Guess the Y-haplogroup(s) of Mesolithic Iberians (Braña 1 & 2)

[Angela]

SLC 24A5 and SLC45A2 between them have been found to account for up to 60-80% of the variation in pigmentation between West Africans and Europeans. KITLG accounts for another up to 20%. The other genes are more minor players it seems. So, although I don't think the odds are that the individual would have had West African pigmentation, it does seem as if something approaching the skin color of southern Indians, southeast Asian islanders or perhaps South American Amerindians with little European admixture is probably in the ballpark.

As for sexual selection being a factor, I think that's rather a subjective issue. Personally, my own inclinations lie in a decidedly Mediterranean direction, although I don't go as far as the Czech women in that study posted by Dienekes who found light eyed men untrustworthy.

Seriously, I think that sociologically a case definitely can be made that this is far from an immutable set of preferences. There are better classics scholars on this Board than I am, but I definitely recall that the ancient Greeks were of the opinion that their own pigmentation was precisely right, and far better than the too light phenotype of the barbarians to the north and the too dark pigmentation of the barbarians to their south. I think that whomever is at the top of the pyramid in a particular era and place sets the standard to some extent.

In our own era, the mass media, formed in the U.S., has featured northwestern and northern Europeans as the ideal, I think I would say, and that, combined with the ascendancy of these groups in the colonial past may have spread this notion much further. I've mentioned it before, but the eminent author John Hersey explores this phenomenon in his book The White Lotus, which takes places in a fictional world after a takeover by the Chinese. There is a resulting rush to surgeons to change the appearance of the eyes.

I think that on the whole, selective pressure because of a change in diet, coupled with different levels of irradiation in Europe probably explains most of the variation we see.

As to tanning, I would think that the ability to tan would be of evolutionary benefit in all but the most cloudy climates. The Wiki link above lists the sub-clusters of the pigmentation snps that code for the inability to tan, and not surprisingly says that they are not under evolutionary pressure, and even one allele is present in only a decided minority of Europeans. Unfortunately, 23andme didn't test for them. I would have been curious to see the results as I personally am one of those people who is totally unable to tan. Perhaps that's one reason half of my ancestors never seemed to move from their cool, wet, mountains. They would have burned to a crisp anywhere else.

@Goga
The Stuttgart LBK woman did carry SLC 24A5, and others and that was long before any Indo-Europeans were on the scene. That's not to say that they didn't acquire it at some point, and aid in its spread.

@Greying Wanderer
Yes, I was considering a Cheyenne type look as well, but I don't know how those proud noses would fit with the skeletal evidence. Also, does anyone know anything about their cranial type? I think that La Brana is, like Loschbour, very dolichocephalic. I'm not sure about actual size. It looks rather small for the rest of the body to me. Perhaps the researchers have or will post some data about that.

 

[Goga]

@Goga
The Stuttgart LBK woman did carry SLC 24A5, and others and that was long before any Indo-Europeans were on the scene. That's not to say that they didn't acquire it at some point, and aid in its spread.

Thank you very much. This is very interesting. Was she dark or light skinned?

 

[nordicwarrior]

SLC 24A5 and SLC45A2 between them have been found to account for up to 60-80% of the variation in pigmentation between West Africans and Europeans. KITLG accounts for another up to 20%. The other genes are more minor players it seems. So, although I don't think the odds are that the individual would have had West African pigmentation, it does seem as if something approaching the skin color of southern Indians, southeast Asian islanders or perhaps South American Amerindians with little European admixture is probably in the ballpark.

As for sexual selection being a factor, I think that's rather a subjective issue. Personally, my own inclinations lie in a decidedly Mediterranean direction, although I don't go as far as the Czech women in that study posted by Dienekes who found light eyed men untrustworthy.

Seriously, I think that sociologically a case definitely can be made that this is far from an immutable set of preferences. There are better classics scholars on this Board than I am, but I definitely recall that the ancient Greeks were of the opinion that their own pigmentation was precisely right, and far better than the too light phenotype of the barbarians to the north and the too dark pigmentation of the barbarians to their south. I think that whomever is at the top of the pyramid in a particular era and place sets the standard to some extent.

