Origin of blonde hair in Neolithic farmers.

[Northener]

I see, we agree on most parts. There were 24 SNPs(2014), today there are even 42(!) according to 23andMe responsible for blonde hair and KITLG is one of them. What I don't quite understand is what does 2 or 4 times more likely mean in %, it sounds like 50% and 100% to me but this can't be true because only with this SNP it is impossible to be blonde if other SNPs darken the hair colour. I´ve also said that KITLG origin is in Steppe/ANE but that doesn't mean that blonde hair is which is the topic of this thread.

If I interpret the result of different papers the KITLG is the one with the biggest effect. When you have one copy the change of being blond is 2 times higher than without. And with two copies the changes of being blond are 4 times higher than without. I guess- but that remains implicit- this is based on the average scores of Europeans c.q. West Eurasians?

An alternative approach is this one copy seems to block darker pigment by 20% (so two copies which is more seldom 40%?):


Hoekstra (2014)

So simply said it can explain a big chunk but it's not the whole picture indeed.

I not quite sure but isn't MC1R for red hair not blonde? At least according to 23andMe they are different and the report for red hair and blonde hair is separate. Of course you can have combination of both and blonde hair with reddish touch as a result. There are at least 3 SNPs tested by 23andMe for red hair all of them MC1R:

View attachment 13989

MCR1- the different variants- are responsible for the reddish-yellow pigment also called pheomelanin. It is responsible for goldblond and strawberry blond. Admitted this is arbitrary but this pheomelanin gives it a kind of 'vivd' or 'warm' character (blond without much pheomelanin is ash so more 'dull'). As you also stated I guess this is a factor in sexual selection....

This kind of blond is more seen among NW Europeans.

So in sum I don't think that a major (not the only) factor for blondism (tout court) in Europe is KITLG, originates not among EEF but among ANE. And specific warm MC1R (goldblond and strawberry) blond originates most probably (strong indices) also among ANE and not among EEF (the strong UV rates among the EEF heartland are a very strong contra indicator).

 

[Anfänger]

If I interpret the result of different papers the KITLG is the one with the biggest effect. When you have one copy the change of being blond is 2 times higher than without. And with two copies the changes of being blond are 4 times higher than without. I guess- but that remains implicit- this is based on the average scores of Europeans c.q. West Eurasians?

An alternative approach is this one copy seems to block darker pigment by 20% (so two copies which is more seldom 40%?):

So simply said it can explain a big chunk but it's not the whole picture indeed.

Okay so officially about 20% blocking darker pigment but still don't forget its frequency, it's spread over Central and Northern Europe only roughly 20%.

MCR1- the different variants- are responsible for the reddish-yellow pigment also called pheomelanin. It is responsible for goldblond and strawberry blond. Admitted this is arbitrary but this pheomelanin gives it a kind of 'vivd' or 'warm' character (blond without much pheomelanin is ash so more 'dull'). As you also stated I guess this is a factor in sexual selection....

This kind of blond is more seen among NW Europeans.

So in sum I don't think that a major (not the only) factor for blondism (tout court) in Europe is KITLG, originates not among EEF but among ANE. And specific warm MC1R (goldblond and strawberry) blond originates most probably (strong indices) also among ANE and not among EEF (the strong UV rates among the EEF heartland are a very strong contra indicator).

I have to disagree MCR1 tends towards red hair not blonde, you can have the combination of both though. I just said two times that KITLG originates among ANE but that doesn't mean blonde hair did, there is huge difference between genotype and phenotype.

Also, it seems like you're deliberately ignoring the red and blonde haired samples from Neolithic France and the lack of blonde hair among Yamnaya which I explained in my previous posts. How is it possible that MC1R and therefore red hair originates in ANE if it was already present in Neolithic France? There is zero evidence for red hair in ANE.

UV rates in the Near East should also speak for dark skin but the SNPs for light skin are most likely from the Near East. This is isn't a real argument.

I feel like repeating myself over and over again.

 

[Northener]

Okay so officially about 20% blocking darker pigment but still don't forget its frequency, it's spread over Central and Northern Europe only roughly 20%

.

20% or 40% (?) and the frequency I don't know CEU, the Utah mormones of mixed NW European ancestry have already about 29%. It's not odd that is congruent with the 1908 Limburg and North Brabant results of people with blond hair (and blue eyes), about 30%, see previous posting. It think that it could be higher in area's with a high "Anglo-Saxon" ancestry.

