Mesolithic source of Pale pigmentation in modern Europe?

[Fire Haired14]

Fire-Haired,
I don't see Samara HG on the Hair and Eye Color prediction chart. Am I missing it? I also see only one Yamnaya sample. Nor do I see predictions for skin color for any of the samples. Are there any plans to do that if it hasn't been done? If it has been done, could you link to the results?

Also, does the online program you ran provide you with probability ranges or tell you when there aren't enough snps for accuracy? For the SHG samples, for example, it says many missing snps. When I've seen runs on modern samples that are low quality the program usually says it can't predict the phenotype, or gives very low probabilities.

Thanks in advance.

The Samara_HG had so few markers I didn't even try him, but I will later. Hirisplex is for hair and eye color only(see here). If I did skin color tests the Motalas would come out mixed dark and light, the two EHGs would come out light, and Ajv58 and all the WHGs would come out dark. The EEFs and all later samples would come out mostly light.

The online predictor gives you the option to say a certain SNP wasn't tested("NA"). You can give only a few SNP calls and the rest "NA" if you'd like and you'll still get a prediction. Most samples don't have all the calls at the moment(A phenotype study should come out eventually with the Haak genomes) but I put them in the predictor anyways. The Motalas are missing a lot of SNPs and some are key for hair color, so I put missing a lot of SNPs.

 

[Fire Haired14]

Lumping Tuscans and Iberians in the same bunch is completely wrong, since the Tuscans are much lighter at least by looking at those data.

One would espect North Italians to be much lighter and similar to North Europeans.

They had a similar amount of carriers. Also, I grouped them with Iberians for the sake of convince. I don't think Tuscans and Iberians are the same at all.

 

[Angela]

The Samara_HG had so few markers I didn't even try him, but I will later. Hirisplex is for hair and eye color only(see here). If I did skin color tests the Motalas would come out mixed dark and light, the two EHGs would come out light, and Ajv58 and all the WHGs would come out dark. The EEFs and all later samples would come out mostly light.

The online predictor gives you the option to say a certain SNP wasn't tested("NA"). You can give only a few SNP calls and the rest "NA" if you'd like and you'll still get a prediction. Most samples don't have all the calls at the moment(A phenotype study should come out eventually with the Haak genomes) but I put them in the predictor anyways. The Motalas are missing a lot of SNPs and some are key for hair color, so I put missing a lot of SNPs.

Perhaps if there are so few markers for some of these samples we should hold off on drawing solid conclusions until we get better quality reads and until they can be run through a professional Hirisplex system that gives accuracy parameters and also provides predictions for skin color. I assure you it's done all the time. Just my opinion.

Perhaps the upcoming papers will provide more clarity.

I agree with your prior posts to the effect that we should be cautious in terms of ascribing certain specific snps to certain groups until we have more data.

 

[Drac II]

EHG data from Angela's post above.
If you have better % for nations on list on light hair % or light eyes, Please share. Recalculation is easy.

Look at the pigmentation data on hair, eyes and skin gathered by many anthropologists around the world for more than 100 years. Carleton Coon is a useful source for the English-speaker to start with (though he occasionally is a bit sloppy in how he presents the information and sometimes even surprisingly "forgets" what his own sources on the subject show!), as he compiled and summarized such information from a large number of these surveys, a lot of which are not available in English except through Coon's work. And I mean the actual data obtained, not "maps". None of them are entirely based on actual data and use assumptions and guesswork as well.

 

[Drac II]

The frequency charts from the work of anthropologists fifty to one hundred years ago, particularly when they were all using different scales and definitions, are of limited usefulness. Nor do I care about the results of one skin reflectance test. The only measures currently available to us for ancient genomes which have a prayer of being objectively verifiable are properly done allele calls for known depigmentation mutations and the resulting predictions based on the latest Hirisplex algorithm. Everything else is too subjective.

When it comes to people who have been dead for hundreds or thousands of years there obviously is little choice but to speculate about their pigmentation using such markers, except perhaps in the case of hair, which under certain conditions can survive for a long time and therefore can actually be observed, but when it comes to living populations it is rather silly to go around making "predictions" about things which can be actually directly observed and measured through physical methods. Any of those pigmentation surveys based on actual observation and measurement is more informative and reliable than any such "predictions" based on a few markers. Unless one seriously wants to believe in such "results" as Orcadians being less light-eyed than Tuscans, or Andalusians and Orcadians being less-light skinned than Moroccans, Turks, Bedouins, Druze and Palestinians, and the like absurd things which contradict actual observation.

