Preview: Upcoming Ancient Greek Transect (Mesolithic to Medieval) from Biomuse.

[Philjames100]

In Greece today we have people who have brown hair with a blondish or reddish tint, the sun lightens the hair too etc. And actually the word xanthos which is translated as blonde or even worse yellow could have meant something like tawny. It is likely that it was used for light brown to dirty blonde. I really doubt anything lighter than that had existed.

Why do you doubt that? There are plenty of ancient Greek depictions of people with blonde hair.

 

[Angela]

Why do you doubt that? There are plenty of ancient Greek depictions of people with blonde hair.

Contemporaneous ones? From the time period?

There's a few "colorized" statues based on guesses based on specs of paint of which I'm aware, some vases where most of the depictions are of dark hair.

Mycenaean warriors:

Mycenaean elite women:

This is what I meant by the "colorized" reconstructions of famous Greek statues. I think they have quite a way to go, because that red hair looks completely artificial to me. Dyed, perhaps?

Or maybe dyed yarn wigs on the statues?

I'd be very interested to see your collection of contemporaneous depictions of ancient Greeks with actual "blonde" hair, not lighter shades of brown.

 

[MOESAN]

Gauls were described as blondish/fair haired very often, in stereotypes BUT:
J. Caesar wrote Gauls were less often fair haired than Belgae who were less fairhaired than Germanics (he wrote somewhere he had selected the highest fairest Belgae he had at hand to simulate Germanic prisoners, if I remember well). AND among the Gauls, the habit of dying/bleeching hairs with acid soap was common. So let's be cautious about stereotypes of ancient pop's.
And as always, the less common people were the most often described ones; PLUS colour in Irish legends had a symbolic role. Elsewhere too, I suppose?

 

[Angela]

Gauls were described as blondish/fair haired very often, in stereotypes BUT:
J. Caesar wrote Gauls were less often fair haired than Belgae who were less fairhaired than Germanics (he wrote somewhere he had selected the highest fairest Belgae he had at hand to simulate Germanic prisoners, if I remember well). AND among the Gauls, the habit of dying/bleeching hairs with acid soap was common. So let's be cautious about stereotypes of ancient pop's.
And as always, the less common people were the most often described ones; PLUS colour in Irish legends had a symbolic role. Elsewhere too, I suppose?

Exactly so.

Apollo is the sun god, the huntress having red hair, black haired Hades etc.

 

[billyh]

I'd be very interested to see your collection of contemporaneous depictions of ancient Greeks with actual "blonde" hair, not lighter shades of brown.

I can’t post images yet but the Hunters fresco from Pella, Agios Athanasios Fresco, and the Huqoq Mosaics (albeit Jewish, but depicting Greeks and Hellenistic in style) all depict some rather Blond looking Greeks. Many reconstructions are also blond such as the Chios Kore, the Treu Head, and some warriors on the Siphnos Treasury Frieze. Gold was also used to cover hair sometimes, but probably moreso as a show of wealth rather than an interest in depicting a realistic hair color.

 

[Jovialis]

I think back to this study, that showed:

Ancient DNA from Chalcolithic Israel reveals the role of population mixture in cultural transformation

The material culture of the Late Chalcolithic period in the southern Levant (4500–3900/3800 BCE) is qualitatively distinct from previous and subsequent periods. Here, to test the hypothesis that the advent and decline of this culture was influenced by movements of people, we generated genome-wide ancient DNA from 22 individuals from Peqi’in Cave, Israel. These individuals were part of a homogeneous population that can be modeled as deriving ~57% of its ancestry from groups related to those of the local Levant Neolithic, ~17% from groups related to those of the Iran Chalcolithic, and ~26% from groups related to those of the Anatolian Neolithic. The Peqi’in population also appears to have contributed differently to later Bronze Age groups, one of which we show cannot plausibly have descended from the same population as that of Peqi’in Cave. These results provide an example of how population movements propelled cultural changes in the deep past.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05649-9

This is why I think a blue-eyed ancient Greeks like the spartan who have a genetic profile similar to Myceneans, and not northern Europeans, isn't that unbelievable. If Chalcolithic Levantines can have blue eyes, so can Ancient Southern Europeans. That being said, most of the Ancient Greeks were indeed brown eyed and brown haired as the biomuse exhibit shows.

Blue eyes and fair skin


The scientists found that these individuals shared genetic features with people from the north, and those similar genes were absent in farmers who lived in the southern Levant earlier. For example, the allele (one of two or more alternative forms of a gene) that is responsible for blue eyes was associated with 49 percent of the sampled remains, suggesting that blue eyes had become common in people living in Upper Galilee. Another allele hinted that fair skin may have been widespread in the local population as well, the study authors wrote.

"Both eye and skin color are traits that are controlled by complex interactions between multiple alleles, many — but not all — of which have been identified," Harney explained.

