Thursday, February 10, 2022

Mainstream media BS: Europeans owe their height to Asian nomads


From a recent Daily Mail article by some clown named Sam Tonkin:

Present day Europeans owe their blue eyes to hunter gatherers, their height to Asian nomads and their blonde hair to Anatolian Neolithic farmers, a new study suggests.

...

Most of the contemporary European genetic makeup was shaped by movements that occurred in the last 10,000 years when local hunter gatherers mixed with incoming Anatolian farmers — from present-day Turkey — and Asian nomads, or Pontic Steppe pastoralists.

The latter originated from what is now parts of Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan.

Haha.

Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine are European countries. The relevant parts of Russia and Kazakhstan are also located in Europe.

Obviously, the author is referring to the Yamnaya herders who lived on the Pontic-Caspian steppe, which is obviously in Eastern Europe.

I blame Johannes Krause for this.

See also...

Matters of (basic) geography

Blond hair is only indirectly associated with Anatolian ancestry in Estonia...duh

Ancient ancestry and complex traits in Estonians (Marnetto et al. 2022)

190 comments:

  1. Sam Tomkin is definitely an idiot, but the Daily Mail itself has a horrible reputation for accuracy on science articles in particular. This is a problem that extends beyond tools like Sam Tomkin. The utter lack of integrity in British news reporting, sustained for as long as it has been, is highly suggestive of corruption. It's unlikely that a newspaper could deliberately publish misinformation over-and-over again by chance.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. ... and yes, I do now notice that his name is Sam *Tonkin.*

      Delete
  2. Ancient Greeks considered native Indians dark and tall. Some at least 5 cubits tall, exaggeration possibly.

    Modern Indians are quite short thanks to centuries of mal-nutrition.

    Funny enough 300bce-300ce; According to Greeks

    South Indians were Ethopian hued
    North Indians were Egyptian hued
    North West Indians were White hued

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    Replies
    1. For those not aware of Indian history; 300bce-300ce saw various invasions/migrations in North West of India

      Persian invasion (~500bce)
      Greek invasion (~300bce)
      Scythian invasion (~100bce)
      Parathian invasion (~1st century ce)
      Kushana invasion (~1st century ce)

      Post 300ce Hunnic invasions.

      Delete

  3. This nonstop misrepresentation of genetic papers by the media and fooling the public is unacceptable. Enough is enough! People, the readers in the comment section are totally confused and misled. Hence they now believe that Europeans owe short East Asians their tall height and stature. It's disgusting how the media intentionally mislabels the Steppe people, who were Europid/Caucasians from Eastern Europe, as "Asian nomads".

    The journalists know that the readers, the masses when reading "Asian nomads" will automatically think of Chinese, Mongols, and Japanese, thus by default they will mistake Steppe people for East Asians. Prior to that, scientific articles played the same game with Cheddar Man, by referring to him as the first Briton who was black. Anyway, calling the Yamanya "Russian" nomads would be more accurate, but daily mail is pretty much anti-Russian. The thing is, that the journalists want Europeans to think that they're part Chinese rather than part "Russian" by obfuscating the data. Furthermore, they love to refer to the location of the Steppe people as the "Pontic or Eurasian Steppe" instead of Russia or Eastern Europe. The media knows that most people wouldn't find the Pontic Steppe on a map since don't know which countries belong there. Plus, the geneticists with their left-wing bias appear not to bother with the public being misled and misinformed by the deliberate misconstruction and misrepresenting of genetic studies by media.

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  4. "At the end of the 19th century, the average height of males was 163.5 cm (5 ft 4 in) and the average height of females was 153.3 cm (5 ft 0 in). By the end of the 20th century, heights averaged 181.3 cm (5 ft 11 in) for males and 167.5 cm (5 ft 6 in) for females."


    It seems Lithuanians were quite short few centuries ago.

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  5. How then did Greeks become tall?

    https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6bV_tjpW5yI/U-mbqWUIhGI/AAAAAAAABJE/76TLdGIA1rc/s1600/male+height.PNG

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  6. Greeks have some steppe ancestry and anyway they've had a high standard of living in recent decades.

    You don't need a very high level of ancestry from an ancient population to inherit one or more of its traits, and height is highly correlated with good nutrition, and especially eating red meat.

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    1. This is nonsense height is correlated with red meat. Mooslims have been eating red meat for centuries, however their height is considerably lower than an average vegetarian guy, do look in Afghanistan, how dwarfs they are. Height of an individual depends on Healthy Nutrition (including fresh vegetables fruits etc), genetics and atmosphere

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  7. Wise Dragon, the Mail is a racist rag for little Englanders and is notorious for misleading science reporting, but even beyond that its mainly known as the Daily Lie. It has no interest in any new age

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  8. @Surfman

    Yeah David has a point here.If you compare Greeks with Albanians you see the big diffrences on height.Mainland Greeks are very close to Albanians genetically but Greeks are way taller while Albanians i think are one of the shortest people in europe. This has to do IMO with the standard of living.what diet you follow and so on.

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  9. As science enthusiasts we really ought to take a stand against the thousands of lies generated by popscience articles. The idea of having someone who is more or less scientifically illiterate "summarizing" such articles is not only dumb its unethical.

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  10. Well, I'm taking a stand against pop science and all sorts of crap science, including the so called science in the Nature and Science journals.

    Like I said, I blame Johannes Krause for this. But he's not the only one to blame.

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    1. I wrote with Johannes Krause, as I said, he is not very familiar with geographic areas and discussed it with colleagues who supposedly have better geographical knowledge than he does, sorry, I have to laugh a bit 😂

      Delete
  11. @Ashishkaulli
    You can see this dramatic height change within a single generation in many countries. In my country there used to be a “thing” that some people from the west highlands and from the south-west corner (Galloway) were tall because they had some amount of Viking in their ancestry — which does happen to be true, but it’s equally true of the people who were cleared from these rural areas in the 18th and 19th century and lived in urban poverty, and whose children were short.

    In the records, you can also see this generational transformation earlier, in age at death.

    You can see in a single family how the late 18th and early 19th century rural incomers to the industrial towns outlive their own children (coalminers, mill workers and steelworkers since childhood): families where people routinely live to their 70s and 80s, suddenly their children are dying in their 40s and 50s. And the majority of their grandchildren are dying in childhood of communicable diseases, or wasting slowly away from adolescence. In the draft in WWi, the medics were shocked to find what a huge proportion of young men were stunted and emaciated. There were boys of 17 and 18 who had not reached adolescence. It caused an uproar in government circles. The response was not to start a national nutrition scheme, but to form battalions of men from about 150 to 160cm (5 foot to 5’3), the “bantam battalions”.

    Fast forward to WWii in the UK, and food rationing IMPROVES the diet of millions of people: as my grandmother said, “The rich people couldn’t buy up all the meat for themselves” (ie at higher prices).” My parents benefitted from this slightly, their younger siblings in these large families — noticeably more so. Things got tight again when rationing ended: pork products were the first thing that got priced out of the range of many working people, according to my grandmother.

    When I was a child in the 60s I had crumbling milk teeth, caused by my mother’s long term poor nutrition. (Her wartime childhood photo looks exactly like Anne Frank). Into the 1970s it was very common to see old ladies (there were not many old men) with severely bowed legs — so much so that us kids just thought that was what happened when you get old. It had already begun in me, but was spotted in school medical checks.

    Interestingly, while both men and women in industrial Scotland used to be fairly short, often with just an inch or two difference, the generational height difference is even more marked in men than in women. I know many men of older middle age who are dramatically taller than their fathers were — a full head taller or more, and whose sons are often a little taller still.

    But among mothers and daughters the difference is less dramatic. This is purely my subjective opinion, but it seems to me that the difference in height between the sexes (already more in Europeans than in other parts of the world) is becoming more marked this century. But how much of this is down to lifestyle and diet differences, which kick in by early adolescence, is hard to say.

    The age of heavy industry was a ferocious Darwinian sieve. It really is true that tall men did very badly down the mines. The only “tall” older relative of mine, my grandmother’s half-brother, was effectively crippled in his spine by it. And of course TB, which could take years to kill you, stunted many people’s growth. Mostly, though, it was nutrition. 19th century purchased food was shockingly adulterated. It was absolutely normal for bread in the cities to be “filled out” with chalk, sawdust and other completely indigestible substances. This was an era where even many lowland farm workers (hired by the season) were eating food purchased rather than grown and processed by themselves. Only in the nonindustrialised areas did a traditional diet continue.

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    1. I always thought one can never get taller than their tallest Parent. Turns out I was wrong :)

      My grandmother is tiny ...4'6" +- few inches. Mother is 5+.

      Better nutrition at the right age helps to achieve the genetic limit. A reason why Punjabis on average are taller than those from eastern India.

      I wonder how much of it is due to genetics and Nutrition. Punjabis are high on Iran HG related and Sinthasta/Yamnaya like ancestry compared to eastern India who are high on AASI. Punjabis are also richer compared to eastern India.

      Delete
  12. Folks, when considering phenotypal similarities/differences, please bear in mind that culture and diet can make an enormous difference. In one lifetime. And to the lives of subsequent generations.

    In nutritional studies, you can see the direct effect of nutrition, not just in height etc but dramatically in face shape. (I think a lot of you know that facial features are amongst the most malleable things genetically — but diet type (not just nutritional sufficiency).

    Around the planet, traditional diets obviously vary hugely, from nearly all fish and seal meat in the high Arctic to an adolescence of nearly all blood and milk in some herding societies. There are some folks that have been largely vegetarian for a couple of thousand years.

    They are healthy on such radically different diets it because they are the descendants of those whose genes produced useful variants that let them adapt. When families change from a traditional diet to an urbanised or industrialised (processed) diet (whether “western” or not) this change is so dramatic that you can actually see it in the faces of a group of siblings lined up by age.

    But this is not simply a mechanical result: it is also rooted in epigenetic changes.

    We do not see it because we are so used to it. Many of us are surrounded by it. We only usually notice it, in our own localities, in the pinched faces of the obviously poor. Once you have your eye in for this, you see it all over, up and down the social scale. It looks like a syndrome - a package of features — but it’s an acquired as much as congenital syndrome.

    If anyone is interested I will look out some sources.

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  13. @wise dragon
    The Mail, along with the overwhelming majority of the UK print media, is at the very right of the UK political spectrum.
    Almost the entire print media is owned by just three billionaire families.

    If they the Mail is not just completely incompetent in their science reporting, I can assure you that any political agenda is either to just confuse and confound (rather than report anything that risks being seen as “woke”) or to swing the narrative rightwards politically. It being the Mail, which has always been a tabloid of the “World War Two Plane Found On Moon” variety, I expect it’s just stupidity.

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  14. @ Wise Dragon. Another popular name for that paper, based on its historic political take on international affairs, is The Daily Heil.

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  15. "Mostly, though, it was nutrition. 19th century purchased food was shockingly adulterated. It was absolutely normal for bread in the cities to be “filled out” with chalk, sawdust and other completely indigestible substances."


    That's 21st century India for you:(

    Our Breads have ingredients that are carcinogen. Milk if you are lucky will have just added water. Noodles with large amounts of lead in it ...etc

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  16. I'm gonna start a campaign against Johannes Krause. I really don't like that guy.

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  17. Personally, I have nothing against him, he answered all my questions nicely, but of course Davidski, that's her thing and from a geographical point of view you've already won, you only have to look at the atlas where Europe and Asia are!

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  18. Blaming J.K. It seems like there is a coordinated effort by big Legacy Media and big Silicon Valley social platforms to deprive steppe Europeans of finding out about there ancestry and phenotype, perhaps out of wokeness. Something you don't really see in the paper's of ancestry of the Sino or Near East people's ancestry.

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  19. CHG has reported J* and J2a Haplogroups.

    J2a has been detected in 2 samples of Indus Perephary Cline. Twitter is filled with R1a = Aryan arguments. So I was wondering if CHG = PIE signal (Johannes Krause) What does presence of J2a in IVC Perephary points to? One sample has R haplogroup.

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  20. Well, in regards to Johannes Krause, his theories are best ignored.

    And CHG doesn't qualify as the PIE signal, because there wasn't a series of CHG migrations, like the steppe migrations, just a wide range of similar but very distantly related CHG-like populations.

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  21. It's all got to do with Germany's fake apologism

    ''while we were in final stages of preparing a paper for submission in 2015, one of the German archaeologists who contributed skeletal samples wrote a letter to all co-authors: 'We must(!) avoid.. being compared.. to Gustaf Kossina. He and several authors resigned from the paper before we modified our paper to highlight that the CWC came from the East...'' (D Reich)

    So some geneticists came up with the theory the Kurgan culture apparently came from way out in the whaps somewhere, despite the fact that east-central European scholars had long figured out that it came from relatively close by. These pontifications never changed that, but they did manage to create false narratives and confuse a lot of people. People blame Krause, but Reich is equally culpable

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  22. "Well, in regards to Johannes Krause, his theories are best ignored."

    His theory is much better than yours, given the absence of steppe in Anatolian samples, and also the presence of increased Iran chalcolithic ancestry in Anatolia after the BarcinN period.

    This is the reason the sane people are now on the Iran PIE bandwagon.

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  23. Which sane people? At Max Planck? Haha.

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  24. @wise dragon it’s a targeted campaign to smear every thinking person with half a brain as a White Nationalist.

    Stating the obvious - Indo Europeans came from Sredny Stog —> Yamnaya, Repin & CWC.

    CWC —> Balto-Slavs and Indo-Iranians (and perhaps Tocharians too).

    CWC —> SGC —> BBC.

    IE are from Eastern Europe

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  25. The other fallacy that went almost unnoticed is attributing blond hair to Neolithic farmers in Anatolia

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  26. @Davidski

    "I'm gonna start a campaign against Johannes Krause. I really don't like that guy."


    Be prepared to be called a white supremacist, a racist, and anti-science.

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  27. @Rob
    "It's all got to do with Germany's fake apologism."