In our own era, the mass media, formed in the U.S., has featured northwestern and northern Europeans as the ideal, I think I would say, and that, combined with the ascendancy of these groups in the colonial past may have spread this notion much further. I've mentioned it before, but the eminent author John Hersey explores this phenomenon in his book The White Lotus, which takes places in a fictional world after a takeover by the Chinese. There is a resulting rush to surgeons to change the appearance of the eyes.

I think that on the whole, selective pressure because of a change in diet, coupled with different levels of irradiation in Europe probably explains most of the variation we see.

As to tanning, I would think that the ability to tan would be of evolutionary benefit in all but the most cloudy climates. The Wiki link above lists the sub-clusters of the pigmentation snps that code for the inability to tan, and not surprisingly says that they are not under evolutionary pressure, and even one allele is present in only a decided minority of Europeans. Unfortunately, 23andme didn't test for them. I would have been curious to see the results as I personally am one of those people who is totally unable to tan. Perhaps that's one reason half of my ancestors never seemed to move from their cool, wet, mountains. They would have burned to a crisp anywhere else.

@Goga
The Stuttgart LBK woman did carry SLC 24A5, and others and that was long before any Indo-Europeans were on the scene. That's not to say that they didn't acquire it at some point, and aid in its spread.

@Greying Wanderer
Yes, I was considering a Cheyenne type look as well, but I don't know how those proud noses would fit with the skeletal evidence. Also, does anyone know anything about their cranial type? I think that La Brana is, like Loschbour, very dolichocephalic. I'm not sure about actual size. It looks rather small for the rest of the body to me. Perhaps the researchers have or will post some data about that.

"Up to 60-80%"-- that phrasing concerns me. Very ambiguous with a decent amount of wriggle room. Plus these percentages reflect the assumption of two combined alleles, not one. We are going to have to agree to disagree here. Please don't be offended because I normally agree with most of what you post... however not in this case.

And the sexual selection I mentioned may be different from the version you may have in mind. I was thinking the males guided or even enforced this sexual selection. For example I've heard stories of how red-heads were treated in parts of Northern Europe and it wasn't very nice. Remember the Pagan Norse came up with the whole pay-through-the-nose concept, also flayed the lungs of their living enemy, all sorts of stuff.

I do agree that the ideal tends to follow those at the top of the food chain-- like you mentioned with the Greeks. Some groups may have played a more active role in phenotype selection though.

 

[Jackson]

"Up to 60-80%"-- that phrasing concerns me. Very ambiguous with a decent amount of wriggle room. Plus these percentages reflect the assumption of two combined alleles, not one. We are going to have to agree to disagree here. Please don't be offended because I normally agree with most of what you post... however not in this case.

And the sexual selection I mentioned may be different from the version you may have in mind. I was thinking the males guided or even enforced this sexual selection. For example I've heard stories of how red-heads were treated in parts of Northern Europe and it wasn't very nice. Remember the Pagan Norse came up with the whole pay-through-the-nose concept, also flayed the lungs of their living enemy, all sorts of stuff.

I do agree that the ideal tends to follow those at the top of the food chain-- like you mentioned with the Greeks. Some groups may have played a more active role in phenotype selection though.

Given that many in the Classical world, and also the Medieval world were mad about how they looked (copious use of wigs, make-up etc), i don't think we have changed that significantly in mindset in regards to sexual selection over the last couple of thousand of years, unless it is just something that is of major importance in quite complex societies, and that it is of more minor importance in less complex societies or in a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

 

[Greying Wanderer]

Given that many in the Classical world, and also the Medieval world were mad about how they looked (copious use of wigs, make-up etc), i don't think we have changed that significantly in mindset in regards to sexual selection over the last couple of thousand of years, unless it is just something that is of major importance in quite complex societies, and that it is of more minor importance in less complex societies or in a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

The other way round imo. For most populations since agriculture marriages have been arranged by the families based on property with sexual selection barely involved at all. I'd have thought on average sexual selection was a much bigger factor with foragers.