 

[giuseppe rossi]

Look at the pigmentation data on hair, eyes and skin gathered by many anthropologists around the world for more than 100 years. Carleton Coon is a useful source for the English-speaker to start with (though he occasionally is a bit sloppy in how he presents the information and sometimes even surprisingly "forgets" what his own sources on the subject show!), as he compiled and summarized such information from a large number of these surveys, a lot of which are not available in English except through Coon's work. And I mean the actual data obtained, not "maps". None of them are entirely based on actual data and use assumptions and guesswork as well.

Coon said that Moroccans are much lighter skinned/haired/eyed than your beloved Iberian masters....

 

[giuseppe rossi]

When it comes to people who have been dead for hundreds or thousands of years there obviously is little choice but to speculate about their pigmentation using such markers, except perhaps in the case of hair, which under certain conditions can survive for a long time and therefore can actually be observed, but when it comes to living populations it is rather silly to go around making "predictions" about things which can be actually directly observed and measured through physical methods. Any of those pigmentation surveys based on actual observation and measurement is more informative and reliable than any such "predictions" based on a few markers. Unless one seriously wants to believe in such "results" as Orcadians being less light-eyed than Tuscans, or Andalusians and Orcadians being less-light skinned than Moroccans, Turks, Bedouins, Druze and Palestinians, and the like absurd things which contradict actual observation.

Of course predictions based on single alleles are quite rubbish, but the ones based on multiple alleles like the Hirisplex system have been confirmed to be very reliable when used with a large number of European samples by several peer reviewed studies.

Direct observetions are often biased especially if the authors are of the same ethnicity as the population studied.

 

[giuseppe rossi]

Unfortunately, it is not that clear-cut. Anthropological surveys of pigmentation show that sometimes this correlation does not happen and a population from an area with a higher UV radiation level can actually display lighter pigmentation than one in an area with a lower UV radiation level.

The reverse is also true. North Africans should be as light as the darkest South Europeans, but actually they are as dark as South Asians and Central Americans, because a good deal of their ancestry (up to 50%) derives from Sub Saharan Africa and Southern Arabia.

 

[Maleth]

Im not sure why all this Bickering on different shades of skin colour! Everything out of its context can be harmful and percentages do not really mean much at the end of the day. People are what they are and probably have a good reason hugged by mother nature to be that way. I think the scope of this thread is a genuine curiosity of what Mesolithic people looked like.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...beds-attempting-stop-copycat-skin-cancer.html

 

[arvistro]

To me I solved the question. It is EHG who dispersed typical Finnish around the planet once it jumped on Yamna IE horse.

 

[giuseppe rossi]

To me I solved the question. It is EHG who dispersed typical Finnish around the planet once it jumped on Yamna IE horse.

EHG and Finns are worlds apart. EHG was pure North Asian Hunther Gatherer while Finns have 30% of Near Eastern Levantine ancestry and 10% of Mongoloid East Asian ancestry.

 

[Angela]

The topic is the Mesolithic source of pale pigmentation in modern Europe...stick to it.

 

[Kristiina]

EHG and Finns are worlds apart. EHG was pure North Asian Hunther Gatherer while Finns have 30% of Near Eastern Levantine ancestry and 10% of Mongoloid East Asian ancestry.

Finns seem to be as Siberian as MA-1 (c. 5%), and considering the high amount of Amerindian in MA-1, he surely looked quite East Asian. Please compare these K15 population averages:: (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...mMDw57WwAVabXFJOaso_gcuRE/edit#gid=1872836177)

Finnish: North Sea 29.36, Atlantic 17.42 Baltic 21.95 Eastern Euro 18.78 West Med 0.06 East Med 0.36 Red Sea 0.14 South Asian 0.57 Southeast Asian 0.9 Siberian 5.3 Amerindian 0.91 Oceanian 0.52

MA-1: North Sea 2.9, Atlantic 0 Baltic 4.11 Eastern Euroe 34.45 West Med 0 West Asia 0.01 East Med 0.8 Red Sea 0 South Asian 28.61 Southeast Asian 0 Siberian 4.61 Amerindian 21.16 Oceanian 3.37

I do not think that Mesolithic North Asian Hunther Gatherers looked like what you think they looked like.