    Someone pointed out how the Max Planck Institute is going woke and he pointed out some of the articles. The scientists from the Max Planck institute proudly declared their support for the BLM movement and their mission on their website. I'm asking myself now whether this attitude will reflect on their scientific work. Besides, a poster on another forum showed an interview where Krause asserts that "racism" invented race and that race isn‘t real. Anyway, we can‘t always put the entire blame on the sensationalist and the misleading media since the researchers in their interviews usually don‘t set the record straight but also use misleading wording which causes confusion.

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  28. That's cool but I don't remember some commenters here expressing similar outrage when Survive the Jive falsely portrayed Indo-Aryans like Vikings and Spanish Bell Beakers as being blonde and blue-eyed even though we know (from the latest Spanish paper) that they were darker than the Iberian natives.

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    1. There is nothing in any paper that suggests Bell Beakers were darker than Iberian natives.

      Delete
    2. Why your butts got hurt hearing the word black?
      Are you qualified to talk on topics you don't have idea of?

      I give a hint, before Ice age, humans were black.
      Bell beakers were black as well

      Delete
  29. Height in Europe correlates with neither Steppe ancestry nor standard of living.

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  30. Here is yet another example where Kurgans are called Eurasian.

    Genetic population structure across Brittany and the downstream Loire basin provides new insights on the demographic history of Western Europe
    https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.02.03.478491v1

    The abstract starts.....
    "“European genetic ancestry originates from three main ancestral populations - Western hunter-gatherers, early European farmers and Yamnaya Eurasian herders - whose edges geographically met in present-day France."

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  31. This paper demonstrates that the idea Kurgans were "Eurasian" is the official narrative which all scientists who aren't experienced in the Indo European topic will follow.

    It is an ambiguous label.

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  32. I'm going to do a video on this issue.

    The narrative they were Eurasian, creates this false narrative that the Eurasian Steppe in 5000 to 3000 BC was a super inter-connected well defined region.

    You know, they refer to the Eneolithic Eurasian Steppe as an interconnected world the same way the Western world is today.

    This is not the case as far as I know. Copper Axe, is it not true, that Kurgans were no more connected to Botai than to European farmers?

    There was no such thing as a defined Eurasian Steppe people in the Eneolithic.

    The harvard lab, etc argument is they need to make this cross-continent term because genetics, culture back then crossed continent boundaries.

    But i don't see a good reason to believe this is the case. Kurgans weren't deeply connected to people on the Asian side of the Steppe. There was no Eurasian Steppe world.

    A Eurasian Steppe world came about, only when Kurgans took over the Asian side of the Steppe. Eg, Srubanya and Andronovo.

    The best way to describe Kurgans is they were a unique genos who formed on the European side of the Steppe. They weren't genetically or culturally apart of a bigger world.

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  33. @All

    I am well aware from Copper Axe's work that Kurgan admixed people lived in Kazakhstan and probably further east before Yamnaya. I know it was probably not just Botai like people on the Asian steppe.

    This is certainly goes contrary to what I'm saying. I'll talk about in my video about the misidentifying Kurgans as Eurasian Steppe people.

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  34. I guess the researchers have suggested in the paper that there is not always a direct relationship between the 'founding populations' and the regional phenotypes. So I guess it must have been the difference in sexual selection (since BA unto now!) that has made the difference. A clear norm (like in the Rigspula) in which lighter features as seen as more nobel can after several generation 'make the difference'.

    I guess this was at stake not Germanics that influenced the Baltics! If it was the Ost-kolonisation than it would odd because the West-Germanics are darker featured than the Baltics. Doesn't make sense to me.

    And face it Davidski the blonde Aryans were in fact more stereotype than reality:
    https://postimg.cc/dDHVcJw9

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  35. @a
    “ It seems like there is a coordinated effort by big Legacy Media and big Silicon Valley social platforms to deprive steppe Europeans of finding out about there ancestry and phenotype, perhaps out of wokeness.”

    This a parody, right?

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  36. @weure

    I guess this was at stake not Germanics that influenced the Baltics! If it was the Ost-kolonisation than it would odd because the West-Germanics are darker featured than the Baltics. Doesn't make sense to me.

    You guess wrong.

    North Germans and Scandinavians are blonder than most Baltic people.

    Blond hair is highly correlated with more westerly genetic structure in the East Baltic area, so Germanic influence is the most obvious cause.

    Natural selection can't make someone more "western".

    And face it Davidski the blonde Aryans were in fact more stereotype than reality.

    I don't care, so I'm not sure why you're pointing this out to me.

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    1. The oldest blond hair mutation occurred in an ANE line in Yana Russia and of course the EHG had an ANE component and EHG also belongs to the vector/admixture of the steppe population, are you sure the blond hair is not from the steppe population? than from an EEF population, there are also blond Balts and Germans, clearly the Latvians had experienced a lot of Germanic admixture from the Middle Ages, but blond people also live in South Asia in population groups such as Kalash or Nuristani .. but you can't get all blonds on Trace back Germans, with Slavs it was also present, of course, there is also a mixture of these groups in some regions. An example of the Altai prince ( Pazyryk ) had dark blond hair and Indo-Iranian origin (CWC...) so I think it came from steppe people who have indirect EHG or EHG similar input.

      Delete
  37. @weure

    "the blonde Aryans were in fact more stereotype than reality:
    https://postimg.cc/dDHVcJw9"

    Yamnaya wasn't the Aryans.

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  38. @ vasistha

    'His theory is much better than yours, given the absence of steppe in Anatolian samples, and also the presence of increased Iran chalcolithic ancestry in Anatolia after the BarcinN period.''

    Well, there is Kum 4 which despite poor coverage clearly testifies to European/ steppe ancestry in western Anatolia c. 3000 bc.

    The so-called 'Iran ancestry' in post-5000 bc Anatolia is actually sequental movements from the Caucasus and northern Mesopotamia into Anatolia. One of these were Kura-Araxes, which also happened to move into Iran. So there was no migration from Iran to Anatolia, and nothing which can be linked to proto-Anatolians

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  39. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  40. I don't see much reason to doubt the prevailing wisdom that light hair is a complex trait found in a minority of European foragers and Neolithic farmers which became dramatically selected for in populations partially descended from such groups, like Corded Ware and Beakers. We've seen these groups predicted to be more pigmentationally diverse than their steppe ancestors, with a rising frequency in light hair and eyes.
    orded gene pool

    Hair depigmentation (and certainly eye depigentation) in a minority of EEFs has been suggested by predictions for individuals given in numerous studies (I don't even remember where they all are now because there have been so many ancient DNA papers-- we'd have to track them down). I remember even one of the Minoans was predicted to possibly have been light-haired (blond to light brown). And we all know about the blue-eyed Levantine Chalcolithics. Similarly, the dark-haired/dark-eyed rule for Yamnaya and early Corded Ware didn't just appear in one study either. It's appeared in several at this point. Hannibal seems to think the Carlsberg paper and presence of KITGL mutation in early BA steppe people (and ANE) somehow invalidates the numerous HIRISPLEX predictions made in these papers predicting most Yamnaya-like people were dark-haired. Even this new paper finds some kind of association with black hair and steppe ancestry. Are we really to believe that KITGL does all the work here? I very much doubt it. If it did then I think HIRISPLEX would account for that.

    Anyway, right now I'm not seeing any good reason to overturn the consensus view, though I do agree with David and others that ancestry from more proximate groups that have undergone phenotypic selection towards blondism (like North Germans/Scandinavians) is important to consider in the case of Finnic groups especially.

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    1. There is not a single study you can cite that says Yamnaya were dark haired. I dare you to even try and cite one single study.

      You're just pulling shit out of your ass. EHG and WSH were way more phenotypically diverse than EEF/SHG/WHG -- especially the later ones.

      Delete
  41. @Davidski

    Your reasoning is imo not consistent
    "Obviously, north Germans and Scandinavians are some of the blondest haired and lightest eyed people in Europe. But they also have more Anatolian farmer ancestry than Estonians. So it might well be that in Estonia these traits are strongly linked with recent Germanic ancestry rather than ancient Anatolian ancestry."

    Ergo blondism: EEF>Germanics>NW Estonia.

    "In fact I'm willing to bet that this is indeed the case. I'm also willing to bet that blond hair and blue eyes won't show a strong association with Anatolian farmer ancestry in other European countries, but rather with steppe herder ancestry or even, in some cases, minor Siberian admixture."

    Ergo blondism: not EEF but Steppe roots.

    I can't cope statement 1 with 2 (not congruent).

    And I my roots lay on borderland North Dutch/ Northern Germany. I know that blondism (with blue yes) has a big amount op the population nevertheless it's bigger in Finland and parts of the Baltics (=fact). So it's not reasonable to assume that "my area" is the epicenter of blondism....

    I go with the suggestion of the paper there is no DIRECT link with founding population admixture! The effect in the regional populations is divers. This is due to diverse selection, that's imo the key. Different (sexual) selection delivers a bric a brac from the founding population phenotypes. Irish have the same amount of Steppe as North Dutch still they are much smaller. South Dutch has more EEF than North Dutch, still there are much more blondes in North Dutch. So we can't state that there is 1:1 connection with the 'founding population admixture (and the connected phenotype.

    Sexual selection per region is the key from BA until now. And 'norms' like for example in the Rigspula in which lighter features are clearly favored (more seen as noble) are after several (hundredths) of generations clearly difference.


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  42. Genos historia
    "This paper demonstrates that the idea Kurgans were "Eurasian" is the official narrative which all scientists who aren't experienced in the Indo European topic will follow."


    Referring to Yamnaya as Eurasian nomads is ambiguous and one thing. But calling them "Asian nomads" is misleading. When you use the term "Asian nomads", you have the intent to make the public believe that Steppe people were mongoloid people/East Asians instead of what they really were, Caucasians. The term "Asian" is always associated with East Asian folks and "black" with SSA. Read the comment section people are believing that Yamanya were East Asian. The article could refer to the Yamnaya as Western Steppe Herders (WSH), or Western Steppe Pastoralists. It's obvious the article in Dailymail was by design misleading.

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  43. @ genos


    Not quite sure what you’re asking there but those kumsay kurgans are inspired by western ones. Obviously their kin were mixing with steppe groups in “steppe Majkop”, so they had intimate contact with Europeans. They then brought the idea back to their motherland

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  44. @Wee e


    Daily Mail rather plays both sides, they are left-wing when it comes to genetic studies on Europeans, but on the other side they pretend to be against wokery, leftism. The writers from Daily Mail refer to the BLM rioters, looters, and arsonists as protesters and demonstrators. But at the same time, they call people who want to protect historical monuments and statues from the attacks, vandalism of BLM or Antifa, as right-wingers and mob. For example, Trump and his voters and supporters are usually labeled as white supremacists, right-wingers in the Daily Mail.

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  45. @Wise dragon

    “Someone pointed out how the Max Planck Institute is going woke and he pointed out some of the articles. The scientists from the Max Planck institute proudly declared their support for the BLM movement and their mission on their website.”

    @Rob

    "It's all got to do with Germany's fake apologism."

    Exactly, it is all fake. Germans should apologize for their atrocities in Poland, for exterminating Slavic people in Eastern Europe, not for colonialism in the Americas or India. Slavic Lives Matter! WAKE UP. Germans should teach their children about what they did to Slavic people in Eastern Europe, so that it will never happen again. And stop falsifying the history of Eastern Europe.

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  46. This reminds me a certain article at a well known magazine back in 2019 (I think it was NatGeo) that something in the same vain, and in fact called European Hunter Gatherers as African Hunter Gatherers...

    Anyway, it isn't the only case that Max Planck has produced contradictory results. But I think Davidski is identifying a larger trend that I am not sure where is ultimately leading at.

    As for the phenotype of the Yamnaya peoples, while it really seems that "blone Aryans" is indeed a stereotype, I think all reconstructions should be taken with a grain of salt.

    That being said, the facial structure of these busts imo gives their away their affinities.

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  47. @Genos/Sam: A Eurasian Steppe world came about, only when Kurgans took over the Asian side of the Steppe. Eg, Srubanya and Andronovo.

    I wrote a long post in response to this, but then lol I saw you'd already noted that expansions of some form of Steppe ancestry into Central Asia and admixture probably happened pre-Yamnaya. Yeah, the samples of earliest Kumsay_EBA is 3160 BCE, Dzungaria_EBA is around 3000 BCE. Very comparable dates to earliest currently published Yamnaya and Afanasievo and Corded Ware samples.

    Also possible that the Botai had admixture from EHG populations; that's not the same thing as having ancestry from Yamnaya or anything like that, but it could've been that a chain of EHG populations diluted ancestry from very early steppe people out to Botai. Though that's very speculative. I don't know if the y-dna suggests whether anything like this might be possible. Apparently they had some (2/3) R-M73 (R1b1a1a1) which I understand branches off just before R-M269? (Maybe this is a naive understanding of ydna though).

    ...

    Off topic completely but I randomly found this research project and wondered what others might have thought about it - https://www.shh.mpg.de/640370/ventresca-miller-hungry-steppe -

    "Sustenance in the Hungry Steppe: The emergence of proto-urban centers in central Eurasia

    The pervasive narrative of the rise of a nomadic warrior culture in the Eurasian steppe at the end of the Bronze Age has muted growing evidence for settled communities and proto-urban centers. Mounting evidence suggests that aggregated populations were occupying the semi-arid Kazakh steppe in a cluster of neighboring regional centers. The growth of large settlements in central Kazakhstan dating to the Final Bronze Age (1500-1300 cal BC) counter notions of extensive nomadism. The semi-arid steppe, known colloquially as the ‘hungry steppe’, is a region where mobile pastoralism is considered a necessity. Thus, evidence for densely populated regional centers in prehistory raise questions about the subsistence economies of these communities."


    Interesting to read the suggestion that LBA people from Andronovo might have been forming quite large scale settlements at this time, which I guess to me seems potentially close to frame for some of the population / ancestry expansion into West/South Asia. (Though too late for Mitanni?)