 

[Jackson]

The other way round imo. For most populations since agriculture marriages have been arranged by the families based on property with sexual selection barely involved at all. I'd have thought on average sexual selection was a much bigger factor with foragers.

Yeah it would seem that way to me as well for the most part.

 

[LeBrok]

The other way round imo. For most populations since agriculture marriages have been arranged by the families based on property with sexual selection barely involved at all. I'd have thought on average sexual selection was a much bigger factor with foragers.

Excellent points!
Here is a picture of New Guinea hunter gatherers.

The question is what is the sexual selection aiming for in this tribe? Tall, slim, dolichocephalic skull, blond, big boobs? Hmmm, surprisingly none of the western mass media beauty type.
Well, we can expect even less sexual selection among farmers where property inheritance and arranged marriage had lead the prim.
The only sexual selection among humans happened for rich, some monarchs and Genghis Khan, the people who selected many brides only for their beauty. Otherwise there is 1 to 1 ratio between men and women therefore everybody gets the chance to procreate, the beautiful, the ugly and the rest of us. Looks like natural forces, bottle necking and luck played bigger role in our looks than sexual selection.

 

[Angela]

"Up to 60-80%"-- that phrasing concerns me. Very ambiguous with a decent amount of wriggle room. Plus these percentages reflect the assumption of two combined alleles, not one. We are going to have to agree to disagree here. Please don't be offended because I normally agree with most of what you post... however not in this case.

And the sexual selection I mentioned may be different from the version you may have in mind. I was thinking the males guided or even enforced this sexual selection. For example I've heard stories of how red-heads were treated in parts of Northern Europe and it wasn't very nice. Remember the Pagan Norse came up with the whole pay-through-the-nose concept, also flayed the lungs of their living enemy, all sorts of stuff.

I do agree that the ideal tends to follow those at the top of the food chain-- like you mentioned with the Greeks. Some groups may have played a more active role in phenotype selection though.

Why would I be offended? Goodness, if we didn't have different points of view, we wouldn't have anything to discuss, and what would be the fun in that? I do think that once it was established, there might have been a preference for blond women and/or fairer skinned women; I think I remember some studies showing that these things imply youth and therefore fertility. Perhaps, as these are more childish features (most people being more fair as children) "malleability" as well, a trait in high demand in women especially after those Indo-Europeans came along and got rid of the matriarchies of south east Europe!

I'm joking, of course. I haven't been a believer in Gimbutas' theories for a long time. I can remember, though, when her books and the whole "Goddess" thing was very trendy in certain circles. Also, as other posters have mentioned, which I hadn't thought of, young men would rarely have had a choice of marriage partners in the farming world.

@Goga,
IIRC, she had the KITLG gene which is a big one that separates Eurasians from West Africans, and the SLC 24A5 gene which also appears in the Middle East, parts of India etc, and has reached fixation in Europe. She doesn't have SLC42A5, which is the more specifically European one. So my guess, and that's all I'm doing here, proposing hopefully reasoned speculations, is that she might have looked like one of the darker Sardinians, since all these papers find that the EEF farmers cluster with them. They also have a minority part of their population that still doesn't have the SLC42A5 gene. By the time we get to Oetzi, he would have been fairer, I think, as he has the SLC42A5 gene, which has still not reached fixation in Europe, although it's close. (Interestingly, it tracks very well with the amount of irradiation in various parts of Europe.)

Razib Khan discusses the modern distributions of these alleles here, and there are some nice maps, although he didn't post all the results from the relevant paper for SLC42A5.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/g...hylogeny-history-and-adaptation/#.Uub_2bQo6JM

The thing to keep in mind though is that the East Asians have other skin lightening mutations that, in my opinion, also seem to track the spread of the Neolithic, so that's why I was thinking perhaps of southeast Asian Islanders or Amerindians as a model.

