Why R1b couldn't have been spread around Western Europe by the Bell Beaker people

[HergG]

I'm curious if these figures could be misconstrued from people hair dying? In iberia at least many women dye their hair blonde and ginger... I had many in my family who did it. Not super uncommon in more northern areas either. Not discounting the fact that red hairs naturally exist btw, just questioning the accuracy. Personally it gotta be extremely rare even in the northern fringes of iberia to find naturally ginger people. More common in more endogamous northern european fringes, you can find it in Russia as well. So not just on coastal areas.

This is very true. for my part our observations date from a time when NO men and very few women dyed / bleached their hair. Of course, migrants move inland, so spreading the gene (and dilutiing it too). Something to remember is that these things all took place since the last ice-age meltdown (circa 8-6000bc).

There is also a real possibility that a group of EASTERN European/Asian people who were hunters & reindeer herders, came West in about 8000bc, moved north as the melt took place and finally left around 6000bc after they could no longer get to America on the Arctic ice-flow bridge which stretched from Northern England/Southern Scotland via Iceland & Greenland to S.East Canada/N.East USA. It was they who built the stone henges of Europe. When the the bridge melted a7-6000bc they simply left and the beaker people moved in! It is possible they were looking to circumnavigate the globe ON FOOT, we know that they had already gone EAST into N. America via the same type of ice-flow bridge about this time!

 

[MOESAN]

The term I used "RED haired", applies to red-brunette all the way though to strawberry blonde. This was from an ERA pre-hair dyes. What you see is the red-hair getting gradually lighter as you go North along the west-European atlantic coastlines. Starting very dark almost black, obviously African influence, in the Iberian penisular, going to dark red on the north-west coast of France / Southern England, to the flame red/ginger in Ireland/Wales, the light ginger-red in Scotland, and finally v. light flame / strawberry blonde in Scandinavia. Obviously there is a dilution of the gene as it moved north up the atlantic coastlines. Of course, there plenty of room for movement with Roman and post-Roman Europe, but we are not talking about the odd person, we are talking the vast majority, so it was mass migration and interbreeding with the then locals. You probably can't understand what the hair colours were like before about 1960, you're probably too young to know that.

So there no point comparing it with today's colours, as said below, hair dyes have changed all those hair colours you see today - a better idea would be to check males only! IMHO my theory hold's water and others are convinced its true, indeed this is NOT just my opinion, as it was common discussion in my parents generation.

The interesting thing is that there appear to be at least 2 separate gene forms which give RED-hair. There is the one I speak of red-hair and freckles, which may be African Niger in origin and there is one which also brings red-hair and yellow-red skin from Eastern Asia (China) - aka North American native Indians. Of course the latter would account for say eastern Russian red-hair etc.

- "Black" hairsin Iberia tied to Africans??? What kind of Africans? SSA ones? I doubt highly !
- I agree that the "red" heredity combines with a light> < dark heredity in some way, so yes, there are more light "reds" in light haired pop's than in rather dark haired pop's; but even taking account of the dark "reds", southern and central west Atlantic shores are very less "red" than the more northern ones.
BTW there is not a "mean" colour for hairs, only different frequencies of diverse dark, middle and light. In Brittany the Bretons (less and less numerous helas) the red haired people show all sorts of hues, even if the most common is middle "red"; and keep in mind that for the reddish aspect, there are people partially "red", so reddish and auburn.
- There are more than 2 mutations for red hairs: already it had been found 7 kinds in an Australain survey.
- concerning East-Asia, I know little; I know there was around 0,1% of blond hair there in some regions (I don't speak of the "primitive" pop's of Austrasia, Australian Aborigenes or Papoos). For ture "red" hairs I 've never heard anything.
- The most of Eastern Russian "reds" owe their hair colour to a mutation spred allover N-Russia, Baltic and even Scandinavia if I don't mistake.