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  48. @Wise dragon

    That's why I really hope they find y K2b/P in a more western context. SO far Tianyuan is the only K2b.

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  49. Not sure why my comment wasn't approved. I merely pointed out to weure that Yamnaya =/ Aryans. PIE were not Aryans either, for that matter. If you call them Aryans you could just as well call them Celts or Slavs or whatnot. It's an anachronism. The ancestors of the Aryans were Corded Ware derived and hence had more Anatolian farmer ancestry than Yamnaya had.

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  51. I had a look at what pigmentational maps I've got on my laptop. Most of them are about central Europe only, but I've got two on Europe, one from Bertil Lundman, the other from Carleton Coon. Their resolution doesn't allow a distinction between northwestern Germany, Scandinavia and the Baltic. On Coon's map there's a darker spot in western Lithuania, but so there is on Zealand and in parts of Scandinavia. But in general this all belongs to the lightest pigmented part of Europe. In Coon's map at least southwestern Finns are lighter pigmented than eastern Finns. So you may guess that a similar difference exists in Estonia. But as far as Finland is concerned this obviously must have a different explanation that German admixture. And that might also apply to Estonia. Afaik the earliest Baltic Germans were indeed from the north, but maybe this changed over time. AG user Tomenable has shown me some Baltic Germans that were strangely Hungarian-like. Now the question is how typicle these were, and I don't know.

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  52. I really think you're overthinking this. It's not because of this Krause person, and it's not about bad or good science, it's just that words undergo semantic drift. The Daily Mail doesn't think that Russia is in Europe, and mostly doesn't think that Ukraine is in Europe, because for 95% of their readers "Europe" isn't defined that way. If they tried to impose their own definitions (no matter how historically warranted), they'd just confuse their readers.

    Look at Wiktionary, for example. Yes, definition 1 for 'Europe' is the Victorian 'west of the Urals' definition. But definition 2 is "the EU", and definition 3 (specified as current in the UK and Ireland) is "Continental Europe, typically the western portion, and excluding the island nations or the larger Mediterranean islands" - the non-western portion is at most, for most speakers here, 'atypically' Europe, or Europe only by a sort of ambiguous semantic extension.

    Most people (in the UK at least) do not use Europe in a way that includes any of Kazakhstan. We mostly don't use it in a way that includes Ukraine, and a lot of us are even ambivalent about whether Britain is in 'Europe'. People are mostly in some way aware that there are definitions that include Ukraine (and maybe even Iceland!), so they'd be ambivalent when pressed on the question. But those definitions are definitely secondary, outside of some technical definitions.

    [and there are of course many technical defintions to chose from. For the WHO, Europe includes Uzbekistan; for sporting organisations it usually includes Israel. In legal documents it often means the EU plus Switzerland and Norway. Definitions are always contextual!]


    And of course this is no more right or wrong than any other definition: the fundamental law of linguistics is that words mean whatever people use them to mean. Definitions are arbitrary, and the definition of Europe is doubly so. Definitions also of course vary - as all features of language do - depending upon the sociological and geographical context. What a word means in America is not necessarily what a word means in the UK; what a word means in a history textbook or an economic statistics handbook is not necessarily what a word means in a newspaper.

    [even in history textbooks, the territory of the old Russian empire will often not be considered Europe, but rather "that empire-in-between" as it was increasingly seen in the 19th century - this is a tide that's been coming in over a good three centuries now]

    I think you're not unreasonable to call out inconsistencies in how words like 'Europe' are used in technical papers, where consistency is a priority, and papers should generally follow the conventions of the relevant field. But a newspaper's job is to convey information to its readers, and to do that it needs to use the same language as its readers do - if you want someone in the UK to know that Bob is from western Kazakhstan then saying that they're from "eastern europe" is counterproductive, because 99% of the time the person you're talking to will not be using that definition of 'Europe', and will think you're talking about, say, Slovenia, or Romania.

    I mean, feel free, of course. But if you're going to get angry whenever ordinary language usage in the UK differs from how you want it to be, you're going to angry a lot, and to no benefit: arguing that definitions of words should stay the same is very much like arguing that the tide should stop coming in. It's going to come in whether you argue against it or not. English people are going to continue to use words like 'Europe' differently from how you may want them to, no matter how many times you point it out, just as its futile for me to complain about the ridiculous way Americans call all biscuits 'cookies'...

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  53. If you are a man and you don't belong to I-M170, you're not European. Further, if your Y-Chromosome falls under this haplogroup you are Asian.

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  54. As an I2, it's extremely funny to me how upset you Kurganists get about being labeled Asian.

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  55. @Davidski


    There is a Dutch guy on AG who is criticizing you for associating the high frequency of blond hair among Estonians with German admixture. He basically accuses you of still holding to the stereotype of the "blond Germans" without providing evidence.


    https://anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?24927-Does-blonde-hair-and-blue-eyes-go-together-in-europeans/page8


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  56. @Matt

    "Yeah, the samples of earliest Kumsay_EBA is 3160 BCE, Dzungaria_EBA is around 3000 BCE. Very comparable dates to earliest currently published Yamnaya and Afanasievo and Corded Ware samples."

    Fyi, Dzungaria_EBA are just Afanasievo culture samples from Dzungaria.

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  58. @Wastrel

    I really think you're overthinking this.

    I'm not, you are.

    Here's a map of Europe.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#/media/File:Europe_orthographic_Caucasus_Urals_boundary_(with_borders).svg

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  59. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  60. "Blond hair is highly correlated with more westerly genetic structure in the East Baltic area, so Germanic influence is the most obvious cause. Natural selection can't make someone more "western"."

    Well it isn't. The Baltics are the center of lighter features.

    From Frost (2006):
    https://postimg.cc/kRn1G1GK
    https://postimg.cc/gn7sbkVv

    Corresponding SNP maps:
    https://postimg.cc/0zpwX8c5

    There may have been Germanic influence on the Baltics. But the Baltics are clearly the center of the lighter features. Not the West c.q. Germanic area's. That's cliche.

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  61. @CA, the paper does attribute them as such. But you know what I mean by "earliest Yamnaya and Afanasievo and Corded Ware": "Genomically steppe EMBA individuals"

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  62. Maybe we should relabel then as CHN_Afanasievo_Dzungaria though?

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  63. Partly this discussion makes me wonder if we should denounce Marija Gimbutas - she introduced the term "Old Europe", which implies that the Western steppe was not Europe...

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  64. @ Matt

    ''Partly this discussion makes me wonder if we should denounce Marija Gimbutas - she introduced the term "Old Europe", which implies that the Western steppe was not Europe.''

    Gimbutas' dichotomy was cultural - the peaceful matriarchal farmers vs the marauding patriarchal steppe nomads. This dichotomy is a false one, because 'old Europe' was diverse, from almost pure Anatolians to WHGs, from legume cultivators, to pastoralists and hunters, often conflict prone, sometimes patriarchal, etc
    I see this error carried through by Kristiansen & his collaborators at geogenetics, as an example

    I think modern media errors are simply reflective of the western notion that anything East of the former Iron Curtain is an 'other'.

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  65. I think blond hair was once passed on by steppe people but others evolved it in the Levant from the Chalcolithic and independently of IEs or an ANE rich population like the Tarimmmums, so it could also have brought EEF groups from the south and IEs from the east with it Solid selection was possible in some parts of Europe and Central and South Asia selected him from IE s and ANE populations. As an example, Kurds would have gotten blonde hair from IEs (Sintashta) and Chalcolitic groups.

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  66. But overall Gimbutas was correct . Good Lass

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  67. @Romolus,

    "As an I2, it's extremely funny to me how upset you Kurganists get about being labeled Asian."

    Yep only someone who lacks intellectual integrity finds it funny that people are being fooled and deceived about their ancestry.

    Besides, the Kurganists know who the Steppe people are, thus they take this mislabelling of Yamnaya herders as "Asian nomads" as a joke! Nevertheless, what bugs me personally, Geography aside; is the fact that gullible and uninformed people are being misled by "scientific" articles they trust.

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  68. @Matt

    Yeah regarding Dzungaria_EBA just wanted to clarify in case you assumed that the different label meant that they were from a different material culture. Btw I think Kumsay have steppe_en like ancestry prob from somewhere inbetween 4500-3500 bc.

    "Off topic completely but I randomly found this research project and wondered what others might have thought about it - https://www.shh.mpg.de/640370/ventresca-miller-hungry-steppe -"

    About this one, I really dont like those type of dramatic talks of "shattering notions" they use in those articles. Especially when the shift from more settled pastoralism to full one steppe nomadism is generally linked to the increased aridity in the 12th century BC.

    Pretty much the entire eurasian steppes was basically doing (semi)settled pastoralism around that century: Srubnaya, Beghazy-Dandybaev, Karasuk etc. Small scale agriculture was also present amongst all of them, Begazy-Dandybaev used irrigation farming etc.

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  69. @Wastrel

    "The Daily Mail doesn't think that Russia is in Europe, and mostly doesn't think that Ukraine is in Europe, because for 95% of their readers "Europe" isn't defined that way. If they tried to impose their own definitions (no matter how historically warranted), they'd just confuse their readers."


    Stop making excuses. The journalists from the Daily Mail know exactly that the Yamnaya were not "Asian nomads" but from Eastern Europe. I‘ve read other scientific articles about the Yamnaya/Corded ware in the DM. In these articles, it was noted that the Yamnaya people were from Eastern Europe or the Russian steppe. There is no way around this, the media wants Europeans to falsely believe that their WHG ancestors were African-like and their Yamanya ancestors Mongoloids. Why? Because they want to push the diversity agenda in the name of science.


    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6865741/The-violent-group-people-lived.html



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  70. @Copper_Axe, that was worth doing because I did think the paper had avoided the Afanasievo label because there was a different cultural attribution.

    I think Ventresca-Miller has a lot of papers which generally talk about the idea that steppe people by the LBA or Iron Age had larger populations and were using more intensive subsistence than is assumed by some. I think whether that is a proportionate way to label it depends on how widespread and intense misperceptions may be. (I know that the Eurogenes comment section is generally a sort of place that frowns upon tendencies of modern science to try and label findings as "dispel conventional narratives").

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  71. @CopperAxe; the admixture vector of Kumsay_EBA and Dzungaria_Afanasievo does look quite distinct.

    On a side note, if we're looking at using the cultural labels from papers, how seriously should we take the note from Narasimhan that says re Kumsay_EBA (a group of four close relatives within 2-3 degrees): "It has been hypothesized to be a southern outlier site of the Yamnaya culture."?

    I really wish we knew if Ringbauer's method found anything linking at a fine-scale these samples (Kumsay, Dzungaria) and the Steppe_EMBA samples!

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  72. random fact- green eyes (which I happen to have) are rarer than blue, globally & in European pops

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  73. Let's use Ockham's razor here, one argument for where light pigmentation developed is natural selection. In the arctic there is not enough sunlight during winter that let you produce vitamin D at sufficient levels and people with light skin produces more vitamin D than if you have a darker skin. At northern latitudes people with dark skin have to supplement vitamin D during winter, there is lots of scientific evidence to this. Yes, Inuit peoples have dark skin and get vitamin D from seal liver, probably the same goes for PWC.
    From an evolutionary point of view, it makes no sense that this ability was developed in a Mediterranean climate zone where light skin would be a disadvantage.

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  74. Regarding the geographical issue, everyone knows (or should know) that Europe ends at the Ural Mountains. Therefore, Ukrainians are as European as Icelanders or Maltese. I hope that the European Union will continue to grow because that will mean more progress, freedom and security.

    Regarding the fake news issue, everybody knows that the English media are famous worldwide for their shameless lying. Their goal is not only to sell their product but to defend their editorial line and influence public opinion. So if they do not lie they cannot be criticized, and in fact, they are partly right because both CHG and ANF have their origin in Anatolia (and as far as I know, that region is in Western Asia). However the term "Asian nomads" is wrong because it is evident that the Yamnaya culture is a European culture, as are the cultures of old Europe, the western megalithic culture, the CWC and the BB Culture. They are only trying to manipulate to create a state of opinion in favor of emigration. This policy has been successful in Western Europe but I think it will be many years before Poles, Hungarians, Ukrainians .... accept this reality. In a way, paradoxically, they are the ones who now have to defend the so-called western civilization because if we leave this in the hands of the American and European leftists, we will lose our identity in a few generations.

    Regarding phenotypes, certain topics and stereotypes have been debunked for many years. Each one has to draw their conclusions according to their understanding and intelligence. In my opinion, no culture has ever been racially homogeneous and no uniparental or autosomal marker can be exclusively linked to a given phenotypic trait, then discussing whether we have inherited these traits from one or the other seems to me a waste of time.

    Here in Iberia we have blue eyes on the WHGs, the megalithic farmers, the Chalcolithic cultures (including the BBC), the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Interestingly, in the Argar culture (99% R1b-Df27) everyone had brown eyes, however there are studies of other Bronze Age cultures such as Las Cogotas where most were blond with blue eyes. Then from whom have we inherited these traits? -The answer is very simple from all of them. I don't know what happens in other European countries, but here it is very common to inherit blue eyes from grandparents (many couples with brown eyes suddenly have children with blue eyes)and this is what also happened in prehistory.





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  75. There's an old English saying: Wogs start at Calais.

    In other words, everyone is progressively less European east of Calais.

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  76. @Davidski, to the sort of Englishman who'd say that, in fact in a ssense *rather more so rather than less* ("... and quite ghastly it is, too").

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  77. @Wise Dragon, I'm that North Dutch guy I son't have another stance here than on anthrogenica. So you don't have to tip Davidski ;) I already posted here.

    The maps about light features and the connected SNP maps show that the Baltic room (pretty deep into Russia), have the highest features and the genes for it.

    So Davidski is not right when he states:
    "North Germans and Scandinavians are blonder than most Baltic people.
    Blond hair is highly correlated with more westerly genetic structure in the East Baltic area, so Germanic influence is the most obvious cause."

    When there are better maps or explanation please go ahead!