I have to disagree MCR1 tends towards red hair not blonde, you can have the combination of both though. I just said two times that KITLG originates among ANE but that doesn't mean blonde hair did, there is huge difference between genotype and phenotype.

I guess this is the genotype that influences the phenotype. As said ash blond is depigmented brown hair. For warm (goldblond and strawberry) blond you need a pretty amount of pheomelanin, MC1R derived. And even people with two MC1R copies can have blond hair....(but I guess most probably warm blond hair).

Also, it seems like you're deliberately ignoring the red and blonde haired samples from Neolithic France and the lack of blonde hair among Yamnaya which I explained in my previous posts. How is it possible that MC1R and therefore red hair originates in ANE if it was already present in Neolithic France? There is zero evidence for red hair in ANE.

Don't insinuate. And what do the people with the highest amount of red hair namely Udmurts and the Tarim Mummies- also with red/blond hair- have in common? Indeed a high ANE amount in their ancestry. I don't think this is totally coincidental, do you?

And it's totally possible that some of the "depigmentation" SNP's came through the EEF, but which one (of the 43)? It's incredible how some link blond hair with EEF without name and number of the SNP's involved.

In this already mentioned paper are green eyes linked with Siberian so ANE ancestry, for green eyes you need a big amount of....pheomelanin.

UV rates in the Near East should also speak for dark skin but the SNPs for light skin are most likely from the Near East. This is isn't a real argument.

It's something different when two copy's of MC1R enhances the skin cancer risk up to 10 times! I know a few people who are quit reddish, when they go into the med sun they are in no time lobster (not only their hair but also the whole body).

 

[MOESAN]

The KITLG SNP is may be not the only factor but certainly a major factor in getting blond in especially the European case.

Guenther et al (2014):


and more info:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4704868/

The effect is quit huge:


What is the source of the percentage in Scandinavia is this CC and CT? We already see that CEU -although CC is very rare 0.9%- which is kind Central (West) European ancestry the sum is already 28%.



It would surprise me if the Scandics get lower percentages.

I posted also a link to Neolitic Greece, but I wonder if this is rs12821256 related....

But as said we must also take in account the reddish hue, especially in the case of 'warm blond'. Already Tacitus spoke about the reddish hue of the Germanics. And Maciamo: "Red-haired is therefore most associated with the continental West Germanic peoples, and least with Scandinavians and Germanic tribes that originated in Sweden, like the Goths and the Vandals. This also explains why the Anglo-Saxon settlements on southern England have a higher frequency of redheads than the Scandinavian settlements of northeast England." Imo blond hair with warm-so red undertone- is also an Anglo-Saxon feature (kind of logical consequence of Maciamo's reasoning).

I guess that red hair MC1R could have been from the same ANE source as the KITLG, we see also a link with distant ANE derived Tarim Mummies (prevalence of red hair and green eyes, both pheomelanin related!).

In my private case my hair color represents this all very well (Anglo-Saxon related ancestry), YourDNA portal gives a nice insight:
Two copies of 'blond' KITLG and one MC1R, gives blond hair with slight red undertone.

We are splitting hair here but it's good.
"Celt" regions in Britain have more red hair than "Anglo-Saxon" regions and if they have less blonds, their 'warm' or 'golden' blonds are COMPARATIVELY (% among blonds only) more frequent than among "Anglo-Saxon" regions; they have true light and red hair (orange blonds) sometimes. It's what push someones, I among them) to disarticulate the concepts of blond and red.
ATW the different hues of blonds (reddish aspect left aside) imply more than a locus of mutation. And the more you go eastward in northern Europe (even in southcentral) the more you find light whitish blonds without trace of reddishness. the Mordvins are kind of an exception and their reddishness (not often blond I guess) is kind of an "oasis" in N-Asia.

 

[Northener]

I see, we agree on most parts. There were 24 SNPs(2014), today there are even 42(!) according to 23andMe responsible for blonde hair and KITLG is
Btw, here is the study with red haired individuals from Neolithic France: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06350-8#MOESM4

There are a bunch of blue eyed, blonde and red haired individuals. Supplementary Tables 16 from the same study:

View attachment 13990

Thanks for the link. I have read it. Impressive!
What is possible is that EEF and Steppe were both sources of blond hair (even red so to see).
In the case of EEF I can imagine that blond and especial red hair was there but especially red hair can flourish more in Northern than in Southern territories, due to the UV rates.

