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I just read an article on the ancestral hunter gatherer populations of Europe and MENA and its both surprising and not surprising.
Essentially up until around like 10,000ish y/a Western Europeans looked like todays Indians and Eastern Europeans looked like todays Central Asians https://twitter.com/nhm_london/status/1349816981751529485
Essentially up until around like 10,000ish y/a Western Europeans looked like todays Indians and Eastern Europeans looked like todays Central Asians https://twitter.com/nhm_london/status/1349816981751529485
Western European Hunter Gatherers(WHG) is what they call these ancient populations. DNA sequencing reveals they had “dark to very dark skin, black wavy to curly hair, green or blue eyes, high cheek bones and wide noses.” These people live all over Europe from Ireland to Greece
These reconstructions are made after skeletal remains for the actual facial features, and the skin color, hair, eyes etc are all from DNA sequencing referenced against modern DNA btw
I forgot to mention, Neolithic European remains are classified into two different groups, not especially based on geography, although it is related to where these remains were first found, but moreso features. Eastern European Hunter Gatherers(EHG) appear quite different from WHG
EHG are contrasted against WHG as having medium to light skin rather than very dark skin, wavy to straight black hair, dark eyes, high cheek bones, and epicanthic folded eyelids. Essentially, EHG are known to look like modern Central Asians or Siberians and even Native Americans
EHG are more common in Eastern Europe, Middle East, and North Africa, and DNA sequencing reveals that they indeed had Asian North-East(ANE~Siberian-Altai-Inuit) DNA, which also make up about 30-40% of Native American DNA as well. Pretty interesting to think this is ancient Europe
It’s been theorized that there were at least three factors that came into play in shaping Europeans to look how they look today. First, was the cold climate selected for lighter skin due to vitamin D requirements, then intermingling with lighter skin blonde/ginger Neanderthals
Also,, while we’re here...there is a common misconception about Neanderthals, that they were brutish apes, but they had culture and most probably language and essentially even tho they were a different species, could still intermix with humans and thus should be considered people
Anyway, Neanderthals had blonde to ginger hair, blue and green eyes, and lighter skin. The only difference between Neanderthals and Humans was their physical build, as Neanderthals were wider and stockier and more adapted to the cold. They actually had bigger brain cavities
And,, the last and probably most important things to change Europeans was a move from hunting and gathering to farming. I guess this lifestyle change brought changes in settlement patterns and clothing and everything sort of combined and fell into place to lighten skin