    Another thing, partly subjective is that Baltics have also more grey eyes and flaxen blond, in the Germanic area's blue eyes and warmer blond prevails....

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  78. @weure

    What do you want to bet that you're wrong, and that I can prove that you're wrong?

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  79. You deserve eternal honour then Davidski!

    No problem to confess that in this case.

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  80. I alrede have prove that you are right, so congrats:

    https://www.fsigenetics.com/article/S1872-4973(18)30338-7/fulltext

    Dutch have the highest blond percentage in this research compared to Estonia.

    The Netherlands showed the largest share of blond hair (71.45%) and the smallest prevalence of brown-haired people (25.9%). Red hair color prevalence was comparatively small throughout, being highest in Great Britain (8.44%) and quite low in Germany (0.2%; Table 2). Overall, we noticed that blond hair dominated in Germany and the Netherlands, while the red hair trait reached its most frequent occurrence in Iceland and Great Britain (Fig. 2). Great Britain also appeared to have, together with France, a high percentage of brown haired people. Denmark and Estonia had higher proportion of blond hair carriers compared to the other two hair color categories.


    Nevertheless extra dat would be fine, no results from Finland, Sweden, Norway, Lithuania, Letland.....

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  81. @Matt

    "I think whether that is a proportionate way to label it depends on how widespread and intense misperceptions may be. (I know that the Eurogenes comment section is generally a sort of place that frowns upon tendencies of modern science to try and label findings as "dispel conventional narratives")'

    My issue with it is that making such statements sort of invalidates the decades of work done by other authors. Which is fine if you actually have groundbreaking new data, but in this case it literally just falls within the conventional narrative. Its a bit like creating a strawman argument if you ask me.

    "On a side note, if we're looking at using the cultural labels from papers, how seriously should we take the note from Narasimhan that says re Kumsay_EBA (a group of four close relatives within 2-3 degrees): "It has been hypothesized to be a southern outlier site of the Yamnaya culture."?"

    THe excavation articles and physical anthropology articles did classify these as being part of the Pit Grave (Yamnaya) culture, based on the pit-graves, mounds, red ochre and burial positionings. However it was noted that the people at Kumsay also shared a genetic connection to the people of eneolithic Kazakhstan. There aren't really any burial goods aside from a stone macehead found in one of the graves, which to me seems like a deviation of Yamnaya kurgan burial rites, where you tend to find more evidence for animal sacrifices and/or tools/weaponry.

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  82. @Andrejewski, @wise dragon, etc
    Jesus, you guys — stop digging.

    This from wikipedia.
    It [the Daily Mail] has also been noted for its unreliability and widely criticised for its printing of sensationalist and inaccurate scare stories of science and medical research,[17][18][19][20] and for instances of plagiarism and copyright infringement.[21][22][23][24] In February 2017, the Daily Mail became the first source to be deprecated as an "unreliable source" for use as a reference on the English Wikipedia.[25][26]

    And what of the reporter? He is the ONLINE content editor, which means it is his job to pad out the website with dross that literally isn’t worth printing in the paper edition of a rag whose reading age is nine. What was he previously? Up to 2015, editor of the Saffron Walden Gazette. Saffron Walden is a town of fifteen thousand people. He now doubles as “science reporter” because, well, online = tecchy sciency, stuff, right?


    You guys need to ask yourself why you are so attached to your paranoid fantasies that you are actually projecting left-wing plots onto the most right-wing, and most consistently right wing, publication that the UK has ever had. Its readership are notoriously from the Alf Garnett/Archie Bunker stable of reactionary old morons, a.k.a. gammons.

    This paper has been owned and controlled by the same billionaire family since the 19th century. They opposed votes for men without property and of course women. They supported the fascist march on Rome, they supported Mussolini (because they thought toffs should rule, using the likes of Mussolini, and only thought Britain shouldn’t have fascism because it didn’t NEED, as their class was so firmly in charge.) In the 1930s, Goebbels, whom Rothermere had gone to meet along with Von Ribbentrop, publicly thanked him for the paper’s support of German “Lebensraum”. Of course the Mail supported Hitler right up until the UK was drawn into the war. The funniest thing about that was that it was the Mail’s support of him, given its large circulation numbers, that Von Ribbentrop used to persuade Hitler that Britain wouldn’t go to war against Germany.

    The present day paper continues in the same vein under the fourth generation of the Harmsworth family (usually known in this connection by their titles as Viscounts &/or Lords “Rothermere”) - not actually openly supporting Nazism, obviously, but always close to the end of the political spectrum.

    Are you guys really so lost in fantasies of oppression that you can’t admit that one of the most notoriously stupid, intellectually illiterate AND RIGHT WING newspapers on the planet is just reaching its usual illiterate standard?

    Davidski is quite right, it is appallingly garbled; but if you lived in the UK, you would not be at all surprised to find a “science reporter” / online padder-outer who has no clue what any difference might be between the neolithic and the bronze age, let alone where Anatolia or the Pontic Steppe are.

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  83. What about Vladimir Putin who's also blonde?Don't tell me that he looks germanic or balto-slavic.More likely an Uralic admixed person from the very northern parts of Russia.Could be of finno-ugrian roots... still blonde hair,blue eyes,very pale skin complexion.

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  84. @history nerd
    Hmmm… Ockham’s razor only works if the premise is correct. Getting getting vit D from sunshine is far from a simple relationship to latitude. Also, Vitamin D is plentiful in the diet of the high Arctic — in marine mammals and fatty fish.

    There many are areas of the world much further south than the Arctic where little vit D is available annually from the sun.

    At the latitude of Scotland (which Denmark also falls into) the sun can only trigger Vit D production between late April and early September. However, in some west facing northerly bits of the British Isles it’s worse. (An arc from the northern coast of NI, taking in some pockets of Wales and the very north of England, and a large chunk of western Scotland).

    For example, Glasgow averages just 5.6 hours of sunshine a day in its sunniest month. (Not always helpful, as it can easily be 3am-8am.) Its annual average sunshine is worse than Lerwick or Rejkavik. (Glasgow’s sunniest month often clocks up fewer aggregate sun hours than the sunniest month in Dikson at the Yenisay Gulf on the Karal Sea.) Even Edinburgh, just 40-odd miles east, is significantly sunnier.

    True, from early September at around latitude 55 N, the sun, lower and more oblique, isn’t really capable of triggering Vit D production again until well on in April. Yes, latitude counts, but it isn’t the full story if even your midsummer can be completely overcast for days on end.

    (I sometimes feel this Atlantic coastal cloudiness explains why Irish and Gaelic are so unusual in their word for the sun — grian. Nothing like the other I.E. sol- sul- “eye” words. The root word instead is about heat rather than light; embers etc.)

    I don’t know about the coasts of mainland Europe, or about other microclimate areas — in river valleys for example — but anyway, vitamin D availability from sunshine can vary very significantly on the same latitude within just a few tens of miles, to a degree that wipes out hundreds of miles of latitude advantage.

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  85. E, chill out with the ranting maybe?

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  86. (I don't think the Mail has particularly bad reporting on these topics tbh. Compare the Mail, tabloid of choice for conservative middle-aged women, to the Independent, tabloid of choice for every left young idiot who fancies himself an independent thinker.

    On the topic of the Yamnaya, in 2015 - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/our-european-ancestors-brought-farming-languages-and-a-love-of-dairy-study-shows-10311317.html - the Indy decided that: a) the Yamnaya came from the Caucasus, including Georgia, and also b) cannot actually spell Caucasus, inventing their own spelling instead...)

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  87. "Hannibal said...
    There is nothing in any paper that suggests Bell Beakers were darker than Iberian natives."

    https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abi7038

    Search for Figure 8. Zero individuals with very pale skin and zero individuals with blue eyes among 46 Bronze Age samples, both traits existed in the Copper Age cohort.

    So once again you're misinformed. That's what happens when you're getting your ancient DNA news from StJ rather than reading the actual papers.

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  88. @ Copper Axe

    ''However it was noted that the people at Kumsay also shared a genetic connection to the people of eneolithic Kazakhstan. There aren't really any burial goods aside from a stone macehead found in one of the graves, which to me seems like a deviation of Yamnaya kurgan burial rites, where you tend to find more evidence for animal sacrifices and/or tools/weaponry.''

    These burials have little to do with classic Yamnaya burial tradition. It is well recognized that Yamnaya were usually poorly equipped with grave goods, even males. That's because the major investment was in the grave itself - a House of Dead with embankments, organic mat, elaborate kurgan, stereotype posture (head to West, supine back with legs flexed)
    The kumsay kurgans do not have house of dead, or sterotyped posture, and include a lot of females, which were uncommon in Yamnaya. This is what distinguishes Yamnaya from Kumsay, not the gifts per se.

    These guys are steppe Majkop

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  89. @ Gaska

    ''I hope that the European Union will continue to grow because that will mean more progress, freedom and security.''

    Despite what CNN Fake News tells you, Russia has no intention of invading Vasconica. There's nothing to be gained, so don't worry

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  90. Davidski mentioned something important. You don't need heavy ancestry from a population to inherit one of their traits. Even some ancestry and the genes can pass and proliferate.

    We've seen a clear example with Lactose Tolerance. There was no population that was almost 100% lactose tolerant during the Bronze Age. But today you have them in Northern Europe.

    So this "has certain % of X ancestry, therefore same % of population has X-related feature" logic doesn't work over thousands of years.

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  91. @Michaelis Moriopoulos

    The consensus view in academia is that blond hair frequency in Europeans is due to the rapid migration of Steppe pastoralists to central and Western Europe.

    There is no consensus for the bootleg hypothesis that has appeared in dark and dusty corners of the internet, mostly on forums, that blond hair is somehow coming from dark haired Neolithic farmers and Hunter Gatherers.

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  92. Did anybody here notice that this study's GWAS data actually indicates that the Yamnaya were heavily blond and light eyed?


    GWAS results from the study. See lower left chart. Yamnaya are the red and pink dots:


    https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2021/08/04/2021.08.03.454888/F2.large.jpg


    As expected, Anatolian Farmers are the ones who have the actual link to black hair. Anatolian Farmers in this study are substantially more likely to have black hair and dark eyes than Yamnaya.


    Everybody is making a deal about the tentative link between black hair and Yamnaya ancestry in the Estonians, while ignoring the fact that the authors even said that this is contradicted by the actual GWAS results.


    So yeah, this study confirms Yamnaya were the blond ones. Not Anatolian farmers. Interestingly, we also see that Yamnayans must have been light eyed, based on the genomic data.


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  93. Most of the variants that are involved in pigmentation prediction nowadays are variants with large effect size. There is some variation that is not explained by the variants used in the most popular phenotypic prediction pipelines, but the variants of large effect are gonna push things around by quite a lot on their own.

    Also, these variants retain their large effect and explain quite a bit of phenotypic variation across a broad range of genetic backgrounds, basically across most populations with West Eurasian ancestry, which can range from South Central Asians all the way to Sardinians and Finns. This makes me quite skeptical of the idea that the prediction is inaccurate for ancients because their ancestry proportions/broad genetic background was so different, especially among farmers and Steppe-admixed people in Europe, who are already a small subset of the present-day West Eurasian range of genetic variation, and one that resembles present-day Europeans at that.

    So there is going to be some wiggle room, but not so much that the mainstream academic consensus will be overturned, specifically the conclusion that light pigmentation in the range of modern Europeans was really a Steppe_MLBA/Europe_LNBA (not a Yamnaya or WHG) thing and even then Europeans got even lighter afterwards. Specifically, I think its gonna be very likely that if we resurrected a Yamnaya person he would strike many people as surprisingly dark--not to the level of an Indian, but still quite dark and with a coloration that falls on the borderline of what most people think of as European. Likewise WHG.

    The parts of the paper that focus on coloration are kinda useless, since it evolved so recently and so regionally and cannot be associated with ancestry components as old as Steppe, WHG and ANF. But then they also look at a lot of other stuff, like ADHD. That stuff is more interesting, but only with the assumption that it didn't go through as much recent region-specific change due to selection. With that assumption, the paper is still worthwhile.

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  94. @Rob “ Despite what CNN Fake News tells you, Russia has no intention of invading Vasconica. There's nothing to be gained, so don't worry”

    When did you cross the street and joined me, Genos and Survive The Jive?

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  95. @Cobra “ What about Vladimir Putin who's also blonde?Don't tell me that he looks germanic or balto-slavic.More likely an Uralic admixed person from the very northern parts of Russia.Could be of finno-ugrian roots... still blonde hair,blue eyes,very pale skin complexion.”

    He looks very Slavic.

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  96. Re: origins of the word “Aryan”:

    We know that Andronovo derived cultures ie Brahmins and Avrstan Iranians referred to themselves as such. Apparently, they meant “nobles”, maybe to distinguish themselves from the native pops they ruled over: Elamites, BMAC, Dravidians, Munda etc. The croot word originally meant “to build”, or “to assemble”, namely weapons. It cognates with “ars” in Hellenic Greek, ergo “art”.

    The key here is how far back was the term used; did it extend all the way to CWC, Fatnayovo, Abashevo or merely Sintashta? This is the key to unlock whether PIE = CWC called themselves by that adjective.

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  97. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/time-for-more-vitamin-d
    "Except during the summer months, the skin makes little if any vitamin D from the sun at latitudes above 37 degrees north"

    Forager diet has plenty of vitamin D sources.
    Farmer diet is virtually void of vitamin D.

    The steppe population depigmented after it adopted predominantly farmer diet.

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  98. @Cobra

    https://theconversation.com/the-wild-decade-how-the-1990s-laid-the-foundations-for-vladimir-putins-russia-141098

    Putin had brown hair.
    Now hes partially grey.

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  99. @Steppe “ think blond hair was once passed on by steppe people but others evolved it in the Levant from the Chalcolithic and independently of IEs or an ANE rich population like the Tarimmmums, so it could also have brought EEF groups from the south and IEs from the east with it Solid selection was possible in some parts of Europe and Central and South Asia selected him from IE s and ANE populations. As an example, Kurds would have gotten blonde hair from IEs (Sintashta) and Chalcolitic groups.”

