tone's being from dark to black as "southern European" and how they are surprised that people find it odd.
My idea is that it is likely wrong, or if it is genuine, then we are seeing the period in which the Europeans' skin tone was beeing selected for and so a few individuals displayed its absence.
I have no idea why you are fixated on two rare mummies compared to all the others, and not to the way the Egyptians depicted themselves. It's illogical. You don't make judgments about an entire population based on 5%, if even that, of the samples.
If you want to make a big deal of it, it's your prerogative. Imo it is completely illogical and I will not discuss it further.
As for the skin tone of Italians, I have every skin de***mentation allele in the book, and as a result am predicted to be very fair. It's true; can't tan, burn, get sun poisoning, have to wear the lightest skin foundation on the market.
THAT is NOT common even in my part of Italy, far less so in the south. Southern Italians very, very rarely have "pink" undertones. A large percentage have olive undertones, as I showed above, even if they're much "fairer" in the winter.
ONE factor,
among others, is that there hasn't been a total sweep for derived SLC45A2 yet.
I
This all bears out my experience of these people. I've seen some quite dark Portuguese for example.
Keep in mind, however, that this is one snp, not the multiple snps used in the subject paper. OCA2, for example, which is not that common in Southern Europe, affects skin as well as eye color.
Thracians were not Greeks. Period. The ***mentation of one is not the ***mentation of others.