"The two alleles that we highlight in our study are known to be strongly associated with light eye and skin color, respectively, and are often used to make predictions about the appearance of various human populations in ancient DNA studies," she said.

However, it is important to note that multiple other alleles can influence the color of eyes and skin in individuals, Harney added, so "scientists cannot perfectly predict pigmentation in an individual."

The scientists also discovered that genetic diversity increased within groups over time, while genetic differences between groups decreased; this is a pattern that typically emerges in populations after a period of human migration, according to the researchers.

https://www.livescience.com/63396-ancient-israel-immigration-turkey-iran.html

 

[Jovialis]

~57% of its ancestry from groups related to those of the local Levant Neolithic, ~17% from groups related to those of the Iran Chalcolithic, and ~26% from groups related to those of the Anatolian Neolithic.


The Ancient Greeks had both Iranian-related ancestry and Anatolian_N, so maybe the light eyes, skin could have come from those sources.

 

[real expert]

~57% of its ancestry from groups related to those of the local Levant Neolithic, ~17% from groups related to those of the Iran Chalcolithic, and ~26% from groups related to those of the Anatolian Neolithic.


The Ancient Greeks had both Iranian-related ancestry and Anatolian_N, so maybe the light eyes, skin could have come from those sources.

Could be. Nonetheless, BA Greeks, Minoans, and Mycenaeans were predicted as being very swarthy, though. Remember the Aegean palatial civilizations paper that left us befuddled since BA Greeks were predicted to have dark eyes and to be in the dark or dark to black category? Plus, Iran_Neo samples revealed that they were dark too.

 

[Angela]

I can’t post images yet but the Hunters fresco from Pella, Agios Athanasios Fresco, and the Huqoq Mosaics (albeit Jewish, but depicting Greeks and Hellenistic in style) all depict some rather Blond looking Greeks. Many reconstructions are also blond such as the Chios Kore, the Treu Head, and some warriors on the Siphnos Treasury Frieze. Gold was also used to cover hair sometimes, but probably moreso as a show of wealth rather than an interest in depicting a realistic hair color.

I'm familiar with these few examples. From that you deduce what, exactly? Lighter hair was found sporadically among people of the Anatolia Neolithic, Jovialis has pointed out a cluster of lighter haired people in the Galilee, and the steppe people picked up some of those lighter alleles from the farmers of Europe, as was detailed in a recent large paper on pigmentation with regard to Europeans.

So, yes, there were some lighter haired people among the ancient Greeks. I doubt they would have picked up the alleles from the darker Neolithic Greeks, so, it must be, as the latest pigmentation paper pointed out, something picked up from the Central European Neolithic people. The Etruscan frescoes show some lighter haired people as well, interspersed among the predominantly darker haired majority.

Indeed, some of the patrician Latin families also were known for having lighter hair and eyes i.e. the Claudians. Caesar, on the other hand, reputedly had black eyes.

I don't see the big whoops.

Where there was less sun, more cloud cover, evolution favored it more. Having skin like that present in the Celtic fringe would be a serious handicap in Sicilia or the Salento.

 

[torzio]

Pigmentation changes over time

Cheddar man and his ancestor
https://www.thearchaeologist.org/bl...-the-same-dna-with-english-teacher-of-history

Cheddar Man is mtdna U5b1. Cheddar Man is I2 yda


not sure if Cheddar man skin and eye colour are correct

scientist get this for him ( unless they faked it )

blue eye: 0.564

intermediate eye: 0.189

brown eye: 0.247

blond hair: 0.014

brown hair: 0.719

red hair: 0.011

black hair: 0.257

light hair: 1

dark hair: 0

very pale skin: 0

pale skin: 0

intermediate skin: 0.013

dark skin: 0

dark to black skin: 0.987

 

[matadworf]

Pigmentation changes over time
Cheddar man and his ancestor
https://www.thearchaeologist.org/bl...-the-same-dna-with-english-teacher-of-history
Cheddar Man is mtdna U5b1. Cheddar Man is I2 yda
not sure if Cheddar man skin and eye colour are correct
scientist get this for him ( unless they faked it )
blue eye: 0.564
intermediate eye: 0.189
brown eye: 0.247
blond hair: 0.014
brown hair: 0.719
red hair: 0.011
black hair: 0.257
light hair: 1
dark hair: 0
very pale skin: 0
pale skin: 0
intermediate skin: 0.013
dark skin: 0
dark to black skin: 0.987

From what I’ve read and heard there’s negligible genetic connection between many of these paleothic groups and modern Brits.

 

[billyh]

I'm familiar with these few examples. From that you deduce what, exactly? Lighter hair was found sporadically among people of the Anatolia Neolithic, Jovialis has pointed out a cluster of lighter haired people in the Galilee, and the steppe people picked up some of those lighter alleles from the farmers of Europe, as was detailed in a recent large paper on pigmentation with regard to Europeans.