    Why do people always tend to forget, that CHG harbors 33% ANE?

    In Yamnaya (early, before EEF admixture), ANE was 50%, and it included CHG.

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  100. @ Wee e

    I tend to agree with you that cloudy conditions could also have had something to do with the formation of lighter pigmentation. If I remember correctly the most cloudy place on Earth is somewhere in Central Siberia...however I think there are a combination of factors at play. San people with lighter yellowy brown skin in the desert mostly open to UV radiation vs. Andaman Islanders in the Tropical Rainforest with little UV radiation reaching ground level. Some Mediterranean Islands even get more UV at ground level than parts of Tropical Africa.

    So I think latitude is not the only player in the game...

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  101. @Max T @Copper Axe “ Interestingly SHG had more depigmentation SNPs than WHG and EHGs.”

    The fascinating part is how modern day Swedes have the same pigmentation traits as the SHG, while having so little admixture with them.

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  102. @Andrze

    I really doubt Putin looks typical Slav.He has something uralic in his phenotype.He is northern Russian afterall.


    @Groo

    Where exactly do you see brown hair?

    https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.buzzfeednews.com%2Farticle%2Fgabrielsanchez%2Fwtf-pictures-from-vladimir-putins-crazy-life&psig=AOvVaw26CnHjALFUYwjCXCevm-7w&ust=1644807432989000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCKCM4K3X-_UCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAV

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  103. @Jorge, the published paper is here and that figure's not in it - https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%2822%2900108-7

    Instead it's replaced by one that shows what has been described in the last blog post from David.

    Preprints change. Nothing to make a deal about.

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  104. @Jorge Escalante said-So yeah, this study confirms Yamnaya were the blond ones. Not Anatolian farmers. Interestingly, we also see that Yamnayans must have been light eyed, based on the genomic data.

    You should consult these papers

    Direct evidence for positive selection of skin, hair, and eye pigmentation in Europeans during the last 5,000 years-Sandra Wilde-"Note the SNP rs12912832 [OCA2] in the HERC2 gene which predicts blue eyes is present in 65% of modern Ukrainians, but was only present in 16% of the ancient samples"

    Bronze Age population dynamics, selection, and the formation of Eurasian genetic structure-Allentoft-For rs12913832, a major determinant of blue versus brown eyes in humans, our results indicate the presence of blue eyes already in Mesolithic hunter-gatherers as previously described. We find it at intermediate frequency in Bronze Age Europeans, but it is notably absent from the Pontic-Caspian steppe populations, suggesting a high prevalence of brown eyes in these individuals

    Eight thousand years of natural selection in Europe-Iain Mathieson-"Notice the red bar which measures the frequency of light eye color pigmentation alleles is extremely low in Yamnaya only scoring 11%, lower than modern Southern Europeans such as the Spanish and Italians from Tuscany- This means the Yamnaya, who were the likely speakers of late stage or 'classical' Proto Indo-European were around 90% dark eyed"

    Corded Ware cultural complexity uncovered using genomic and isotopic analysis from southeastern Poland-Anna Linderholm-"For those individuals who had enough coverage at pigmentation associated SNPs allowing for HirisPlex prediction, they were predicated to have been brown-eyed and dark (brown or black) haired"

    Genetic ancestry changes in Stone to Bronze Age transition in the East European plain-Lehti Saag-"We inferred that the examined WeRuHG individuals carried alleles connected to brown eyes, dark brown to black hair, and intermediate or dark skin pigmentation, while around a third of the Fatyanovo individuals had blue eyes and/or blond hair.






    ReplyDelete
  105. And what about the EEFs?

    Genome flux and stasis in a five millennium transect of European prehistory-Cristina Gamba-Sample N7 (4.490-4360 BC)-Light-brown/Dark blond, blue eyes

    Early farmers from across Europe directly descended from Neolithic Aegeans-Zuzana Hofmanová
    "the Neolithic Aegeans were unlikely to have been lactase persistent but carried derived SLC24A5 rs1426654 and SLC45A2 rs16891982 alleles associated with reduced skin pigmentation">skin depigmentation was not solely a high-latitude phenomenon.

    Early European farmers (EEF)- The Hirisplex eye and hair color prediction of 37 Early Neolithic farmers sequenced across Europe and Anatolia revealed that four individuals presented high probabilities of being blue-eyed (p=0.55-0.91), 23 were predicted to be brown-eyed (p=0.76-0.99), and 10 individuals did not have enough data to make a prediction

    A possible geographical origin for these two major light-skin alleles is West Asia or the Near East. Later migrations across the Caucasus (CHG) and Eastern Europe would have brought it to Scandinavia, while EEF migrations introduced both alleles into central Europe

    Late Pleistocene human genome suggests a local origin for the first farmers of central Anatolia-Michael Feldman Notably, three of the AAF carry the derived allele for rs12193832 in the HERC2 (hect domain and RLD2) gene that is primarily responsible for lighter eye color in Europeans.

    Genetic variation related to the adaptation of humans to an agriculturalist lifestyle-Jens Blocher-EEFs-Only four of the 28 samples were likely to have had a lighter hair shade, all other samples were estimated to have been dark haired. All but four samples were have probably been brown-eyed. The four samples that were probably blue-eyed had also high probabilities for a light hair shade and/or color

    Ancient genomes from present-day France unveil 7,000 years of its demographic history-S.Brunel The Mesolithic individual who displayed coverage of variants involved in the pigmentation of eye color (HERC2 and IRF4) carried the alleles associated with blue eye color. At the time of the Neolithic, the frequency of these two variants reaches 29.6 and 24.4%, respectively

    Variable kinship patterns in Neolithic Anatolia revealed by ancient genomes-R.Yaka Probabilities of 0.968, 0.019 and 0.009 for having intermediate, very pale and pale skin color were obtained respectively, including a high probability of having light hair color (> 0.99). Regarding the eye color prediction, probabilities of 0.547, 0.338 and 0.115 were obtained for brown, blue and intermediate color, respectively

    Genomes From Verteba Cave Suggest Diversity Within The Trypillians In Ukraine-Pere Gelabert "It is also interesting to remark that, except for two individuals, the majority of individuals from Verteba cave have the variant of SNP rs12913832 associated with blue eyes and the other two associated with dark eyes-

    And the conclusion is that the Yamnaya riders brought blond hair and blue eyes to Europe?-Ha ha Ha Ha Ha Ha-Maybe Andrei, Survive the Jive, escalante etc agree, they should find another hobby.

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  106. @Rob said "Despite what CNN Fake News tells you, Russia has no intention of invading Vasconica. There's nothing to be gained, so don't worry"

    You're right, nothing to be gained, then we are not afraid of anyone.
    Vasconia-7374 Km2
    Russia-17.125.171 Km2 (including Crimea-27.000 km2)
    China-9.596.960 Km2

    The Ukrainians are not the only ones who are scared, the Poles and the Baltics don't trust your friend Putin either.

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  107. The paper states that EEF 'brought in blonde hair'. I doubt that at least for "Germanic blond".

    Low eumelanin causes lighter hair. This kind of depigmentation alone results in "ash blond" aka "cool blond".

    Many Germanics have "warm blond" hair though. It's imo even characteristic. For this kind of hair you need besides a lower eumalanin an amount of the red/yellow pheomelanin/lipochrome.

    This is caused by (SNPedia)

    "rs1805008
    rs1805008, known as Arg160Trp or R160W, is one of several SNPs in the MC1R gene associated with red hair color (redheads), in this case in an Irish population [PMID 9665397] although this has also been reported in Icelandic and Dutch populations [PMID 18488028].

    The risk allele is rs1805008(T), compared with the wild-type rs1805008(C) allele."

    This is not only responsible for an amount of pheomelanin. This enhances also the risk of melanoma eery significant!

    How likely is it that this is brought in by EEF/Anatolian Farmers? I guess that chance is very low.....because in South Europe let alone the middle East having such a SNP type is beneath the burning sun kind of hara kiri.....

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  108. @Wee e
    Thanks for your comments. I agree; it's not a perfect correlation, I made some homework and I think you can find a correlation with latitude and pigmentation, and there are some papers, see https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2003703. I also noticed the very blond Bell Beakers arriving, didn't expect that.
    My point was to theorize on the most likely place where we should look for the origin of light pigmentation, and the obvious would be to look where this mutation was most beneficial and that wouldn't be Anatolia or Spain. More likely it would be at latitudes where this affected survival in the Palaeolithic, like EHG/ANE on the forrest taiga (and with light skin).
    I now live in northern Scandinavia where there is no sunlight at all for a month, so 5.6 hours of sunlight seems like a total luxury to me right now. A Saami word for sun is gaskaijabeaivváš, I think that tops Gaelic but I have no idea of the etymology. And ofc blondism is not fully explained only by a vitamin, I agree.

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  109. @ Gaska


    As expected, you have quoted literally nothing about Yamnaya hair color, and that's because you can't do it. No published study or book documents anything about Yamnaya hair color, although several attribute the spread of blond hair to the Yamnaya.


    Your quotes of ENF cultures show them having a small minority of light skin and blue eyes. Less than the Steppe cultures.

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  110. @ Matt

    LIAR!


    That graph IS in the published paper.

    HERE IT IS, ON THE RIGHT THIS TIME:

    https://els-jbs-prod-cdn.jbs.elsevierhealth.com/cms/attachment/6da98e44-c40a-43d9-b7a1-0b929a81033f/gr3.jpg


    Roflmao. The anti-blond Yamnaya crew is sweating now.

    Just face it, Yamnaya were heavily blond and blue eyed. Just like their closest extant relatives. You don't look like them and it makes you angry.

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  111. @weure, not necessarily so unlikely for changes linked to increased melanoma vulnerability to have evolved in Anatolian populations, as in fact we have evidence that for a separate vulnerability that may explain elevated European melanoma rates compared to East Asians of similar skin colour, this did evolve in Anatolian populations.

    Harris 2015 - https://www.pnas.org/content/112/11/3439 - "A comparison of SNPs private to Africa, Asia, and Europe in the 1000 Genomes data reveals that private European variation is enriched for the transition 5′-TCC-3′ → 5′-TTC-3′. Although it is not clear whether UV played a causal role in changing the European mutational spectrum, 5′-TCC-3′ → 5′-TTC-3′ is known to be the most common somatic mutation present in melanoma skin cancers, as well as the mutation most frequently induced in vitro by UV
    ...
    Alexandrov et al. (19) systematically inferred “mutational signatures” from 7,042 different cancers and found that melanoma has a unique mutational signature not present in any other cancer type they studied. Melanoma somatic mutations consist almost entirely of C→T transitions, 28% of which are TCC→T mutations (19, 31). The mutation types CCC→CTC and TCT→TTT, two other candidates for rate acceleration in Europe, are also prominent in the spectrum of melanoma (SI Appendix, section 11). Incidentally, melanoma is not only associated with UV light exposure but also with European ancestry, occurring at very low rates in Africans, African Americans, and even light-skinned Asians"


    E.g. tendency for this TCC->TTC somatic mutation to occur is enriched in Europeans and linkage to greater European melanoma rate (as much as 20x in Southern European groups with overlapping skin pigmentation with some East Asians).

    Speidel 2021 - https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/38/9/3497/6299394 - "We further show that the previously reported, but still unexplained, increase in the TCC/TTC mutation rate, which is strongest in West Eurasia today, was already present at similar strength and widespread in the Late Glacial Period ~10k−15k years ago, but is not observed in samples >30k years old. It is strongest in Neolithic farmers, and highly correlated with recent coalescence rates between other genomes and a 10,000-year-old Anatolian hunter-gatherer. "

    Anatolian farmers had an enriched rate of this TTC mutation type. This change possibly due to a change in mutator genes.

    And distribution is consistent with this (Anatolian ancestry) in present day populations - https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1006581 - Mathieson 2017 - "Signature 1 corresponds to the previously described European signal [8] characterized by TCC>T, ACC>T, CCC>T and TCT>T (possibly also including CCG>T, which overlaps with signature 2). Loadings of this component almost perfectly separate West Eurasians from other populations, with South-West Asians intermediate. It is seen most strongly in Western and Mediterranean Europe, with decreasing intensity in Northern and Eastern Europe, the Near East and South-West Asia."

    Melanoma has tended to have very low selective force in human evolution, as I understand it, anyway. Having MC1R variants linked to red hair and melanoma probably would not have been selected for in Anatolia, but the variants could've been around there at low frequency as easily as anywhere else, before moving to a higher frequency in Europe via drift/selection.

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  112. @jorge that figure is different than the one you posted from the preprint, and associates Yamnaya ancestry with darker eye colour and hair.

    @weure, also on the topic of blonde hair, it's not apparently just about the level of melanin in the hair according to this paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07691-z

    "Furthermore, we identify more than 200 genetic variants independently associated with multiple hair colours on the spectrum of blond to black. Notably, we find that many of the associated genes seem not to be involved in melanocyte biology per se, but are rather involved in hair growth or texture. This highlights the importance of the melanocyte–keratinocyte interactions in the determination of hair pigmentation and the impact of hair shape on colour perception."

    "Follicular melanocytes, keratinocytes and dermal papilla cells have mutual interactions; the dermal papilla signals to melanocytes with ASIP, the melanocytes transfer melanin granules into the keratinocytes. Perturbations of these interactions could affect the amount and type of melanin delivered to the hair. Furthermore, variation in growth rate could impact the effectiveness of melanin transfer. Recent GWAS have identified 14 loci associated with hair shape variation. Remarkably, we have identified seven of these, ERRFI1, FRAS1, HOXC13, PADI3, KRTAP, PEX14 and LGR4 as affecting blonde/non-blonde hair colour (P = 1×10−11, Fisher’s exact test). In addition, the refractive and reflective properties of individual hairs may affect perceived colour and there is evidence that different coloured hairs have different morphology. Vaughn et al. have demonstrated a strong inverse correlation between the lightness of hair colour and the diameter of the shaft; blonde hair is thinner than dark."

