The Origin of White Skin , Blue eyes & Blond Hair

There seem to be a lot of confusion regarding origins of blue eyes , white skin , blonde/red hair
So I thought it would be a good Idea to make a thread about it here on ATS.



Blue Eyes:

In 2008 a report was published which stated that all blue eyed people descended from a single ancestor who lived 8000 years ago near the black sea region.

“The team, whose research is published in the journal Human Genetics, identified a single mutation in a gene called OCA2, which arose by chance somewhere around the northwest coasts of the Black Sea in one single individual, about 8,000 years ago"

White Skin:

In 2015 a report was published by Harvard University & American Association of Physical Anthropologists. Which stated that prior to 8000 years ago people living in Europe didn’t had the genes for white skin.

“modern humans who came out of Africa to originally settle Europe about 40,000 years are presumed to have had dark skin, And the new data confirm that about 8500 years ago, early hunter-gatherers in Spain, Luxembourg, and Hungary also had darker skin: They lacked versions of two genes—SLC24A5 and SLC45A2—that lead to depigmentation and pale skin in Europeans today. […]”

During the Paleolithic era Europe was originally inhabited by Neanderthals and Homo-sapiens (hunter gatherers) with the Y-chromosome of haplogroup C , today males with haplogroup C can be still found among Aborigines & Indonesians , Whereas people of European decent(Caucasians) mainly belong to maternal & paternal DNA haplogroups that originated in the Middle-East when Neolithic farmers started appearing in Turkey around 7000 B.C

The report continues…

Then, the first farmers from the Near East arrived in Europe; they carried both genes for light skin. As they interbred with the indigenous hunter-gatherers, one of their light-skin genes swept through Europe, so that central and southern Europeans also began to have lighter skin. The other gene variant, SLC45A2, was at low levels until about 5800 years ago when it swept up to high frequency."

“Ancient remains from southern Sweden 7,700 years ago were found to have the gene variants indicating light skin , blonde hair and blue eyes. This indicated to researchers that ancient hunter-gatherers of northern Europe were already pale and blue-eyed.”

So basically there were 2 groups of people that already had ALL the genes for white skin , blond hair & blue eyes , The first group were Neolithic farmers & the second group were Bronze-age people , Both these groups migrated from the Black sea region into Europe (each during a different Era).



The city of Jericho & Göbekli Tepe was probably inhabited by these same Neolithic farmers who first started agriculture in the Middle-East & migrated into Europe.


Blond & Red hair:

The origin of blonde hair/red hair in humans seems to be still a mystery , we know from recent reports that it is caused by a genetic mutation in the KITGL gene , However there hasn’t been any scientific reports published regarding the origin of the KITGL mutation.

Although we do know that almost no ancient DNA samples for blond/red hair have been found In Europe prior to the Bronze age which indicates that blonde/red hair must’ve originated east of Europe (ie. Middle-east) most likely with Neolithic farmers.

The oldest evidence of blonde/red hair found in humans comes from:

1. The Egved girl (1390-1370 BC) from Southern Europe
2. Two mummies from the Tarim Basin (1800 BC)
3. And two mummies from Russia (1800 -1400 BC)

The fact that blond hair, white skin and blue eyes originated only as recently as 8000 years ago (6000 B.C) is remarkable , however there are some people that believe that these genes weren’t simply the cause of natural selection but rather Interbreeding with other species of humans. Which leads me to the next part of this post….

Part 2

Many people have proposed that interbreeding between Homo-sapiens & Neanderthals was the main reason why Europeans today have light skin , eyes & hair , However one thing that people seem to forget was that Neanderthals were typically dark-skinned with brown eyes.

The SNP-mutations from Neanderthals showed their genetic pigmentation profile to be the same as Melanesians and Yoruba people:




In 2007 however there was a report published which stated that researchers obtained 2 samples of Neanderthals in Croatia that had the genes for red hair (known as the MC1R gene) but it soon turned out that these Neanderthal samples did not carry the same MC1R mutation responsible for red hair in modern Europeans (the mutation in question is known as Arg307Gly).

Surprisingly the highest introgression for this Neanderthal derived MC1R variant was found in Taiwanese aboriginal people and Cheyenne Native Americans. Europeans have the lowest introgression for this gene, Mongolians have the highest.

The 2007 report further stated that only 1% of the entire Neanderthal population would’ve had red hair , the other 99% had dark hair & skin as usual.

About 5 years later in 2012 another report was published which claimed that 3 samples of Neanderthals had the genes for light skin (known as the SLC24A5 gene which alters the A111T protein) , the researchers in the report also claimed that this gene was strong enough to have caused pale skin , the study soon followed with a lot of criticism , one author for Discover-Magazine wrote:

“This is artlessly rendered. If light skin in Europeans was due to a single gene of large effect then ~20 of African Americans would have nearly white skin (assuming dominant effect, it would be 4% if it was recessive).

There are two candidate genes which come to mind as possibilities for what might make Europeans white in the mind of this researcher. The first is SLC24A5 , a locus which is nearly disjoint in frequency between Europeans and Africans. This locus alone can explain 25-40% of the between population difference in pigmentation.

But this locus does not make you white; otherwise I would be white! I’m a homozygote for the “European” variant of the SNP at this locus which differs across populations, as are both my parents.

The total frequency of the “European” variant in South Asians is probably comfortably above 50%. A better candidate would be a SNP on SLC45A2 which is present in high proportions in European populations (~90 percent within Europe, ~10 percent in South Asia). But observe that this allele on SLC45A2 is not sufficient for light skin."