 

[Northener]

We are splitting hair here but it's good.
"Celt" regions in Britain have more red hair than "Anglo-Saxon" regions and if they have less blonds, their 'warm' or 'golden' blonds are COMPARATIVELY (% among blonds only) more frequent than among "Anglo-Saxon" regions; they have true light and red hair (orange blonds) sometimes. It's what push someones, I among them) to disarticulate the concepts of blond and red.
ATW the different hues of blonds (reddish aspect left aside) imply more than a locus of mutation. And the more you go eastward in northern Europe (even in southcentral) the more you find light whitish blonds without trace of reddishness. the Mordvins are kind of an exception and their reddishness (not often blond I guess) is kind of an "oasis" in N-Asia.

Agree, to be short, Irish and Scots have the biggest red hair amount, around the North Sea there is much warm-gold-blond hair, and around the Baltics the ash blond prevails.

 

[MOESAN]

I see, we agree on most parts. There were 24 SNPs(2014), today there are even 42(!) according to 23andMe responsible for blonde hair and KITLG is one of them. What I don't quite understand is what does 2 or 4 times more likely mean in %, it sounds like 50% and 100% to me but this can't be true because only with this SNP it is impossible to be blonde if other SNPs darken the hair colour. I´ve also said that KITLG origin is in Steppe/ANE but that doesn't mean that blonde hair is which is the topic of this thread.



Not just one SNP but possibly up to 42.



I not quite sure but isn't MC1R for red hair not blonde? At least according to 23andMe they are different and the report for red hair and blonde hair is separate. Of course you can have combination of both and blonde hair with reddish touch as a result. There are at least 3 SNPs tested by 23andMe for red hair all of them MC1R:

View attachment 13989

Btw, here is the study with red haired individuals from Neolithic France: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06350-8#MOESM4

There are a bunch of blue eyed, blonde and red haired individuals. Supplementary Tables 16 from the same study:

View attachment 13990

Astonished am I !!! Very high level of red haired people and blue eyed people for France Neolithic!!!

 

[Northener]

Astonished am I !!! Very high level of red haired people and blue eyed people for France Neolithic!!!

Blue eyes seem to me less surprise (WHG heritage?) than red hair.....

 

[real expert]

Thanks for the link. I have read it. Impressive!
What is possible is that EEF and Steppe were both sources of blond hair (even red so to see).
In the case of EEF I can imagine that blond and especial red hair was there but especially red hair can flourish more in Northern than in Southern territories, due to the UV rates.

I posted a recent study a while ago which has concluded that the EEF and Steppe are the sources of blondism in Europeans.

From Wiki about the origin of blond hair:

Geneticist David Reich said that the hundreds of millions of copies of this SNP, the classic European blond hair mutation, entered continental Europe by way of a massive population migration from the Eurasian steppe, by a people who had substantial Ancient North Eurasian ancestry.^{[32][a 2]}
Ancient North Eurasian admixture is present in mesolithic fossils from Northern Europe, and is linked to the prediction of blond hair in stone-age Scandinavians by ancient DNA analysis.^[33]
Gavin Evans analyzed several years of research on the origin of European blond hair, and concluded that the widespread presence of blond hair in Europe is largely due to the territorial expansions of the "all-conquering" Western Steppe Herders; who carried the genes for blond hair.^{[31][a 3]}
A review article published in 2020 analyzes fossil data from a wide variety of published sources. The authors affirm the previous statements, noting that Ancient North Eurasian-derived populations carried the derived blond hair allele to Europe, and that the "massive spread" of Yamnaya steppe pastoralists likely caused the "rapid selective sweep in European populations toward light skin and hair."^[34]

 

[Northener]

I posted a recent study a while ago which has concluded that the EEF and Steppe are the sources of blondism in Europeans.

From Wiki about the origin of blond hair:

Thanks nice summary, nevertheless see Neolithic France above and some Neolithic Greece (genetiker) seems to indicate some multiple sources?

May be different snps via different routes? KITLG SNP rs12821256 and R160W Arg160Trp SNP rs1805008 could well be Steppe/ANE related.

But there are more "irons in the fire" that could be EEF related.

 

[Anfänger]

Don't insinuate. And what do the people with the highest amount of red hair namely Udmurts and the Tarim Mummies- also with red/blond hair- have in common? Indeed a high ANE amount in their ancestry. I don't think this is totally coincidental, do you?

And it's totally possible that some of the "depigmentation" SNP's came through the EEF, but which one (of the 43)? It's incredible how some link blond hair with EEF without name and number of the SNP's involved.