    As people explore the topic a bit more they might be able to characterize the different types of blonde hair, where there are those that are more associated with the structural variation, and those that are more effected by variants that directly effect pigmentation production.

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  113. @ Gaska

    You don;t have to trust or like him. I'm not sure I do, I haven't studied him tbh
    Russia doesn't really impact where I'm living, they did not invade western europe during the height of their power, so I don't think it'll happen now. The thing in Ukraine is obviously complex geopolitics which I also haven't really studied. My interest is ancient history, not modern politics. So as long as people don't move too much onto others frontiers and keep calm, it'll hopefully be ok

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  114. @Gaska, you don't say to much about the cherry-picking in blood type statistics between steppe and Iberia like Basque, do you care to explain? Red hair, skin color- any studies comparing steppe versus anatolia with Neaderthal genes?

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  115. On the topic of good evidence for selection on blonde hair, there was this in UK10K - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5182071/

    Detection of recent natural selection is a challenging problem in population genetics. Here we introduce the singleton density score (SDS), a method to infer very recent changes in allele frequencies from contemporary genome sequences. Applied to data from the UK10K Project, SDS reflects allele frequency changes in the ancestors of modern Britons during the past ~2000 to 3000 years. We see strong signals of selection at lactase and the major histocompatibility complex, and in favor of blond hair and blue eyes. For polygenic adaptation, we find that recent selection for increased height has driven allele frequency shifts across most of the genome.

    Definitely the signals found here at lactase persistence replicates in ancient dna (textbook) and the height selection seems to (although this is harder to check because of the lack of identified alleles of large effect that can be easily disentangled from population structure), so it seems fairly credible that blonde hair will.

    (As an aside, I kind of don't understand the people who take the position that "Blonde hair is considered more attractive, it's strongly favoured socially and romantically in Northern Europeans (and their ancestral populations), this has been consistently so for a long time... and at the same time, there has been absolutely no selection on it over the last 5000 years to increase the trait in frequency!".

    The only way that could be true is if there were disadvantages making people with such a phenotype less fit than others in other ways to stabilize selection. If it was consistently fitter (for social or other reasons), it changed in frequency. If it didn't increase in frequency it wasn't consistently fitter. There's no other option.

    And likewise for height, blue eyes, etc.)

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  116. This debate about eye and hair color brings out many trolls. I think I prefer the more reasonable approaches of Michalis Moriopoulos, Davidski and Matt over the dogmatic/emotional and dishonest approach of @Hannibal

    We can all agree that the Daily Mail article is rubbish in its terminology and I regret linking it because it does not deserve clicks

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  117. @Matt "Having MC1R variants linked to red hair and melanoma probably would not have been selected for in Anatolia, but the variants could've been around there at low frequency as easily as anywhere else, before moving to a higher frequency in Europe via drift/selection."

    Indeed those MC1R is tricky business in full sun exposure...so the route via EEF? Looks like the inverse variant developing of lactose intolrancy in a population without cows....

    "As people explore the topic a bit more they might be able to characterize the different types of blonde hair, where there are those that are more associated with the structural variation, and those that are more effected by variants that directly effect pigmentation production."

    Yep and warm vs cool blond is very recognizable though.

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  118. @ Matt

    "that figure is different than the one you posted from the preprint, and associates Yamnaya ancestry with darker eye colour and hair."


    LMFAO! No it isn't. It's literally the same exact chart.

    The Yamnaya odds of having black hair is behind 1, and their odds of being blond is ahead of 1. They also substantially above 1 in their probability of having blue eyes.


    Stop lying, dude. First you lied about the graph not being in the study, now you're lying about what it says. Either admit that you are lying, or pretend that you have extremely low visual acumen, and shy away from this comment section.

    The GWAS graph clearly shows Yamnaya were heavily blond and blue eyed, and the authors even admit that it contradicts their Estonian experiment.

    If you want to do the honorable thing and admit that you simply don't want Yamnaya to be blond, because it makes you feel uncomfortable, I will appreciate that. But anyone can clearly see that the Yamnaya in this chart have high odds of blond hair and light eyes, so trying to lie your way out of this isn't going to work.

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  119. @weure, variants like that could build up in a population at low frequency simply because they weren't doing too much harm, then be subsequently selected. Strong selection for those MC1R variants at high frequency in Europe would've been more likely within populations in Europe.

    @jorge

    So this:
    https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2021/08/04/2021.08.03.454888/F2.large.jpg

    is the same picture as this:
    https://els-jbs-prod-cdn.jbs.elsevierhealth.com/cms/attachment/6da98e44-c40a-43d9-b7a1-0b929a81033f/gr3.jpg

    It seems like there is one axis in common, "odds ratio". But otherwise they are obviously not the same.

    To pick out that one axis as definitive from the entire paper seems odd. Rather than the main figure - https://els-jbs-prod-cdn.jbs.elsevierhealth.com/cms/attachment/3eeb0d45-8eb5-4bef-ab3f-cb41deca1160/gr2.jpg - and summary of results which the researchers clearly regarded as more informative ("Anatolia_N enrichment in trait-related genomic regions is connected with a reduced BMI-corrected waist-to-hip ratio, reduced BMI, light (but not green) eyes and fair hair, increased age at menarche, and reduced heart rate. Notably, covA(i,Anatolia_N) has a substantial weight only in IC2, the single IC that reaches significance when predicting heart rate, suggesting a prominent role for this ancestry in determining this trait."). (If not just odd, also "dishonorable", perhaps).

    I don't personally have a strong opinion about this study, and the opinion I have is roughly the same as Davidski's, that subsequent selection and structure may confound these methods and that direct ancient dna is probably more informative. (And limited direct ancient dna does not suggest that blonde hair was especially at high frequency among the steppe populations.) Would also add that there is evidence for selection over time, which necessarily means a lower frequency of the phenotype in the past (which phenotype already tends to be at minority frequency).

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  120. Regarding the "Genome wide odds ratio" measurement they say:

    "We followed up the association between phenotypes and local excess or lack of a given ancestry and explored whether a similar pattern held at whole genome level by computing genome-wide covAs."

    (Main figures of interest look at ancestry around specific candidate regions across the genome identified by GWAS enriched for confident associations).

    "Here, being unable to correct for environmental confounders with a Z-score approach and avoiding genotype-based PCs as covariates in order not to hinder potential genome-wide signals, we run the risk of obtaining spurious ancestry-trait associations. This is due to uneven ancestry similarity across Estonia concurrent with geographically associated socio-economic differences that can potentially confound genotype-phenotype associations. Although the confounding effect of population structure is minimized by the inclusion of a relatively uniform population, small differences related to historical reasons are still visible in covA (see Figures S1G–S1J).

    Therefore, we include a city/countryside residency covariate in the models, defined as 1 for people living in the wealthiest and most populous county (Harju county) and 0 otherwise, and a covariate for educational attainment, which is a good proxy for family socioeconomic status.

    This control allows us to suggest a significant influence of genome-wide ancestry on 16 traits out of 27, as shown in Figure S3, even when geographical and social stratification is present (coefficient p value significant at Benjamini-Hochberg FDR = 0.05). Again, covA-based PCs were used to interpret significant results.

    Interestingly, we do not always observe concordance between the region-specific and genome-wide results, as shown in Figure 3, pointing to the fact that region specific trends are not always sufficient to drive genome-wide signals to significance or might even arise in a contrasting genomic background. This is especially true for less polygenic traits (e.g., pigmentation) but also for more polygenic ones, as indicated by height association with WHG. On the other hand, we also find genome-wide ancestry-trait connections that are not exacerbated in candidate regions, thus losing Z-score significance. This can occur for a single ancestry (e.g., Anatolia_N or Siberia and height) or cause the loss of trait associations altogether, as for alcohol consumption, depression, sleep duration, social jetlag, diopters, pulse pressure, and creatinine levels. Finally, we observed that genome-wide covAs for WHG and Yamnaya tend to be linked to most phenotypes in a similar fashion, in contrast with results found in candidate regions where the two ancestries behave in a more independent manner (Figure S3)."

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  121. @matt "variants like that could build up in a population at low frequency simply because they weren't doing too much harm, then be subsequently selected. Strong selection for those MC1R variants at high frequency in Europe would've been more likely within populations in Europe."

    The point is they can do much harm.....less in foggy and froggy outmost NW Europe but in full sunexposure, with high UV rates, there is very high risk of cancer. Quit devistating for the survival rate. Clear case.

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  122. @ Matt


    You are spamming irrelevant quotes from the paper. Yes, the graphical format of the two images is slightly different, but the data is exactly identical. Yamnaya have higher odds of having blond hair and light eyes than they do of having black hair or dark eyes.

    And no, neither graph is more informative than the other.

    One graph has to do with the association of phenotypes in modern Estonians, which was one component of this paper

    and

    ... the other graph is an actual Genome-Wide Associstion Study that includes Yamnaya pigmentation info.




    The authors of the paper acknowledge that the inferred results of their Estonian experiment contrast with the actual genome data. The actual genome data says that Yamnaya were far blonder and lighter-eyed than Anatolian Farmers. That's what's relevant to our discussion about Yamnaya hair color.


    Davidski has raised serious doubts about the Estonian experiment, as well. But what nobody can criticise is the GWAS study. It's the first of its kind to include Yamnaya phenotype information, and it's one of the final nails in the coffin of the Old Wive's Tale that Yamnaya were primarily dark-haired and dark-eyed. Thanks to this GWAS, the first of its kind to document Yamnaya pigmentation traits, we're finally coming out of this online mental ghetto, in which no one ever spoke truthfully about Yamnaya.

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  123. @Hannibal&Escalante-If in the year 2022 you still think that the people of Yamnaya were blue-eyed blond Aryans, you don't understand anything about genetics. So it is not worth discussing this topic with you.

    Blond hair is NOT an exclusive trait of the Yamnaya culture (only a small percentage of the samples present this trait) it is also found in HGs and Anatolian farmers.

    1-SHGs-Motala1 and Motala6 had a light shaded hair (~0.91); blond (~0.60).
    2-WHGS-Blond hair-Bichon (0.75), LEPE18 (0.83), LEPE52 (0.82)
    3-Anatolian Farmers-Blond Hair-AKT20 (0.82), BARCIN20 (0.74), BARCIN32 (0.66)
    Asxıklı Höyük128 (Yaka, 2.021)-Probabilities of 0.968, 0.019 and 0.009 for having intermediate, very pale and pale skin color were obtained respectively, including a high probability of having light hair color (> 0.99).

    In the EARLY FARMERS of Central Europe LIGHT EYE and HAIR COLOR both occurred (interestingly only in the same individuals). It can be argued if these phenotypes in the early farmers were introduced by admixture with contemporary hunter-gatherers during the migration towards Central Europe or if they are the result of population stratification

    1-Central European Farmers-Blond Hair-Samples-288-88-2, DIL15, KLEIN2, BLA10, BLA13-The early farmers of the Aegean/Balkan region, where the data indicated only dark eyed phenotypes with few lighter hair shades.
    2-Eastern European Farmers- Verteba Cave-CCT- 90% blue eyed and some blond haired

    There are more cases in Italy, France and Iberia, if you want I can pass you the links so you can read the papers carefully.

    The pigmentation lightening in Central Europe was a gradual process and several alleles in associated genes experienced changes in frequencies. When alleles in a gene had reached high frequencies, derived alleles in other genes began to increase as well. The level of depigmentation (skin, eyes, hair) reached during the BRONZE AGE, was probably very similar to modern-day Central-South European populations

    In mainland europe we already have light skin, blond hair and blue eyes since the mesolithic and neolithic-We Spaniards are overwhelmingly R1b-P312 (with supposed origin in the steppes), we have very good percentages of WHG (especially the Basques, more than most Europeans) and yet only 15-20% have blue eyes (in some areas of the Navarrese and Aragonese Pyrenees-25-30%)-

    From whom have we inherited these traits, WHGs, EEFs, Yamnaya?-In my humble opinion all these populations have contributed to our current physical appearance, in my case I guess I am white because of my Anatolian ancestors, I have blue eyes because of my WHgs ancestors and I am blond because of my EHGs ancestors, but any other variation is possible (the possible combinations will change depending on the autosomal composition of each individual).



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  124. That one particular newspaper gets science wrong is hardly the defining problem here. When a scientific field starts redefining Europe and Asia, that's where you start. Why are they doing it?

    Answer: The Nazis put the Indo-European homeland in Germany. So we, the virtuous people, do the opposite and put it in Asia. You'd think that enough time had passed that we'd all assume good intentions of each other, but some people, like old generals, insist on fighting the last war. EVERY field in academia has been overtaken by leftist ideology, including population genetics.

    ReplyDelete
  125. @Jorge

    This chart from the Supplemental is much easier to read correctly:
    https://i.imgur.com/eugt8hm.png

    Yamnaya have no genes for blonde hair

    ReplyDelete
  126. @ Gaska

    I dont trust him either, but I also don't trust the CIA
    It’s just a game played by oligarchs and the politicians which serve them. Regular people have nothing to gain from it on either side

    ReplyDelete
  127. @ MarkB

    The frankfurt school:
    After it became clear that communism had no real future in Western Europe & the west in general, Western Communists transformed their approach into the very earliest forms of social justice, away from the more economic and militant form of communism. And they found a soft underbelly in academia, who were toying with some ideas out of good intention

    ReplyDelete
  128. @Weure,
    The survey you cited about pigmentation (The Netherlands, Poland, Britain, France, ... Kazakhstan) is a mess, I'm an amateur but I can do very better in classification, they grouped categories which was to be separated, because they need very different genetic basis. How establish correct genetic links (SNP's concerned loci) when you are not able to determine modes and appropriate enough "fronteers" in the phenotypical pigmentation cline? And that said, the knowledge about genetic pigmentation has improved but is far to be perfect. I tried to post you something in a forum to avoid to polluate this thread but I was said it was impossible to send you personal posts

    ReplyDelete
  129. Jorge, what about pigment/eye/hair genes side by side comparison of Corded Ware R1a and Yamnaya R1b from around 2500/3000BC?

