Which European groups have phenotypical overlap with the Middle East & North Africa?

[TrickleDownEffect]

Sicilians aren't Italian

Sicilians ARE italian

 

[RobertColumbia]

...I'd have to cast my vote for Albanians. Then again I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to the phenotypes of Mid-East/North African people and tend to generalize. :embarassed:

Interesting answer. I wonder if the fact that Albanians have been predominantly Muslim (or at least nominally Muslim) for some time might be related to this. Do you think that the Arab and/or Turkish missionaries who brought and/or popularized Islam in Albania stayed around and intermarried with the locals to an extent not seen in predominantly Christian areas (where, presumably, there was less Arab and/or Turkish influence re: religion), or do you think that the perception of Albanians as Muslims leads one to visualize them as a "stereotypical" Muslim who looks and acts in a stereotypically Arab way?

 

[RobertColumbia]

...Sicilians aren't Italian....

There's an interesting point here, which is that Italian the nationality may not exactly match up 100% with Italian the ethnicity. I believe that many Faroe Islanders do not consider themselves to be ethnically Danish despite holding Danish citizenship. There's also a similar idea floating around in the USA that Puerto Ricans have a separate national identity despite being US citizens.

 

[Hauteville]

There's an interesting point here, which is that Italian the nationality may not exactly match up 100% with Italian the ethnicity. I believe that many Faroe Islanders do not consider themselves to be ethnically Danish despite holding Danish citizenship. There's also a similar idea floating around in the USA that Puerto Ricans have a separate national identity despite being US citizens.

Sicilians are 100% italians, italians from south but italians.
The source is myself 100% sicilian born and raised in Palermo not an american guido without knowledge of our people.

 

[MOESAN]

Armenians and Lebanese tend to be slightly lighter because Armenian's have a present chunk of R1b (30%), rivalling and defeating J2 for the countrie's highest paternal marker (25-30% as well.) They're lighter because more J2 I guess saves them from the extremely Arabian/olive-skinned look of the J1 Arabs. I personally noticed that southern middle easterners such as Saudis, Jordanians, Yemenites, Omanites almost always tend to be darker. Ironically they also have quite high J1 levels. There hair is always very black, they're skin very olive; many Lebanese and Armenians could probably pass for Mediterranean Europeans because they have thick black hair but a slightly lighter complexity, probably due to their higher R1a,R1b,J2 levels than Saudis or Iraqis have.

I 'll not discuss your comments about skin pigmentation, even if the "Arabic" peninsula is not homogenous at all for that, because as a whole I can agree - but we are not sure it's Y-J1 which is responsible for darker skin: J1 ancestors, surely came from North as well as J2 ones, maybe they were an East Near Eastern almost Middle Eastern marker at some stage of history - we can think the auDNA they catched in greater Arabia was legated by female ligneages for the most; the "autochtonous Y-haplos would have rather been a kind of Y-E1b + some rare Y-G2 ??? that doesn' t exclude a return flow from "southerned" Y-J1 at Islam times... Just a thought.

 

[oreo_cookie]

I 'll not discuss your comments about skin pigmentation, even if the "Arabic" peninsula is not homogenous at all for that, because as a whole I can agree - but we are not sure it's Y-J1 which is responsible for darker skin: J1 ancestors, surely came from North as well as J2 ones, maybe they were an East Near Eastern almost Middle Eastern marker at some stage of history - we can think the auDNA they catched in greater Arabia was legated by female ligneages for the most; the "autochtonous Y-haplos would have rather been a kind of Y-E1b + some rare Y-G2 ??? that doesn' t exclude a return flow from "southerned" Y-J1 at Islam times... Just a thought.

J1 is from the Arabian Peninsula is it not? J2 is from Mesopotamia and spread into the rest of the Near East.

 

[MOESAN]

late answer: I don't think the first Y-J1 were born in Arabian Peninsula at all. They developped some peculiar clades of it there later and became the most numerous bearers of it but the origins?...

 

[Angela]

late answer: I don't think the first Y-J1 were born in Arabian Peninsula at all. They developped some peculiar clades of it there later and became the most numerous bearers of it but the origins?...

Exactly right. What we're seeing is a massive founder effect.

 

[Karol šiška]

who voted Swedish people?? lol is that for real, ive never seen one Swedish person even coming close to passing as middle eastern, maybe some(very rarely) as an ambiguous "southern European" but never middle eastern. Greeks from everyone have types that can pass in the middle east. Ive met very light greeks and most still just look southern European but from all Europeans, ive met a few greeks who could pass as full arabs. Southern Italians would come next, then spain, southern france, and the rest of the Balkan countries...in that order.

 

[Frosty_Chateux]

Southern Italians and southern Balkanians (Montenegro, Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia) and Greece with middle-east and west Asia.

None with North Africans, Maybe some sicilians.

To oreo: Why do you post private pics of people, aren't you afraid of being denounced?... i think privacy is a right, i stopped to post in sites where people liked to post pics of private people.. . I think one should only post pics of famous people.

Actually North Africans can have a lot of overlap with Southern Europeans, not on average but many can pass easily. The line between Southern European and MENA isn't always clear.

 

[matadworf]

who voted Swedish people?? lol is that for real, ive never seen one Swedish person even coming close to passing as middle eastern, maybe some(very rarely) as an ambiguous "southern European" but never middle eastern. Greeks from everyone have types that can pass in the middle east. Ive met very light greeks and most still just look southern European but from all Europeans, ive met a few greeks who could pass as full arabs. Southern Italians would come next, then spain, southern france, and the rest of the Balkan countries...in that order.

Obviously you nothing about genetics and phenotypes. Ok lets start with mainland Greeks. Most cluster genetically with Central Italians and Albanians, followed by Bulgarians, then Serbs. Mainland Greek phenotypes are extremely distant from anything remotely Arabic/Levantine looking. Now if you go to the Islands; Crete, the Eastern Dodecanese, etc. then the Armenoid phenotype starts to show up. Cyprus which is a non Greek country also has folks who share considerable overlap phenotypically with Levantines (Lebanese in particular). Greek mainlanders are Balkan like with the exception of (possibly) Maniots who are genetically linked to Cretans but the rest of mainland Greece is exceptionally distant from anything Middle Eastern.

 

[matadworf]

This is starting to to remind me of an Apricity thread. Angela where are you?

 

[matadworf]

Interesting answer. I wonder if the fact that Albanians have been predominantly Muslim (or at least nominally Muslim) for some time might be related to this. Do you think that the Arab and/or Turkish missionaries who brought and/or popularized Islam in Albania stayed around and intermarried with the locals to an extent not seen in predominantly Christian areas (where, presumably, there was less Arab and/or Turkish influence re: religion), or do you think that the perception of Albanians as Muslims leads one to visualize them as a "stereotypical" Muslim who looks and acts in a stereotypically Arab way?

How in the hell are Albanians Arab looking when their genetics are a mix of paleo-balkan and slight Slavic. There is absolutely no Arabic/mid Eastern admixture in Albanians. They also have a negligible amount of CHG (Caucasus) as well so no overlap genetically with Armenians. There is such misinformation when it comes to genetics/phenotypes.

 

[Angela]

I thought maybe I'd follow the advice and just ignore the t-rolls and they'll go away.

It doesn't seem to be working Matadworf.

 

[Davidtab]

I voted "None".