According to the author In order for humans (and homonins) to lighten they need to at least carry all the dipigmentation genes. The samples mentioned in the report above however did not.

Despite all the criticism the discovery of this SLC24A5 gene in Neanderthals has proven 2 things:

1) That light skin may have been present in certain species of humans 30 000 years ago long before homo-sapiens had these genes.

2) And that light skin was also super rare (as would be expected from recessive genes)

So how & why did so few Neanderthals had the genes for light skin/hair?

From one study we know that at least 8% of Neanderthal DNA comes from unknown species, hints of unknown groups from Asia and Africa has left genes in both Denisovans and modern humans.

Reports also show that Neanderthals shared 17% of their genome with Denisovans. The only genes left of Denisovans today is found among Melanesians , Which might explain why Melanesians also shared so many SNP-mutations with Neanderthals (shown above).

It’s also unclear whether there is a correlation with the admixture of Denisovans and red/blonde hair found among Melanesians and Neanderthals , although it seems very likely to be the case.

But so far It seems that just like the Melanesians , people of European /Caucasians decent most likely received their recessive genes from another (unknown) species of humans that has yet to be discovered.

A genetic mutation occurred where humans with these particular traits thrived in a particular environment and reproduced at higher numbers.

It is called the theory of Evolution.

A beautiful blonde and sky-blue eyes are a paragon of beauty. I
have black hair and blue eyes, girls in grade-school would doubt
me and remark how unusual it is to have black hair and blue eyes.

Blue is a revered color in many cultures.

a reply to: ancienthistorian

Everyone knows that fair skin, blue eyes and blond hair is "The Mark of Cain"!

Hate to just come by and poo-poo your thread, but I don't believe it. It's not Science that's pointing this out.

It's consensus science. People who have a narrative and an agenda.

Like somebody could actually isolate one individual ... back 8,000 years ago ... who was the only person on Earth who had blue eyes.

I'm going to ask you to seriously consider this. Just one person, amongst everyone, who had blue eyes.

I am naturally tan, and get dark in the sun, with black natural hair and dark brown eyes, and yet my son was born pale and blue eyed with blonde hair. His father and I are both of mixed native american/asian/european ancestry (a dna result said he had less than 1 percent Melanesian. We thought that was interesting at least. This was a cool thread to read.


-Alee

So is blond haired blue eyed white peoples the furthest point so far in evolution??

Nah, people will evolve a huge head and small body with
long fingers.


a reply to: WUNK22

White skin is a product of melanin production, and geographic location.

Closer to the equator. Darker skin. Further away lighter skin.

Genetics does play a part, but not as much as people think.

originally posted by: WUNK22
So is blond haired blue eyed white peoples the furthest point so far in evolution??

No our species just acquired these genes fairly recently. blonde hair light eyes/light skin just got concentrated probably due to geographic isolation and in breeding.

I still think red hair probably game from Cro-magnons, I'm about 3 % neanderthal by genetic volume but I haven't seen anything in my genetic report about cro mag DNA. Has that been mapped yet?

For what it's worth I'm red haired/blue eyed and my main ancestry is Irish/Chilean/Norwegian.

a reply to: ancienthistorian
So in other words it all comes from natural human gene mutations which contradicts all your previous threads about how they're genes from aliens.

The single blue-eyed ancestor never made much sense to me. Recessive genes have a greater tendency to get bred out rather than in. And as recessive alleles require the double recessive parents to show, there must have been others with the gene potential, at least.

a reply to: ancienthistorian

wait, didn't the nazis go to the middle east looking for the infamous blue eyed blonde aryans.
do you be Sprechen Ze Deutsche.

I thought the origin of the White/Blue was from the deepest pits of hell.. At least that is what society keeps telling me, damn White devils!

We were made this way by aliens who came to the middle east in BIblical times and were called Angels, Gods and watchers in the Bible, duh.

originally posted by: CB328
We were made this way by aliens who came to the middle east in BIblical times and were called Angels, Gods and watchers in the Bible, duh.

Duh, of course. Why do you think the Mesoamerican culture revered us as Gods?

a reply to: ancienthistorian

Dog ear thanks great read...response inc

If it was a simple case of something like blue eyes coming from one person, it would not last. It's not dominant.

It's not one single individual gene that is responsible for these traits. A race has a lot of interplaying genes, its what makes it a race. The more genes you add the greater the divergence that will be shown between races.

My personal theory is that turning White/blonde/blue was caused by agriculture which caused self-domestication, reduction of wild type(aggressive, rule breakers killed). In other species domestication causes changes like color variation and behavioral issues.

So a group of humans existed and when this group domesticated themselves their genes were prone to color variation. It was not "one person" with recessive/not wild type.
Unless white skin, blue eyes, blonde hair allowed a Male King to impregnate all the women bc he is do dang handsome, it is unlikely these recessive genes would win out.

a reply to: nemonimity

I believe it may correlate to a certain super volcanic eruption in the Mediterranean...the resulting lack of sun and the species need for vitamin D being an evolutionary driver for the lighter pigment to gain more uv during an extreme lack.

Or Atlanteans
Eta
Blue eyed rh negative people do produce more d from the eun...its worth looking at as a source a mutation

didn't Hitler supposedly meet a blonde hair blue eyed man underground ?

I have seen the new man , and he is cruel. I was afraid of him.....something like that I think