A question about blond hair

[Kraftr]

So the official historians tell us that blond hair is fairly recent, and only became a thing after the Yamnaya invasion, and was mainly a Scandinavian affair.
But weren’t Hittites and Etruskans blond and lighthaired? And lightbrown hair throughout Europe? Of course they were later in time but how did that trait get there? Or did we just never connected the dots that they were the result of a earlier migration and genetic mixing of northerners with locals from other origin or from a even earlier expantion? Back in the time that Freyans, and their predecessors possibly, went and expanded and mingled everywhere, before the bad times. I’m no historian, no complete genetic and timeframeconception, so maybe I’m missing something?

[Nordic]

The current academic stance as of 2023 is, in a generic big picture way, that at the end of the last ice age at Fennoscandia region the peoples with very pale skin plus blue or other coloured eyes and peoples with even more pale skin and blonde hair met and thus the Nordic looks as mixture of this. These are the ancestors of modern Scandinavian Germanic, Finnish and Russian-Finnic peoples (see here and here). This vague, loose theory is extrapolation of few finds here and there that suggests Northern European peoples of those times could be blonde yet not blue-eyed or blue-eyed yet not blonde.

That ancient Nords went south is apparent from all those tales of Hyperboreans (later often included in the umbrella term 'Scythians') going to Greece, Oera Linda accounts of Italy and Greece and the Gothic wars against Egyptians in Levant in Jordanes' Getica. All of these could explain why there were in the archaic Mediterranean region peoples with seemingly Nordic racial looks.

Scientist often are shy about the question of where and how did the mutations of blue or green eyes, blonde or red hair come about in the first place, how did they stabilise to become the norm (cf. to African albinos) and what was so special at 10000 BC Fennoscandia in sense that there are cold mountaneous regions everywhere on the globe yet those other peoples do not develope blonde/red hair or blue/green eyes. To best of my knowledge a researcher called Peter Frost is one of the few (the only one?) who has pondered on this exact question.

The mythical-theological explanation in OL pre-supposes three root races of clearly defined racial outlooks. Of which Frya (Freyja) is one out of the three. In variant tales, like Bock family saga (video here), Frey and Freyja are pre-white, propably brown-skinned and dark haired, first humans who give a direct command for their descendants to further refine the human race via non-violent methods of selective breeding (only the best looking and physically most able get to conceive the children). Later on a cosmic catastrophe causes the ice age during which all current human races come about. This includes the Nordic race which developed inside the ice masses, kept alive by warm water current of Gulf Stream that went underneath the ice masses and kept certain areas of Baltic Sea coastlines ice free., As per that medieval or older story that centres on the Finnish coastline and Gotland island near Sweden, all currently living white Northern Europeans are descendants of 30 Arctic survivors whose descendants split into three different branches: Dan of whom come the continental Germanic peoples, Sven of whom come the Scandinavian and isle Germanic peoples and Fin/Balder/Lemminkäinen of whom come the Finnic peoples (Balder used there as generic title, not to be confused with Balder the specific son of Odin in Norse sagas).

I'm mentioning this variant tale here as there is ample evidence this story was known also to medieval Norse Germanic peoples in one way or another e.g. Búri the first ancestor coming out of ice, also called Finn ("Burri, er vér köllum Finn"), Germanic peoples coming originally from Finland etc. I'm unaware of any Norse or other Germanic sources corresponding to OL Frisian human creation tale, though there are other textual reasons to assume the Frisian lore of OL must have existed in already in archaic antiquity and also to have been known in at least some ways to other non-Frisian Germanic peoples.

[Nordic]

Here are two Peter Frost screenshots about the issue.

Peter-Frost-1.png (82.47 KiB) Viewed 2583 times

Peter-Frost-2.png (204.22 KiB) Viewed 2583 times

[Kraftr]

Thank you. Yes I was wondering about alternative theories. I always thought that since we have more neanderthal DNA it would come from them(and that maybe actually we are more neanderthal since most genes are shared among humans. I also see a similarity with southern westerners in eye-face- and hair appearance, so I would assume a common ancient link. But I also saw murals of Hittites, who would be one of the three races that we are made up of, and they had really light hair.
So blond hair was a Scithian/Gothic/yamnaya trait, or aryan. But they are a separate group from anatolian farmers, ccording to the modern theory, so that puzzles me. Along the Bock saga or Atlantian/Doggerland ancestry line of thought I can imagine an earlier time where darker and lighter europeans already spread south. And Scythian and Gothic came from the same root, and maybe also the marriage traditions makes the y- vs. mitochondrial data look like conquest.
The thread about Aryan theory made me think that maybe the word aryan is a middle-eastern centrist projection that we are the same. I saw a vid with Jorjani, where he said Persians/Medes came from Tocharians. It fits with my idea that the flooding of Beringstreet or an inner sea was the one in OLB.
In Duch we have a saying by the way ‘dat is geen wet van Meden en Perzen’, meaning ‘that is no strict law’.
They were know to be hardliners, probably from Hamurabi’s law. (sj-haman-rabbi)

[half life over]

So the official historians tell us that blond hair is fairly recent, and only became a thing after the Yamnaya invasion, and was mainly a Scandinavian affair.
But weren’t Hittites and Etruskans blond and lighthaired? And lightbrown hair throughout Europe? Of course they were later in time but how did that trait get there? Or did we just never connected the dots that they were the result of a earlier migration and genetic mixing of northerners with locals from other origin or from a even earlier expantion? Back in the time that Freyans, and their predecessors possibly, went and expanded and mingled everywhere, before the bad times. I’m no historian, no complete genetic and timeframeconception, so maybe I’m missing something?