    ReplyDelete
  130. Jorge, you need to learn what evolution, founder effects, selective pressure, etc... are.

    You have a very static view of archeogenetics. Phenotypes change over 6 or 7 thousand years. We were all dark skinned 40 thousand years back.

    ReplyDelete
  131. @CopperAxe

    Does PIE indicate how the domestic apple traveled? Was there trade between WSHG and WSHs?

    ReplyDelete
  132. @ Paul

    I think the Crabapple is more relevant to PIE...The Crabapple distribution basically starts at the Don all the way to the West. The domesticated Apple have a huge chunk of Crabapple genes....

    ReplyDelete
  133. @ All

    At what age does skin cancer occur the most ? If it is only after reproductive age then it could have had only a minor effect on reproductive capability and population size since the overall life expectancy would have been much lower anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  134. @ weure

    "So Davidski is not right when he states:
    "North Germans and Scandinavians are blonder than most Baltic people."


    Here's the thing many people blindly believe in genetic studies without taking a closer look at the methodology. Matter of fact, not a few studies are flawed since they don't contextual their findings. For instance geneticists for PC reasons don't distinguish between an ethnic German, a German by assimilation or self-identification. Being precise like that would be considered racist. So scientists are on a short, tight leash and always walking on eggshells when researching genes and physical traits. For example, there is a myherigate clip about individuals who thought they were fully German but scored 0% German but instead, they got other European ancestries in their DNA results. That illustrates that many Germans are not proper Germans.


    Besides, most people are not aware that there are countless Dutch people who are actually part Indonesian. From my observation swarthy Dutch who look atypical have often an Indonesian grandparent/ancestry. Eddie Van Halen like Marcus Schenkenberg is a quarter Indonesian, two Dutch hosts in German TV Marijke Amado, and the wife from Raphael Van de Vaart also said to be a quarter Indonesian. Van Persie is a football player who has some Indonesian or Portuguese? ancestry, So these admixed Dutch will be counted as native Dutch and will be presented to counter the blond and Nordic dutch stereotype.

    Anyway, Estonia is a small and pretty much homogeneous country. In contrast, Germany received millions of migrants from other parts of Europe after WWII.

    Nevertheless, that the Germans are getting darker and less blond was observed 20 or 25 years ago. The truth of the matter is, native Germans are selecting against blond hair and blue eyes for a while now. Once again, many local Germans are of foreign or part foreign European origin, thus Germans by assimilation. There are millions of Germans who were originally from Poland, Russia, Hungary, Romania, certain parts of Ukraine, the Balkans, etc. Plus, thanks to social engineering and nonstop advertisement, and the glamorization, romanticization of interracial datings, the number of interracial couples and mixing is strongly rising. When you go on the street, shopping you barely see all blond couples since the most Nordic-looking Germans have often exotic and foreign partners and kids with them. You actually don't need a study but only your eyes to witness on a daily basis that the Germans are getting darker and will be rather swarthy in the nearer future. But the point still stands that ethnic North Germans and Scandvinias are among the blondest Europeans. In North Germany dark blond hair was already counted as dark.

    ReplyDelete
  135. @ All

    Apparently the life expectancy of Paleolithic Humans were roundabout 35 years and Skin Cancer diagnosis roundabout 60 years. So even if Skin Cancer became a major problem among people at average 30 years of age then there were at least 12 to 15 years of reproductive success after which other reproductive problems could have kicked in even in populations with low chance skin cancer....

    ReplyDelete
  136. @ Mark B.

    "Answer: The Nazis put the Indo-European homeland in Germany. So we, the virtuous people, do the opposite and put it in Asia. You'd think that enough time had passed that we'd all assume good intentions of each other, but some people, like old generals, insist on fighting the last war. EVERY field in academia has been overtaken by leftist ideology, including population genetics."


    The lie that the Steppe people/ Proto-Indo-Europeans are Mongoloid nomads from Asia, is not remotely better than the lie that the Indo-Europeans came straight from Germany. However, if you reject the Indo-Europeans were "Asian nomads" aka Mongoloid/East Asians- lie, you'll be attacked as a racist and white supremacist.

    So facts, reality are not really important to the woke narrative. That's why according to the leftist blackwashing European history is great and should be celebrated. They argue that this kind of rewriting of history uplifts the underrepresented, oppressed black folks since they can play European Kings, Queens, Generals, and mythological heroes in movies while whitewashing must be condemned and rejected.


    For example, BBC made a documentary about the history of Roman Britain. The average Roman family, the Roman army, and all Roman slave masters and good guys were portrayed as black, while all slaves and the bad guys as white. Even some of the Celts and Normans were depicted as black.

    Black Washing History? Troy & BBC Cartoon Debunking - YouTube


    Nevertheless, everybody who complained about this falsification and rewriting of history was accused by the leftist media and Marxist academics of being a racist, white supremacist.

    Here's the thing, liberal leftists deem their goals more important than telling the truth. ☝


    ReplyDelete
  137. @Gaska,


    forget about geography or location, the main goal of the DM journalists was to play slick and deceive their white/European readers (and others) into thinking that they are part Mongoloid/East Asian and owe their height to them. The term "Asian nomads" was not about location but had a racial undertone. In fact, the media succeeded in fooling their readers about Steppe people who were Caucasian being Chinese-like. So if Europeans are part Asian/Mongoloid and their WHG ancestors black/African anyway, then Europeans have to shut up, embrace diversity, and mass migration because they're mongrels anyway.

    The media knows how to apply psychological tricks in order to control the minds of the masses. Don't get me wrong, if the Steppe people were in fact East Asians or WHGs African, I wouldn't mind since facts are facts. However, I hate it when journalists insert their agenda into scientific articles and by doing so mislead the public.

    ReplyDelete
  138. @Wise dragon,

    I'm interested in the paper, and in the topic, with some facts and figures etc.

    What you are pointing at is 'preservation' of certain features. Wel I don't give a damn about that, it's imo disturbing for honest interest.

    'The Germans are getting darker and less blond was observed 20 or 25 years ago', only twenty years? ;) 80-90 years ago I heard the same but then it were the Jews, Slaves, Roma etc who 'spoiled' it. May be there is somewhere in Southern America an obscure area were you can start a plant in which you can start a collective crying about the loss of the pure Herrenvolk....Go ahead.

    Back to the paper, I will contact you @Moesan.

    ReplyDelete
  139. @Jorge, do you think that they ran Yamnaya samples through GWAS on modern samples or something like this? That's definitely not the case, and they didn't do that at all. These are all results based on modern-day Estonians.

    (Which is what I assume you mean by "Genome-Wide Associstion Study that includes Yamnaya pigmentation info". Obviously they can't directly run a soft tissue GWAS on a small pool of Yamnaya ancient samples whose soft tissues decomposed 5000 years ago!).

    ReplyDelete
  140. @Ric Hearn
    Skin cancer is not the only skin problem caused by sun exposure.

    ReplyDelete
  141. @All

    Wise dragon went on a bit of rant there. But he made an important point...

    Don't get me wrong, if the Steppe people were in fact East Asians or WHGs African, I wouldn't mind since facts are facts.

    Most us here can agree that any outcome from ancient DNA is fine, as long as it's true.

    But let's all be honest here, Europeans didn't get their (our) height from Asian nomads.

    ReplyDelete
  142. Interesting, with G25 WSHG have an apparent ~ 10% East Asian admixture on top of ANE, but with qpGraph, theyre actually more western than ANE. Consistent with backflow of some 'basal' clades of R1b (M73, PH155) to Siberia

    ReplyDelete
  143. @ MarkB

    ''EVERY field in academia has been overtaken by leftist ideology, including population genetics.''

    Even Maths ? So 1 + 2 = zher ?

    ReplyDelete
  144. @ weure


    " only twenty years? ;) 80-90 years ago I heard the same but then it were the Jews, Slaves, Roma etc who 'spoiled' it. May be there is somewhere in Southern America an obscure area were you can start a plant in which you can start a collective crying about the loss of the pure Herrenvolk....Go ahead."


    Stop overreacting, and virtue signaling for goodness'sake. I didn't know that you were alive 80 and 90 years ago. LOL. I'm stating facts, my own observations and you come up with passing a judgment, resorting to emotionalized talking, and deflecting arguments.

    Do you seriously try to paint me as a Nazi for presenting facts? 🤣🥱 Ridiculous! Stop being paranoid, stop being stuck in Nazi Germany when discussing the frequency and origin of blond hair, Indo-Europeans, and mixing. We are in the year 2022 and it's time to move on, and start discussing physical appearance and traits without accusations and ad hominem attacks and seeing Nazis everywhere. My point is, that Germany is not as homogeneous as Estonia, thus the scientists have to distinguish between ethnic and cultural/assimilated Germans when they refer to "Germans" in their studies. What's wrong with that? There was a flawed study that took Russian/Volga Germans with Uralic ancestry as the reference group and therefore came to the false conclusion, that Germans are part Turkish.


    And yes, Germans are getting darker this fact was even brought up in the media, and I can see that for myself. So, why are you triggered and disturbed by that? It's a hard-cold fact, that Germany today looks different than 25 years ago and is more diverse than ever. Leftists, liberal politicians, the media are celebrating and pointing out the fact that native Germans( like many Europeans) will be a minority in their own country and more "colorful".

    Recently Biden on TV also proudly asserted that white Americans will be an absolute minority in the USA. Will you link these woke liberals to Nazis too? Besides, did I lie when I said that many Dutch have Indonesian ancestry?

    Anyway, you don't need a freaking study for everything and especially not when discussing things that are observable on daily basis. It's obvious you can't refute my claims thus you react emotionally. May I ask you? Why do you take part in discussions about blond hair and genetics. Why do you care about who is blonder? Why do you care about your Germanic ancestry?

    ReplyDelete
  145. Next thing is Europeans stole their civilization from Austronesians..Who knows whats next with PC globalists.

    ReplyDelete
  146. @ Palacista

    Indeed however my point is, do any of those skin problems really affect a population from procreating before those people reach reproductive age ?

    ReplyDelete
  147. @mark
    "Answer: The Nazis put the Indo-European homeland in Germany. So we, the virtuous people, do the opposite and put it in Asia. You'd think that enough time had passed that we'd all assume good intentions of each other, but some people, like old generals, insist on fighting the last war. EVERY field in academia has been overtaken by leftist ideology, including population genetics."

    Lol no. The reason Ultimate homeland is not steppe anymore is because there's no steppe even till old hittite period samples in Anatolia. Whereas, iran related ancestry is present everywhere - Anatolia, steppe, europe, SC asia.

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  148. @Wise Dragon, Interesting BBC, labeled movie "The Battle at Lake Changjin" as propaganda. The movie is the 2nd highest grossing in 2021. It begins with traditional family core values in a traditional village, and ends with epic battle- against the invaders. The PPC does not show any wokeness.

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  149. @ Wise dragon, it's you who is starting to discus about the preservation of blondness is kind of off topic. It's you who started about Indonesians in Dutch (even call them swarthy). Zero relevance.

    I don't want to get stuck in a pathetic and off topic discussion.....and I don't answer your maddened insinuations and all, not my thing. Good luck with it.

    ReplyDelete
  150. @ Davidski But let's all be honest here, Europeans didn't get their (our) height from Asian nomads.

    At least I now know were my 6 feet 4 is from ;)

    But what about I have stated the blond hair as stated in the paper from EEF to Northern Europeans?

    I can imagine a kind of depigmentation that went along with EEF.

    But as I said blond hair is not blond hair. Many in NW Europe, especially some Germanics, have warm blond hair. That means simply a certain amount of phaeomelanin (yellow/red pigment). But more phaeomelanin means also more danger of skin cancer etc etc. It's no wonder that red heads are beneath 45d parallel north red heads seldom...

    So if not EEF (?) who or what founding population could be brought this in? What is your idea Davidski?

    ReplyDelete
  151. @Wise dragon
    “Stop being paranoid, stop being stuck in Nazi Germany when discussing the frequency and origin of blond hair, Indo-Europeans, and mixing.”

    Do not connect Germans, blond hair and Indo-Europeans. Germans, blond hair, blue eyes and genes responsible for these physical traits, have nothing to do with Indo-Europeans.
    Indo-Europeans are defined by language and culture, religion etc. It is related to the construction of the soul and not to the physical look. To find Indo-European genes we have to look for these alleles which are responsible for the construction of the soul, soul which inherited specific genetic traits and therefore possesses specific religious intuitions and feelings expressed in culture, myths etc. You will never understand this when you lack these alleles in your genome.
    We know that the Indo-European homeland was not in Germany. I don’t want to tell where exactly Indo-European homeland was because I don’t want to upset vAsiSTha.

    ReplyDelete
  152. @vAsiSTha said-Iran related ancestry is present everywhere - Anatolia, steppe, europe, SC asia.

    Surely you think that the Basques also have our origin in Iran.

    ReplyDelete
  153. @gaska

    "Surely you think that the Basques also have our origin in Iran."

    I havent looked at basque ancestry yet.

    ReplyDelete
  154. “To find Indo-European genes we have to look for these alleles which are responsible for the construction of the soul, soul which inherited specific genetic traits and therefore possesses specific religious intuitions and feelings expressed in culture, myths etc. You will never understand this when you lack these alleles in your genome.”

    Lol, never thought I’d find Lamarckism on a genetics blog.

    Not only in time but in nearby places you get very divergent worldviews amongst closely related IE populations: eg, between first-millenium (pre-Christian) Norse and British insular indo-europeans.

    One look at the radical differences in decorative metalwork and in carvings shows you: these two societies side by side…

    Norse imagery — chaotic and monstrous, possibly influenced by their mythos of chaotic foggy horrid beginnings and dreadful Fimbulwinter end of everything. The gods — endlessly capricious individuals perpetually at one another’s necks. Knotwork literally granny knots full of loose ends and animals that often make no sense anatomically, and often peter out.

