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

[bicicleur 2]

Blondism was rather seldom everywhere, when not absent.
Opposite to light skin, blondism was not under strong NATURAL selective pressure, not DIRECTLY; perhaps its linked SNP's has been tied (close) on chromosomes with other SNP's concerning principally other traits, and under a more direct and strong selective pressure?

are there any advantages for having blond or dark hair?

 

[real expert]

are there any advantages for having blond or dark hair?

In nature and among humans not everything is about "advantage" sometimes it's just a matter of aesthetics, beauty, or simply preference.

 

[Theotokopoulos]

The Marathon type/Roman Greek samples will indeed decrease the Northern Slavic component in 2 way model.

Using Classical Greeks/Mycenaeans, Anatolians and Northern Slavs as a 3 way model, Thessalians push 40% (really) Northern Slavic which is probably overfitting.

While using Dodecanese islanders the Northern Slavic admixture seems to be around 25% (in Peloponnese excluding certain areas) to 35% (Macedonia). Which is IMO, more accurate.

A more interesting thing to me is how "Macedonia" a land settled in living memory 40% by Pontics and Asia Minor Greeks is 35% Slavic-admixed. It must have been as Slavic as Poland before the population exchange...

 

[Ralphie Boy]

A more interesting thing to me is how "Macedonia" a land settled in living memory 40% by Pontics and Asia Minor Greeks is 35% Slavic-admixed. It must have been as Slavic as Poland before the population exchange...

If the modern Greeks in the PCA of this study are Macedonians, they appear almost identical to the medieval Doliani sample from Epirus, and thus highly indigenous to that general area for the last 700 or so years, at least.

 

[Bill7]

A more interesting thing to me is how "Macedonia" a land settled in living memory 40% by Pontics and Asia Minor Greeks is 35% Slavic-admixed. It must have been as Slavic as Poland before the population exchange...

You are mistaken the Greek Macedonians used for the studies are people who can trace all their ancestry to Macedonia and have no Asia minor or pontic Greek or any other refugee ancestry . That's why they are pretty much identical to Epirotes, Albanians and Thessalians

 

[MOESAN]

are there any advantages for having blond or dark hair?

I haven't any clue to answer this. It surely has some aesthetical or sexual choice weight (whose real statistical input on pop's is unkown to me) but at the natural selection level I don't see any evident advantage. It's why I imagine other causes, without having solid answer;
Blue eyes can offer an advantages in night, but not specially in snowy environment. But blue eyes and blond hair aren't always tightly linked. Sorry for poorly useful answer.

 

[enter_tain]

Is this paper out? I think this will be important for Albanians as well, as those Epirotes and Macedonians might serve as a good proxy for Proto-Albanians (before Migration Age admixture), at least autosomally speaking.

 

[peloponnesian]

Is this paper out? I think this will be important for Albanians as well, as those Epirotes and Macedonians might serve as a good proxy for Proto-Albanians (before Migration Age admixture), at least autosomally speaking.

No paper has been announced. We just hope there is one.

 

[Theotokopoulos]

You are mistaken the Greek Macedonians used for the studies are people who can trace all their ancestry to Macedonia and have no Asia minor or pontic Greek or any other refugee ancestry . That's why they are pretty much identical to Epirotes, Albanians and Thessalians

Well, the pool is pretty small as I understand it. Still, I have yet to see any specific information relating to it.

 

[billyh]

I can only make out Thessaloniki, Abdera as post Bronze Age. While Doliani is medieval. The rest is not on the chart. While the descriptions of other Iron Age Greeks is light hair and/or pale skin and in some cases light eyes. While Mycenaeans were described as very dark by Lazaridis. Where are Archontiko, Agios Panteleimonas, Sparta, Tenea on the PCA? The rest are from the Neolithic.

Homer described many, if not most of the Achaeans as light-haired. I’m not surprised

 

[billyh]

Yeah, no one tell Hitler the Spartan is genetically Southern European/Mediterranean, despite those features.

Hitler’s closest ally was Southern European, so I don’t think he’d be too concerned

 

[Vallicanus]

Homer described many, if not most of the Achaeans as light-haired. I’m not surprised

In Southern Europe any shade lighter than black or very dark brown is considered light-haired.
I'm sure it was the same in Homer's time.

 

[Leopoldo Leone]

In Southern Europe any shade lighter than black or very dark brown is considered light-haired.
I'm sure it was the same in Homer's time.

I call my hair "black" despite they are actually very dark brown because they are darker than the average that is medium brown; we call "light haired" those that have light brown hair and lighter shades(I live in Sicily by the way).
I do not know how well the modern day's case is applicable to 3,000 years ago, but today it is so.

 

[Yetos]

are there any advantages for having blond or dark hair?

the answer here can be seen on the summer tourists from North Europe to med lands.

Also most of the people I know that have blue eyes, suffer from May to July at daylight, and thry nneed sunglasses.

 

[Iulius]

I call my hair "black" despite they are actually very dark brown because they are darker than the average that is medium brown; we call "light haired" those that have light brown hair and lighter shades(I live in Sicily by the way).
I do not know how well the modern day's case is applicable to 3,000 years ago, but today it is so.

My hair is a medium brown, but I would say my eyes are "black" because it is very hard to distinguish the pupil from the iris.

 

[Iulius]

In nature and among humans not everything is about "advantage" sometimes it's just a matter of aesthetics, beauty, or simply preference.

I think so, it may have to do with attracting the opposite sex.

 

[A. Papadimitriou]

I call my hair "black" despite they are actually very dark brown because they are darker than the average that is medium brown; we call "light haired" those that have light brown hair and lighter shades(I live in Sicily by the way).
I do not know how well the modern day's case is applicable to 3,000 years ago, but today it is so.

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.

 

[Dushman]

I think so, it may have to do with attracting the opposite sex.

As well as that, beyond their sexual/appearance preference, people are also into the features their children will inherit and in such cases usually most people hope their sons specifically will get for example the dark hair and olive skin of the father and light eyes of the mother.

 

[Angela]

In Southern Europe any shade lighter than black or very dark brown is considered light-haired.
I'm sure it was the same in Homer's time.

Indeed. Every light brown haired person is bionda, or biondo.

Plus, I would think we would have passed beyond thinking that a poem written hundreds of years after the "war" is a completely accurate description even of events, much less physical descriptions, in addition to which it is the unusual coloring which would be mentioned, not the everyday coloring.

A lot of the Irish myths are like that, talking about golden and red hair, when the majority then was probably, as it is now, brown haired in adulthood.

 

[Angela]

In most cases people are attracted to what society has taught them to value in terms of appearance.

What men found attractive in the Middle Ages, i.e. small breasts and big, pregnant looking bellies, is not what modern men prefer. Likewise, in the 1600s and 1700s men liked "plump" women whom nowadays would be described as fat and would never get a date.