A 2022 study by Lazaridis et al. found that the typical phenotype among the Yamnaya population was brown eyes, brown hair, and intermediate skin colour. The Yamnaya aren't the Aryans from Atland. They are findas https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq0755

[Nordic]

Thank you for the good link! Some quotes from it with my comments:

earlier reliance on modern phenotypes and ancient writings and artistic depictions provided an inaccurate picture of early Indo-Europeans

My bolding here. Considering that 'Indo-European' is a virtual (18th or 19th century?) creation, basically a theory trying to link up various peoples and their languages from an era before the DNA and blood stype studies, that doesn't exists as such anywhere, I would argue that ancient writings and DNA studies ought to be used to take the lead in research. If there is a mismatch with ancient accounts and DNA studies, then the follow-up question needs to be why the mismatch: ancient accounts remembering too old/young things in error, multiple different ethnicities dwelling in same geographical locality or some other reason.

We find that the modal phenotype of eye, skin, and hair pigmentation in ancient West Eurasians was brown-eyed, of intermediate complexion, and brown-haired—even among Yamnaya steppe pastoralists—contradicting stereotypical characterizations of Steppe peoples as being blue-eyed, pale-skinned, and light-haired.

If one looks at a map of Europe and Asia, especially in light of races dwelling therein, there should be nothing surprising here. Even Peter Frost above writes about it in the screenshots above.

light pigmentation in West Eurasia was the result of selection across time, which continued into the Historical period (43, 44), and not of the survival of supposed ancient Indo-European phenotypes as some 19th and 20th century writers supposed

One can wonder why there was a selection for light pigmentation in the first place and if it ties into the blue eyed 'gods' theme or e.g. tradition of kidnapping of Germanic or Fryan girls to Mediterranean regions as depicted in OL.

the product of the direct influence of climate that some Greco-Roman writers hypothesized to explain patterns they observed during their own time

These same arguments have been made also in more modern times, to try to explain the existence of white or blonde types. And of course the answer is always the same: no matter the coldness or altitude (mountains) the people will just not become blonde Nordic whites, but will remain dark eyed, dark haired and perhaps with a little less pigmented skin as their lowland counterparts. This is why the issue of white mutation stabilization is so important (how and why the white mutation came to be retained permanently), with clues provided by likes of traditions described above and Peter Frost's research.

The malleability of human phenotypes across time and the presence of diverse ones—whether dark, light, or intermediate—across space undermine prejudiced views of history that overemphasize superficial traits at the expense of the more meaningful aspects of human culture and biology.

This part I took as a bit of political correctness with in it. Especially so as the skin and hair colours are often a good proxy for cultural habits and biology also deep down e.g. blood types, inherent diseases or lack of them, ability to ingest milk when adult.

I agree with the Finda's people comment. Wouldn't the OL narrative Tartars and the peoples pushing Finns westward towards Scandinavia fit the descriptions here, perhaps representing newer era than the Yamnaya peoples? Can't the Asiatic whites and near-white be explained fully with likes of OL (Frisians in India, Phoenicia), Getica (Goths in Black Sea and Levant battling pharaohs) and European conqueror Krishna tale of Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar and Bock family saga (local ruling dynasty replaced by Nordic dynasty offshoot)?

I go even further and ask: what need is there in 2023 to retain the Indo-European spread idea that is so detached from actual traditions of specific movements of specific European peoples to specific Asian lands? And if there are tradition-wise unaccounted white-ish peoples in Asia, couldn't they be just offshoots of the ones the traditions are clear about? I want a total syncretic approach: primarily the DNA studies, secondarily the ancient reports back from the days of yore and only thirdly any theoretic considerations of yesteryear non-tradition based ideas. I often get the feeling some researchers and laymen have it backwards in sense that the theories (e.g. 'Yamnaya' dispersal as 'Indo-Europeans' ie. whites) seem to come first and any DNA studies or ancient sources are compared to those theories for veracity ratings..!

[Myss]

A 2022 study by Lazaridis et al. found that the typical phenotype among the Yamnaya population was brown eyes, brown hair, and intermediate skin colour. The Yamnaya aren't the Aryans from Atland. They are findas https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq0755

They use very flawed models in these modern genetic studies to "predict" what they would have looked like. So you end up with anything between swarthy or light-skinned and light haired results. Its the same reason why they tried to portray an ancient Briton as completely black, which everyone with an intact brain would laugh at. If Sintashta/Andronovo etc derived from Yamnaya, and we know all these groups carried genes for blue eyes and light hair and their descendants were described as fair-looking and the closest modern populations are Northern Europeans then it makes no sense to not call them Aryans. They were royal Scythians, so the eastern branch of the Aryans/Europeans with the same origin. Also brown hair or eyes is not a non-European trait. It would be more useful to look at every physical characteristic in combination. If you look at the art of Scythian people, they look decidedly European.

the authors suggest that earlier reliance on modern phenotypes and ancient writings and artistic depictions provided an inaccurate picture of early Indo-Europeans, and they provide a revised history of the complex migrations and population integrations that shaped these cultures.

These kind of statements should make you incredibly skeptical, because it reeks of political motivation. Its very often just deconstructionism disguised as 'science'. They want you to believe that these different branches are completely unrelated even if there are great similarities and a long continuity.

[Nordic]

These kind of statements should make you incredibly skeptical, because it reeks of political motivation. Its very often just deconstructionism disguised as 'science'. They want you to believe that these different branches are completely unrelated even if there are great similarities and a long continuity.

Very good note by Myss and Oera Linda book is the antidote here!

[half life over]

[/quote]
art of Scythian people, they look decidedly European.

Here is the problem. The Scythians were a nomadic people who lived from around 900 BC to around 200 BC. The Yamnaya people lived from approximately 3300–2600 Bce. You are conflating the two people. The scythians didn't exist until way after Aryan expansion. Yamnaya and Scythians are two different people. not the same.