So, yes, there were some lighter haired people among the ancient Greeks. I doubt they would have picked up the alleles from the darker Neolithic Greeks, so, it must be, as the latest pigmentation paper pointed out, something picked up from the Central European Neolithic people. The Etruscan frescoes show some lighter haired people as well, interspersed among the predominantly darker haired majority.

Indeed, some of the patrician Latin families also were known for having lighter hair and eyes i.e. the Claudians. Caesar, on the other hand, reputedly had black eyes.

I don't see the big whoops.

Where there was less sun, more cloud cover, evolution favored it more. Having skin like that present in the Celtic fringe would be a serious handicap in Sicilia or the Salento.

I don’t deduce anything from it, you just asked for examples of blondism in Greek art. Doesn’t mean Greeks were genetically Nordic. Doesn’t mean neolithic euros were blond blue eyed people. But on a side note, I have seen those Etruscan tomb paintings and it seems the women were depicted as very fair and the men depicted as a more typically swarthy complexion, which I suppose is just copying Minoan artistic tradition.

 

[PaleoRevenge]

Rotated the PCA graph to the traditional Euro 2 format.

Using some landmarks from the graph above as navigation points (modern Italian cline, Greek and Albanian cluster, and the Malta cluster, these continental IA Greeks samples should cluster in the orange area outlined.

 

[Jovialis]

Rotated the PCA graph to the traditional Euro 2 format.

Using some landmarks from the graph above as navigation points (modern Italian cline, Greek and Albanian cluster, and the Malta cluster, these continental IA Greeks samples should cluster in the orange area outlined.

I think that's a good bet.

 

[Francesco]

That would reinforce my guess of Iron age Greeks clustering already along the contemporary eastern mediterranean continuum, due to a bit higher CHG and EHG admixture than their late bronze age predecessor (but we already see this dynamic in some mycenean samples from Chania).

 

[Dalmat]

~57% of its ancestry from groups related to those of the local Levant Neolithic, ~17% from groups related to those of the Iran Chalcolithic, and ~26% from groups related to those of the Anatolian Neolithic.


The Ancient Greeks had both Iranian-related ancestry and Anatolian_N, so maybe the light eyes, skin could have come from those sources.

Either that. or they faked results to avoid public outrage

 

[Pax Augusta]

I don’t deduce anything from it, you just asked for examples of blondism in Greek art. Doesn’t mean Greeks were genetically Nordic. Doesn’t mean neolithic euros were blond blue eyed people. But on a side note, I have seen those Etruscan tomb paintings and it seems the women were depicted as very fair and the men depicted as a more typically swarthy complexion, which I suppose is just copying Minoan artistic tradition.

It was the Greek tradition, for several centuries, to portray the males as very tanned and the women as pale, to emphasise how the men were the ones who spent more time outside the home while the women waited for them at home. There is nothing realistic about these frescoes (in the sense of physical anthropology) other than a purely symbolic fact. The Etruscan frescoes date from the archaic phase and belong to some specific funerary contexts in Etruria (in the sense that they are not found everywhere, but are mainly found in southern Etruria, which was practically northern Latium) and are in many cases painted by Greek artists, and always inspired by Greek art (not the Minoan art, but the later Greek one, which in turn inherited the Minoan one).

 

[Omino]

It was the Greek tradition, for several centuries, to portray the males as very tanned and the women as pale, to emphasise how the men were the ones who spent more time outside the home while the women waited for them at home. There is nothing realistic about these frescoes (in the sense of physical anthropology) other than a purely symbolic fact. The Etruscan frescoes date from the archaic phase and belong to some specific funerary contexts in Etruria (in the sense that they are not found everywhere, but are mainly found in southern Etruria, which was practically northern Latium) and are in many cases painted by Greek artists, and always inspired by Greek art (not the Minoan art, but the later Greek one, which in turn inherited the Minoan one).

I can't believe that we're still making this discussion over and over again after numerous studies and dozens of that era samples.

 

[Aaron1981]

I don't think Neolithic Greeks would have had red or blonde hair. In fact, they would have been overwhelmingly black haired with olive or even darker complexion. I suspect when lighter hair pops up, it is from the Balkans (and steppe by extension). So whenever we have this "steppe" influence there would be a chance for lighter skin and hair, which would still be a minority. I'm not sure if those frescos are far off. My good friend is of Maltese extract and could be described as medium complexion and still tans like an Arab person. Doesn't look far from the male frescos after a few summer afternoons in the sun.

 

[Pax Augusta]

I can't believe that we're still making this discussion over and over again after numerous studies and dozens of that era samples.

I fear that these kinds of discussions will never end.