For Stuttgart, as I said, perhaps the darker and more antique looking Sardi are closest. These people, in my subjective view, of course, might fit that bill, especially if they were darker. (All Sardinians don't look like this, of course.)
http://www.lacanas.it/wp-content/up...-di-Cabras-durante-la-sagra-di-SantEfisio.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/297514_512777192082704_946736037_n.jpg

http://www.parcodessi.it/parcodessi/export/sites/default/www/Sinistra/Luoghi/Immagini/A_feste01g.jpg

I think the actress that Dienekes posted when he discussed the Neolithic farmers (the Sardinian actress Caterina Murino of Casino Royale fame) has a look that might have been affected by later migrations. She has a look of ancient Crete about her, at least to me.
http://www.mujzpravodaj.cz/repository/repImages/yy2013/mm03/dd03/6385425.jpg


Of course, to reiterate, we're all guessing here.

 

[Greying Wanderer]

Excellent points!
Here is a picture of New Guinea hunter gatherers.

The question is what is the sexual selection aiming for in this tribe? Tall, slim, dolichocephalic skull, blond, big boobs? Hmmm, surprisingly none of the western mass media beauty type.
Well, we can expect even less sexual selection among farmers where property inheritance and arranged marriage had lead the prim.
The only sexual selection among humans happened for rich, some monarchs and Genghis Khan, the people who selected many brides only for their beauty. Otherwise there is 1 to 1 ratio between men and women therefore everybody gets the chance to procreate, the beautiful, the ugly and the rest of us. Looks like natural forces, bottle necking and luck played bigger role in our looks than sexual selection.

Signals of *individual* health and fertility i expect - as opposed to signals of her family owning some nice meadows and an orchard.

 

[Greying Wanderer]

Does anyone know if La Brana was checked for the red hair mutation MC1R?

 

[epoch]

Personally, my own inclinations lie in a decidedly Mediterranean direction, although I don't go as far as the Czech women in that study posted by Dienekes who found light eyed men untrustworthy.

That was a very young woman, I suppose?

No matter how current day preferences are, we know that during the Middle Ages and possibly before blondeness and whiteness were considered the beauty standards. In Roman times, names as Flavius may suggest that these preferences are old. Churlish oafs in medieval literature were described as swarthy. Furthermore women have tried to become lighter in both European and Asian cultures for quite some time. In Asia up until today, as the popularity of whitening creams in China show.

 

[LeBrok]

That was a very young woman, I suppose?

No matter how current day preferences are, we know that during the Middle Ages and possibly before blondeness and whiteness were considered the beauty standards. In Roman times, names as Flavius may suggest that these preferences are old. Churlish oafs in medieval literature were described as swarthy. Furthermore women have tried to become lighter in both European and Asian cultures for quite some time. In Asia up until today, as the popularity of whitening creams in China show.

Well, there is huge popularity of tanning solutions and techniques in Central and North Europe and North America. There is popularity of whitening creams and techniques farther South. So what does it mean? According to sexual selection, people in south should become white soon and others become swarthy up north? Or if very white is not possible for South, why they didn't turn blond and blue eyes at least already?

As long as people marry at 1:1 ratio and whitest people don't have more children than none whitest, the sexual selection is not strong enough to happen. Again, even if white skin is guarded by strong geographical selection, the blond and blue eyes shouldn't. I'm not sure why we even talk about this, when it is documented and logical to equate colour of skin with geographical latitudes and vitamin D synthesis, and leave sexual selection at rest. To make a dent with sexual selection you need good statistics showing that whitest people are having more children than others.

 

[Greying Wanderer]

IRF4 is associated with brown hair, blue eyes and freckles

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/236x/57/b2/70/57b2708d0d40295de096599768578969.jpg

 

[Angela]

That was a very young woman, I suppose?

No matter how current day preferences are, we know that during the Middle Ages and possibly before blondeness and whiteness were considered the beauty standards. In Roman times, names as Flavius may suggest that these preferences are old. Churlish oafs in medieval literature were described as swarthy. Furthermore women have tried to become lighter in both European and Asian cultures for quite some time. In Asia up until today, as the popularity of whitening creams in China show.

You're making my point for me, I think. To some degree, standards of beauty and the sexual selection based on it, to the extent that it would have impacted phenotype expression, is going to be dependent on the phenotype of whichever group is currently at the top of the totem poll.The Germanic invasions that brought an end to the Roman Empire installed an elite from areas which had already been the subject of a selective sweep for fair hair and eyes. Naturally enough, as these things go, they celebrated this as the ideal, and to a large extent, that lasted for centuries, maybe for the last two milennia. For milennia before that, the ideal had been different.