You're mixing modern totally mixed populations to relatively differentiated ancient populations. Udmurts have Corded ware and therefore also EEF ancestry from Globular Amphora.

I can name a few for blonde hair for example,TYR,TYRP1,OCA2 and SLC45A2 according to 23andMe.

In this already mentioned paper are green eyes linked with Siberian so ANE ancestry, for green eyes you need a big amount of....pheomelanin.

It's something different when two copy's of MC1R enhances the skin cancer risk up to 10 times! I know a few people who are quit reddish, when they go into the med sun they are in no time lobster (not only their hair but also the whole body).

You're cherry picking the results from the study you mentioned. Siberian ancestry means Uralic speaking ancestry from the Iron Age, not ANE necessarily and green eyes are very rare anyway, even in Northern Europe.

..which contains all three ancestry components found in Europe, with the proportion of remnant Hunter-Gatherer ancestry among the highest in Europe and an additional minor (<5%) Siberian component associated with Iron Age movements.

Also, the same study links blonde hair to Anatolian farmer ancestry not to steppe ancestry.

Concerning your theory that red hair originates in ANE, just answer the question why are there red haired individuals in Neolithic France which lacks any ANE ancestry.

 

[Anfänger]

Astonished am I !!! Very high level of red haired people and blue eyed people for France Neolithic!!!

I was also very surprised. Just imagine there are more redheads (4/23=~17%!) in Neolithic France than in modern France. Ginger mania!

I posted a recent study a while ago which has concluded that the EEF and Steppe are the sources of blondism in Europeans.

From Wiki about the origin of blond hair:

I would be very cautious with Wikipedia it is often times wrong, particularly when the subject is population genetics. Any person can write an article there.

 

[Northener]

You're mixing modern totally mixed populations to relatively differentiated ancient populations. Udmurts have Corded ware and therefore also EEF ancestry from Globular Amphora.

Imo you can't trace everything down to EEF ancestry in the case of blond and red hair. I guess differences sources and different SNP's could be at stake.

From an old posting of good old Lebrok here:

ANE is still quite high there. Udmurt are scoring the highest at 25-28%.

and the Tarim Mummies:

Instead, it now seems the Tarim people descended entirely from Ancient North Eurasians (ANE), a once-widespread Pleistocene population that had mostly disappeared about 10,000 years ago, after the end of the last ice age.

https://www.livescience.com/tarim-mummies-origins-uncovered

I'm certainly not writing off the ANE source for red and blonde hair - at least for a certain number of SNPs - just yet!

 

[Anfänger]

Imo you can't trace everything down to EEF ancestry in the case of blond and red hair. I guess differences sources and different SNP's could be at stake.

From an old posting of good old Lebrok here:


and the Tarim Mummies:


https://www.livescience.com/tarim-mummies-origins-uncovered

I'm certainly not writing off the ANE source for red and blonde hair - at least for a certain number of SNPs - just yet!

The Tarim mummies aren't all from the Bronze Age, many are from the Iron Age. For example Cherchen men is from 1000BC, he has to be Indo-Iranian/Andronovo migrant in the Tarim basin. Also, many aren't even blonde or red haired.

KITLG is definitely ANE, MCR1 definitely not but these are just genes, if you want to know the phenotype you need HIrisPlex, so I am kinda agreeing with some parts.

Let´s just have a ending to this discussion, its Sunday night and I need some rest I was working in the garden the whole day.:embarassed:

Cheers!

 

[real expert]

Blue eyes seem to me less surprise (WHG heritage?) than red hair.....

A paper (dissertation) from the University of Mainz titled "Genetic variation related to the adaptation of humans to an agriculturalist lifestyle" was carried out by researchers at the University of Mainz. The genomes of over 100 ancient individuals were sequenced and analyzed. Close analysis of the pigmentation of 14 Western-Hunter-Gatherers from Central Europe was carried out. The study found that phenotypic traits such as blonde hair and blue eyes were present in WHGs, but not in EHGs. WHGs were found to have a skin colour that was slightly darker than that of Early European farmers and EHGs.
The researchers concluded that blonde-haired and blue-eyed phenotypes most likely originated in Central European WHGs:
Phenotypic reconstructions based on ancient DNA suggested that some of the hunter-gatherers of Central Europe had a unique appearance as a result of a dark skin tone in combination with light eyes and a light hair color. Blonde-haired and blue-eyed phenotypes originated in Europe before the onset of the Neolithic and rose in frequency over time. Derived alleles in related genes such as TYRP1, HERC2 and OCA2 can be found in the Central European Western-Hunter-Gatherers at elevated frequencies, in contrast to the Eastern European/Russian hunter-gatherers."

