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..!