As I said, there are some studies that hypothesize about sexual selection in terms of a male preference for youthful looks and the correlation of that with blondism, as well. Then there are the more well-known ones that discuss the unconscious attraction to regularity of feature as another indicator of over-all health and fertility.

Which leads me to the study I mentioned. It was meant to be a joke...apparently a poor one. If any offense was taken, I apologize. (I could hardly have negative feelings about light eyed people, you know. My father and all his siblings and most of my relatives on that side of the family are blue and green eyed...red haired and fair haired too. I don't ever remember wanting my brown eyes to turn blue, but I did want the beautiful, wavy, auburn hair of my aunts. Instead, I got their photo-sensitive skin, which frankly has not been an unalloyed blessing

Anyway, here is the study. Turns out the different colored eyes were correlating with different face shapes, and it was certain face shapes that inspired trust. Personally, I don't think enough research has been done on any of these kinds of topics. Just generally, too, I think you trust what you know, as is alluded to by Dienekes' mention of the evil eye. Maybe it's just as simple as that.
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2013/01/blue-eyes-facial-shape-and-perceived.html

Ed. And yes, I'm sure the respondents were all college students...they're cheap!

 

[Alan]

Yeah, it's quite rare nowadays, but it's been known about for a while. V20 is actually the only C branch that is unique to Europe, and it's not particularly closely related to anything else, with the closest related subclade being the apparently Jomon Japanese C-M8 subclade. Hence speculation that it's at least as old in Europe as Haplogroup I.

The C Project has a few samples. They call it "C1a2" there. Geographic locations are Ireland, UK, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Greece, Ukraine, Italy, and, intriguingly, Spain.

So the ancient Caucasian features of the Jomon are "real" and not just coincidence.

 

[Greying Wanderer]

So the ancient Caucasian features of the Jomon are "real" and not just coincidence.

Freckled too before they got the East Asian version of skin lightening.

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ2011111615231

 

[epoch]

Which leads me to the study I mentioned. It was meant to be a joke...apparently a poor one. If any offense was taken, I apologize.

Trust me, as a father of some very assertive children I have developed some stamina. But even without that I would not have been offended.

Anyway, here is the study. Turns out the different colored eyes were correlating with different face shapes, and it was certain face shapes that inspired trust. Personally, I don't think enough research has been done on any of these kinds of topics. Just generally, too, I think you trust what you know, as is alluded to by Dienekes' mention of the evil eye. Maybe it's just as simple as that.
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2013/01/blue-eyes-facial-shape-and-perceived.html

Ed. And yes, I'm sure the respondents were all college students...they're cheap!

The error bars are interesting. Everything fits the 0 X-axis. Perhaps they found that there is no significant difference. However, such a result would not produce a noteworthy paper, wouldn't it..

 

[epoch]

Well, there is huge popularity of tanning solutions and techniques in Central and North Europe and North America. There is popularity of whitening creams and techniques farther South. So what does it mean? According to sexual selection, people in south should become white soon and others become swarthy up north? Or if very white is not possible for South, why they didn't turn blond and blue eyes at least already?

As long as people marry at 1:1 ratio and whitest people don't have more children than none whitest, the sexual selection is not strong enough to happen. Again, even if white skin is guarded by strong geographical selection, the blond and blue eyes shouldn't. I'm not sure why we even talk about this, when it is documented and logical to equate colour of skin with geographical latitudes and vitamin D synthesis, and leave sexual selection at rest. To make a dent with sexual selection you need good statistics showing that whitest people are having more children than others.

It just struck me recently that whites and Asian light skinned both used to have a culture which preferred light skin. I heard the Asian longing for lighter skin once explained as a reaction to European domination of the world. But Chinese never liked the Europeans in their colonial heydays, as they considered them barbarians, and I read that this longing for lighter skin is far older than the first European-Chinese encounters.

But your remarks about selection are off course true.