Frequencies of variants in the OCA2/HERC2 gene complex, associated with a blue eye color and blond hair, were found to be high in hunter-gatherers of Central Europe [Brace et al., 2018, Olaldeet al., 2014, Mathieson et al., 2015]. This is consistent with estimations from recent data that placed the origin of this phenotype to Europe [Duffy et al., 2007]. Phenotypic reconstructions based on ancient DNA suggested that some of the hunter-gatherers of Central Europe had a unique appearance as a result of a dark skin tone in combination with light eyes and a light hair color [Brace et al.,2018, Olalde et al., 2014]. In contrast, hunter-gatherers from Russia were assumed to have had alighter skin tone with almost exclusively dark hair and dark eye color [Mathieson et al., 2015]. In comparison, the pigmentation phenotype of the early farmers of Europe was assumed to be relatively light, but still darker compared to today’s populations of Central Europe [Mathieson et al., 2015,Hofmanov´a et al., 2016].

.

P: 50 pdf

Of course the majority opinion among geneticists is in conflict with this paper from the University of Mainz. Nevertheless, it seems interesting.




http://file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/100003480.pdf



https://openscience.ub.uni-mainz.de/handle/20.500.12030/3114

 

[real expert]

I was also very surprised. Just imagine there are more redheads (4/23=~17%!) in Neolithic France than in modern France. Ginger mania!



I would be very cautious with Wikipedia it is often times wrong, particularly when the subject is population genetics. Any person can write an article there.

Sure, Wiki isn't usually trustworthy, but I double-checked the sources and citations. Furthermore, the latest study on Neolithic Europeans that I posted was not from Wiki but straight from academia.

 

[MOESAN]

The Wiki article (or abstract only?) mentioning Reich is a very simplistic and uninformative one!
considering red hair, we already know that a lot of SNP's are responsible, with absolute (against non-red) and relative (among red) noticeable difference of frequency in pop's.
I don't put any reputation nor "ethnic" pride in all this. It seems some people do, maybe even among scientists?
We have to distinguish between origin (ancient) and todate distribution of these traits: selection of any sort.
That said, all the fairness factors are surely not come from the lone Neolithic farmers of Anatolia. and even if different SNP's can also be responsible for blue or light eyes, I don't see too clearly why the most excess of blue eyes relative to light hair eyes is concentrated as a whole in North-western Europe, and not in Eastern Europe or Near East.
Concerning the France Neolithic (anachronism!) people so red and so blue (!) it's a short set and surely could not be generalized: surely an input of western WHG's for blue eyes, as said by someones.
Now, not withstanding the scientists skills I consider that the building of an accurate system linking genotype and phenotype is a hard work, even more when it seems now that not lightening but also darkening SNP's combinations exist. We are far from our early simplistic model of dark = original, light = later mutation.
When I read green eyes are very seldom, I think we speek of pure green eyes. But I consider that other kinds of intermediate eyes exist, more numerous, which cannot be considered true light eyes of true dark eyes, like blue-grey-green eyes or brownish-green eyes, and maybe these less striking colours are not the fact of some homozygotic situation but of an heterozygotic one. Uneasy to prove it's true...

 

[Northener]

I posted a recent study a while ago which has concluded that the EEF and Steppe are the sources of blondism in Europeans.

From Wiki about the origin of blond hair:

Is this publication available on the net?

And is it from before or after Guenther et al (2018)?

In this paper they drew this conclusion:

The SHGs from northern and western Scandinavia show a distinct and significantly stronger affinity to the EHGs compared to the central and eastern SHGs (Fig 1). Conversely, the SHGs from eastern and central Scandinavia were genetically more similar to WHGs compared to the northern and western SHGs (Fig 1).

The genomic data further allowed us to study the physical appearance of SHGs (S8 Text); for instance, they show a combination of eye color varying from blue to light brown and light skin pigmentation. This is strikingly different from the WHGs—who have been suggested to have the specific combination of blue eyes and dark skin [18,20,21,23] and EHGs—who have been suggested to be brown-eyed and light-skinned [19,20].