 

[Kristiina]

Greenland Eskimos are probably quite close to ancient northeast Asians as they have a minimal amount of African and Near Eastern ancestry and only a small amount of European and South Asian ancestry and their Southeast Asian ancestry is also relatively small (8.57). They have the following averages:
East Greenlanders: North Sea 0.18, Atlantic 0.02 Baltic 0.12 Eastern Euro 4.19 West Med 0 West Asia 0.04 East Med 0.01 Red Sea 0.02 South Asian 1.46 Southeast Asian 8.57 Siberian 43.23 Amerindian 41.76 Oceanian 0.33
We must also keep in mind that the above Siberian and Amerindian components must be old as they were found already in MA-1 that lived in Siberia 24 000 years ago.

 

[Drac II]

Coon said that Moroccans are much lighter skinned/haired/eyed than your beloved Iberian masters....

No, he did not, he only said that about isolated groups of Berbers who were very depigmented, and he also says that they are lighter than at least your beloved southern Italians.

 

[Drac II]

Of course predictions based on single alleles are quite rubbish, but the ones based on multiple alleles like the Hirisplex system have been confirmed to be very reliable when used with a large number of European samples by several peer reviewed studies.

Direct observetions are often biased especially if the authors are of the same ethnicity as the population studied.

We already saw the results of Hirisplex in other threads where you were trying to peddle this stuff under the name "Joey" (now banned), and they were not really impressive. French and Northern Italians more blue-eyed than Orcadians? Sardinians darker-eyed than Druze and Palestinians? Maybe in The Twilight Zone, but in the real world, not a chance.

 

[Sile]

We already saw the results of Hirisplex in other threads where you were trying to peddle this stuff under the name "Joey" (now banned), and they were not really impressive. French and Northern Italians more blue-eyed than Orcadians? Sardinians darker-eyed than Druze and Palestinians? Maybe in The Twilight Zone, but in the real world, not a chance.

yep, traits like "joey"


was Joey also Adamo?

 

[giuseppe rossi]

We already saw the results of Hirisplex in other threads where you were trying to peddle this stuff under the name "Joey" (now banned), and they were not really impressive. French and Northern Italians more blue-eyed than Orcadians? Sardinians darker-eyed than Druze and Palestinians? Maybe in The Twilight Zone, but in the real world, not a chance.

Which part of "large number of samples" don't you understand? There are 13 North Italians and 8 Tuscans in the HGDP database. Reductio ad absurdum only when it fits your agenda I see.

On the other hand all the recent papers are using the Hirisplex...

 

[giuseppe rossi]

No, he did not, he only said that about isolated groups of Berbers who were very depigmented, and he also says that they are lighter than at least your beloved southern Italians.

But I am not the one here praising Coon....

 

[Angela]

We already saw the results of Hirisplex in other threads where you were trying to peddle this stuff under the name "Joey" (now banned), and they were not really impressive. French and Northern Italians more blue-eyed than Orcadians? Sardinians darker-eyed than Druze and Palestinians? Maybe in The Twilight Zone, but in the real world, not a chance.

I regret to inform you that in the "real world", law enforcement doesn't run around interviewing witnesses with Luchan scales and copies of Coon in their hands. In the real world, dna is collected at crime scenes and run through Hirisplex calculators, which, if the sample and the "reads" are good, and the latest calculators are used, result in phenotypic predictions which are very accurate. Either Spain is in the Dark Ages in this regard, or, what is more likely, you are just uninformed. In the real world of scientific research, dna analysis to get reads on pigmentation and Hirisplex calculators are used in conjuction to study the occurrence and spread of different pigmentation profiles. I think it's time to enter the 20th century, never mind the 21st century, regardless of whether the results are to your liking.

I have personally posted numerous scientific studies which have addressed the accuracy of these calculators by comparing the results using reflectance tests on the actual test subjects. There are even studies which show actual causality rather than just correlation. You obviously haven't read them, or you would not be making these kinds of uninformed and unpersuasive comments. I would suggest that you do so. Use the search engine.

Regardless, the topic is not the accuracy, according to your own subjective opinion, of the results of such tests on HGDP or 1000 genomes samples. The topic is the "Mesolithic" source of pale pigmentation in modern Europe. Stick to the topic and stop trying to derail the thread into the ongoing and, in my opinion, ridiculous and I would go so far as to say 'disgusting' Iberian/Italian anthrofora war as to which group is "fairer". This also applies to the Italian posters who are engaging in the same kind of behavior.

Ed. In terms of the predictions which have been made by hobbyists on the genomes of the ancient samples used by Haak et al, I think we should be very cautious about drawing any hard and fast conclusions, given the fact that the samples are not very high quality in some cases, missing many snps, and the genomes were not run through a high quality, professional Hirisplex calculator. Hopefully, as there are some scientific papers in the pipeline, people's curiosity will be satisfied when these papers are published.