    In Britain and Ireland, a meld/continuation of pre-bronze age, Hallstatt, late La Tene and some Roman artistic (and even Byzantine, by early Christian times) style: the insular characteristic being that they all get incorporated into a vision of the universe as overall orderly, regular and regulated.

    Even the mythical conflicts of the British Isles are in neat patterns and tropes, and often explicitly ritualised battles between two sets of allies, or champion-combat to resolve disputes. Knotwork that is grid-pattern regular, beasts that always have the right number of limbs eventually, no matter how they coil about. Everything with its beginning and end.

    The Vikings started using superficially knotwork comparatively late, possibly inspired by artefacts they were raiding: it’s a fact that their take on knotwork is fundamentally different, even though they also expressed it in stone and metalwork and in similar artistic styles. It tells you they had a deep philosophical and spiritual difference to the sensibility at large in the British Isles.

    Yet genetically they are pretty close, no?

    And then there’s those Kusha/Agni “Tocharian” Buddhists on the Silk Road and buried around the Tarim basin — paternally western? Apparently their Afansievo forefathers were (maybe) representing wheeled vehicles in their art. But I don’t think anyone was forcing Buddhism on them. Or Zoroastrianism, which apparently some of them followed (in its imperial Parthian iteration as Manicheansim).

    Quite a variety of “specific religious intuitions and feelings” for quite a long time, innit?
    And even retaining, borrowing and modifying very similar visual repertoires to express some diametrically opposite philosophies.

    ReplyDelete
  155. @Aryaglory

    "I give a hint, before Ice age, humans were black.
    Bell beakers were black as well"

    I assume this is in jest?

    @Rob

    "Interesting, with G25 WSHG have an apparent ~ 10% East Asian admixture on top of ANE, but with qpGraph, theyre actually more western than ANE."

    I can't help but ask, have you found out anything novel in regards to EHG/CHG/ANE interaction with East Asians? For me it's an interesting topic because Central Asia back then seems a surprisingly dynamic place despite the climatic conditions and vast distances.

    @Davidski

    "Most us here can agree that any outcome from ancient DNA is fine, as long as it's true."

    I feel that the reason why see articles like that linked in your post (sometimes academic articles don't make much sense either) is that in many cases multiple models for a population can work or there is enough ambiguity of a certain signal that findings can be interpreted differently, sometimes on purpose sometimes not.
    For example the debate about CHG/Iran_N and Yamnaya, or whether WHG have Near Eastern admixture or not.
    But of course, some things are more well known, for example I can't see how one can call WHG "African".

    ReplyDelete
  156. Mooslims have been eating red meat for centuries, however their height is considerably lower than an average vegetarian guy
    Some boring old facts:
    Afghanistan, average height of males; 169.2 cm (5 ft 6+1⁄2 in). Given generations of perpetual war and the hardship of living in low-fertility territory, that’s actually pretty good.

    Let’s look at some other Muslims. Kosovo is 92% Muslim.
    The average body height of the over-all sample of male [final year high school students] subjects [in Kosovo] was 179.52±5.96 centimetres, while the tallest subjects live in the central region of Kosovo (180.62±5.88 cm), the medium ones in the northern region (180.29±5.72 cm), shorter ones in the western region (179.±5.88 cm), those shorter than them in the southern region (179.15±5.56 cm), and finally the shortest ones live in the eastern region (177.68±6.65 cm) of Kosovo.
    Regional Differences in Adult Body Height in Kosovo
    Bojan Masanovic, Tonci Bavcevic, Ivan Prskalo.

    So the average of the not-quite-fully-grown guys in the “short” area of Kosovo is the average for fully mature young European males.

    The Dardani people of the central plain (averaging 180.62cm nowadays) were known to the ancient Greeks as Illyrians because their language and culture was so similar to that of that neighbouring kingdom. They are largely the same population now, in Kosovo. Definitely taller than loads of other indo-Europeans who are fully mature. And they’re Muslim.

    What does this prove about “the height of Muslims”? Nothing, because it’s an excruciatingly dumb, incoherent concept.

    ReplyDelete
  157. I smile when I see studies applying statistical / mathematical approach (so supposedly looking "serious") mixing vaste regions reference pop's to make comparisons or, as for Britain, pretending to evaluate seriously selection on pop's without to take in account pop's changes (immigrations/colonisation)along history. In Mesolithic Europe we had HG's local pop's between 1m55 to more than 1m70 (all males!)- according to the diversity of samples numbers for every subregion and the hazard of our discoveries, we could find very different results as new discoveries will show up.
    Like that we could say the US population is losing height so undergoing some kind of new selection, all that without to explore the diverse communauties and their mixings/lack of mixings or the evolution of their respective weight in the global pop...

    ReplyDelete
  158. @Gaska “ @vAsiSTha said-Iran related ancestry is present everywhere - Anatolia, steppe, europe, SC asia.

    Surely you think that the Basques also have our origin in Iran”

    When it comes to willful ignorance, you’re not better off than him lol

    ReplyDelete
  159. @ Rob

    “Interesting, with G25 WSHG have an apparent ~ 10% East Asian admixture on top of ANE, but with qpGraph, theyre actually more western than ANE. Consistent with backflow of some 'basal' clades of R1b (M73, PH155) to Siberia.”

    That’s intriguing. Does this mean East Asian/Devil’s Gate admixture showed up much later in Central Asia, just before Botai? Botai has a significant amount of it, as well as Y-DNA N1a.

    ReplyDelete
  160. Main Stream Media? as opposite to ?.

    ReplyDelete
  161. Japan and S.Korea both had changes in height. Japan after their war in 1945 and Korea after their war. Korean women have gained 20cm.
    Both have a major change in diet during US occupation. At one time the Japanese growth was attributed to children drinking milk. Anyone interested in the evolutionary basis of the rapid rise of lactose tolerance in Europe might check out East Asian data. The advantages of having horses and cattle for year round milk and meat possibly were greater then the use of them in transportation and battle.
    In both these countries women's bust size has has also rapidly increased.

    ReplyDelete
  162. @Andrzejewski

    Well, the claim that these populations have Iran_N-related ancestry is correct (it seems for Anatolia as well), what remains to be seen is whether this has anything to do with PIE which is what Krause et al suggest as Davidski mentioned.

    @aeolius

    Average height in Japan today seems to be 1,72 but I read somewhere it used to be 1,60 during WW2 or before that. Rapid increase indeed.

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  163. @ Gamerz, Simon-Steven

    I was surprised by the WSHG result, I was expecting some East Asian there, so offered it however it was coming back as 0 0r 1%. Instead the stats were showing it needing something linking it to Pinarbasi or Tagliente, but not them per se, meaning it was some form of west Eurasian which fed into them both
    I have not worked down to Botai yet, but my hypothesis would be that East Asian admixture (in the form of some 'basal Yhg N) arrived on the cusp of the Eneolithic


    @ Gaska
    Basques are from the Andaman Islands, because apparently that's where Y-hg R1 is from :)

    ReplyDelete
  164. @ gamerz

    As I intimated previously, the so-called 'Eastern Non-African" is just eastern West Asian or central Asian at best. Iran_N and CHG share a common ancestor, most likely the Zarzian culture, but differ in their proportion of north African admixture, & Iran retains more of that 'ENA'

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  165. @Rob

    That’s intriguing, good work. Can you post a link to your results, I’d love to view them. If not, no worries, thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  166. Mark, there is nothing "leftist" about them. I mean, your mumbling politically correct nonsense yourself. People have been trying to peg down the racial and cultural origins of indo European peoples for like the last 200 years. I would argue that why progress has been made, we still have a lot to learn. Just because some people get triggered by terms like "ancient Asian nomads", we are talking about the same EHG,EEF,WSHG tribes with differing genetic profiles along the western side of Eurasia.

    Let's also remember the Nazis were basically left hegelian movement descendents........basically "leftist" up until ww1 before scared social democrats(hegelian centrists) started the whole right wing thing. You must free your mind Mark. I have been reading some Bruno Bauer as we speak......

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  167. @Midgard

    If it doesn't matter, then can you explain to me why they're never called "ancient European nomads"?

    Try to make it convincing.

    ReplyDelete
  168. @Rob

    Appreciate the reply as always, so in your opinion there is North African admixture in both CHG and Iran_N? As in Taforalt-like?

    I assume then, that this "ENA" admixture you are specifying is what ANE has (the Central Asian stuff), but not something closer to Tianyuan or Onge?

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  169. @Wee e

    “Lol, never thought I’d find Lamarckism on a genetics blog.


    “modern biology no longer rejects the inheritance of acquired characteristics (Lamarckism) as strongly as it once did”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgenerational_epigenetic_inheritance

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  170. "Interesting, with G25 WSHG have an apparent ~ 10% East Asian admixture on top of ANE, but with qpGraph, theyre actually more western than ANE. Consistent with backflow of some 'basal' clades of R1b (M73, PH155) to Siberia.”

    @Rob
    That R1b connection is a reach. In any case, Tarim basin EMBA has no such backflow (if indeed such a backflow did happen in tyumen which I doubt), tarim has significantly more east asian than MA1 or Yana.

    ReplyDelete
  171. @Jorge
    "Interestingly, we also see that Yamnayans must have been light eyed, based on the genomic data."

    Blonde hair is a complicated phenotype but in order for a human to have blue/green/grey eyes they need to be homozygous G on rs12913832. It's a very simple trait, you don't need to do a GWAS. If you aren't GG you can't have blue eyes. Feel free to consult the Reich dataset and look up how many Yamnaya and other steppe genomes have a call for G on rs12913832 and how many don't.

    (Of course, these are pseudo-haploid genomes and it's a recessive trait so even if they're called for G it doesn't mean the individual actually had blue eyes, but let's ignore that for the sake of simplicity)

    "Roflmao. The anti-blond Yamnaya crew is sweating now.

    Just face it, Yamnaya were heavily blond and blue eyed. Just like their closest extant relatives. You don't look like them and it makes you angry."

    Is this "anti-blond Yamnaya crew" in the room with us now? :)

    BTW, these are the closest pops to Yamnaya_Samara in the g25:

    Distance to: Yamnaya_RUS_Samara
    0.12876541 Finnish_East
    0.12908938 Finnish_Central
    0.12954594 Erzya
    0.12973371 Ingrian
    0.13027219 Finnish_Southeast
    0.13085658 Russian_Leshukonsky
    0.13088201 Russian_Kostroma
    0.13135934 Tajik_Rushan
    0.13138104 Darginian
    0.13147593 Karelian
    0.13204163 Russian_Pinezhsky
    0.13212220 Moksha
    0.13234624 Russian_Krasnoborsky
    0.13311942 Finnish_North
    0.13406129 Komi
    0.13479357 Vepsian
    0.13598578 Russian_Tver
    0.13612317 Kaitag
    0.13656650 Finnish_Southwest
    0.13659480 Russian_Pinega
    0.13685971 Kubachinian
    0.13790615 Avar
    0.13808200 Russian_Ryazan
    0.13821918 Russian_Yaroslavl
    0.13822199 Tajik_Shugnan

    Which of these populations did you have in mind?

    BTW height is linked to steppe but it's also a trait influenced by selection. Which is why Serbs, Montenegrins, etc are on average taller than the French and the English despite having less steppe ancestry

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  172. @ Simon
    Hopefully soon

    @ vasistha
    The Tarim basin data is eastern because it has additional admixture from the east, not because there was a long lost ANE tribe from India or Turkmenistan

    ReplyDelete
  173. @alex

    In order for a human to have blue/green/grey eyes they need to be homozygous G on rs12913832.

    Not really.

    Europeans with AG at rs12913832 can have green, grey or even blue eyes, but with a hazel ring around the iris.

    ReplyDelete
  174. "not because there was a long lost ANE tribe from India or Turkmenistan"

    Never claimed as such. In any case, the impact of the tarim ancestry in the chalcolithic period is much higher than Tyumen ancestry, much more impact that it is given credit for. Will write a blog post soon about that.

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  175. @ weure

    Stop behaving disingenuously. The topic was also about Eestionians and their blondness. Davidski linked the blondism of Estonians to their German admixture. In contrast, you were denying that German admixture in Estonians had anything to do with their high frequency of blond hair and accused Davidski of not being able to let go of his bias. Plus, you started with ad hominem by bringing up the worn-out Nazi crap. Unlike you, I was trying to give the CONTEXT, why in spite of the fact that Germans appear to be less blond than Estonians, the German admixture could be linked to the blondism in Estonians. Plus, I didn't talk about the preservation of blond hair but brought up the fact that Germans are getting darker and more diverse. You don't get that. Once again, it was YOU who was going offtopic by getting personal, blabbering about Jews, Gypsies, and pure Herrenmenschen, and what happened 80 or 90 years ago. Your outcry was offtopic and not my observations, arguments that were
    topic-related.

    By the way, why do you care where you 6'4''came from? As a good woke Dutch you should give a damn about your lineage, ancestry, genes, and phenotype anyway since according to your own leftist ideology that's racist.






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  176. @Midgard

    "Just because some people get triggered by terms like "ancient Asian nomads",



    Unlike you, there are people who rightfully get triggered by scientific articles that spread disinformation and communicate the findings in studies in a dishonest and misleading way. By the way, I‘m not triggered by the term "Asian nomads" but by the dishonesty behind it. At least the authors could have clarified what they mean by "Asian nomads" and who these "Asian nomads" were exactly. So according to you people should put up and shut up when Steppe folks are being mispresented as East Asian. But would you also say people shouldn't get triggered if Daily mail would've referred to the Yamnaya as Nordic Aryan nomads?

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  177. @EastPole

    "Do not connect Germans, blond hair, and Indo-Europeans. Germans, blond hair, blue eyes and genes responsible for these physical traits, have nothing to do with Indo-Europeans."

    You didn't get the point. Whenever Steppe people/Indo-Europeans and blond hair are being discussed there are always some folks who feel compelled to smear other debaters by trying to link them to Nazi science. It's a neurosis. I'm sick of it.

    ReplyDelete

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