In addition to performing this genome-wide scan, we studied the allele frequencies in three pigmentation genes (SLC24A5, SLC45A2, which have a strong effect on skin pigmentation, and OCA2/HERC2, which has a strong effect on eye pigmentation) in which the derived alleles are virtually fixed in northern Europeans today. The differences in allele frequencies of those three loci are among the highest between human populations, suggesting that selection was driving the differences in eye color, skin, and hair pigmentation as part of the adaptation to different environments [50–53]. All of the depigmentation variants at these three genes are in high frequency in SHGs in contrast to both WHGs and EHGs (Fig 4B). We conduct neutral simulations of the allele frequencies in an admixed SHG population to estimate p-values for observing these allele frequencies without selection (S9 Text). The p-values for all three SNPs are lower than 0.2; the combined p-value [54] for all three pigmentation SNPs is 0.028. Therefore, the unique configuration of the SHGs is not fully explained by the fact that SHGs are a mixture of EHGs and WHGs, but could rather be explained by a continued increase of the allele frequencies after the admixture event, likely caused by adaptation to high-latitude environments [50,52].

 

[Northener]

The Wiki article (or abstract only?) mentioning Reich is a very simplistic and uninformative one!
considering red hair, we already know that a lot of SNP's are responsible, with absolute (against non-red) and relative (among red) noticeable difference of frequency in pop's.
I don't put any reputation nor "ethnic" pride in all this. It seems some people do, maybe even among scientists?
We have to distinguish between origin (ancient) and todate distribution of these traits: selection of any sort.
That said, all the fairness factors are surely not come from the lone Neolithic farmers of Anatolia. and even if different SNP's can also be responsible for blue or light eyes, I don't see too clearly why the most excess of blue eyes relative to light hair eyes is concentrated as a whole in North-western Europe, and not in Eastern Europe or Near East.
Concerning the France Neolithic (anachronism!) people so red and so blue (!) it's a short set and surely could not be generalized: surely an input of western WHG's for blue eyes, as said by someones.
Now, not withstanding the scientists skills I consider that the building of an accurate system linking genotype and phenotype is a hard work, even more when it seems now that not lightening but also darkening SNP's combinations exist. We are far from our early simplistic model of dark = original, light = later mutation.
When I read green eyes are very seldom, I think we speek of pure green eyes. But I consider that other kinds of intermediate eyes exist, more numerous, which cannot be considered true light eyes of true dark eyes, like blue-grey-green eyes or brownish-green eyes, and maybe these less striking colours are not the fact of some homozygotic situation but of an heterozygotic one. Uneasy to prove it's true...

I'm exactly in the same position. This stretches even towards "Steppe" vs "EEF" which is quit pathetic imo. On European level we all are mixes between these two isn't it? Even more when this would have an effect on scientific papers. For me this is curiosity and fun!

That said when I look besides -typing this- I look into the green brown eyes of my little girl and I'm curios how you think about the following thing. Besides dark-light, so the amount of eumelanin how about the role of pheomelanin, the yellowish-red pigment? My little girl has to have it quit high. And when I analyze my eye color-with a specific app- the color number is in fact dark orange! I guess that's also due to a pretty amount of pheomelanin: combine red and yellow and darken it....



https://www.thetech.org/ask-a-geneticist/articles/2019/amber-eye-color/

 

[Northener]

The Tarim mummies aren't all from the Bronze Age, many are from the Iron Age. For example Cherchen men is from 1000BC, he has to be Indo-Iranian/Andronovo migrant in the Tarim basin. Also, many aren't even blonde or red haired.

KITLG is definitely ANE, MCR1 definitely not but these are just genes, if you want to know the phenotype you need HIrisPlex, so I am kinda agreeing with some parts.

Let´s just have a ending to this discussion, its Sunday night and I need some rest I was working in the garden the whole day.:embarassed:

Cheers!

When the article is right then the Tarim mummies are in fact an ANE offshoot either form Bronze or Iron Age. I see no direct relationship with Andronovo.

When the Tarin Mummies are in fact 'pure' ANE and nowadays Udmurts have the highest ANE ancestry amount and the highest percentage red heads, a relationship between genes for red hair c.q. some MCR1 variants, and ANE ancestry is not unimaginable!

Especially with R160W aka Arg160Trp with SNP rs1805008 has for sure a relationship with the steppe and in the end ANE?

See:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15p7MiR1UIsy8ySAbTKX-ju07Zhx3cPIroEmJmedeFvw/edit#gid=0

But it's not the only MCR1 variant, this is an old one from 23andme:


Just an educated guess but- seen neolithic France- could D294H have a relationship with this?