Fear of racism leaves professor mumbling about the mutation behind blue eyes
A danish research team headed by Professor Hans Eiberg at the University of Copenhagen has concluded that all blue-eyed people have a common ancestor, who carried a genetic mutation believed to cause blue eyes. This Adam or Eve of the blue-eyed lived as recently as 6000 to 10 000 years ago.
Eiberg guesses that this ancestor – who himself must have had brown eyes since it’s a recessive trait – lived somewhere around the Black Sea, this being the supposed origin of a people who spoke proto-Indoeuropean – a language which all the european languages has evolved from. Before Adolf Hitler came along these guys were refered to as aryans.
This may be why professor Eiberg stresses that the mutation is neutral: “It is one of several mutations such as hair colour, baldness, freckles and beauty spots, which neither increases nor reduces a human’s chance of survival.” But as the Fox article reporting this says, Eiberg is being disingeuous since the mutation also contributes to fair skin which enhances vitamin D production in the northern sun-deprived parts of Europe where it is most common. It’s far from neutral.
Indeed some researchers, like Allison Rosenberg and Jerome Kagan, have found that blue-eyed individuals are more introverted than others. Some claim that this introversion, which is a highly heritable trait, can be seen as a evolutionary strategy. Being less sociable, introverts have fewer children than extraverts, something that may have benefitted those living in the harsh environment of northern Europe.
A sociologist might tell you that this is just a matter of stereotypes; scandinavians are really just as talkative as italians or greeks. But anyone who can see for himself will notice that this is more than preconceptions. Although Eiberg doesn’t have the balls to tell it like it is, others like those mentioned above do. It’s not just on the outside people differ.
Eventually this knowledge will leak out. We will know more about the behavioral variations within our species – how they evolved and what purposes they served. It’s not racist to talk about it, and it’s silly and dishonest to try to cover it up.
Filed under: Archeology, Biology, Ethics, Racism, Science | 33 Comments
Tags: aryans, blue eyes, genetics, Hans Eiberg, indoeuropeans, mutation, Racism
Science? You seem to know very little about it. You probably lack the genes responsible for comprehension.
Feel free to elaborate.
this theory is completely wrong ! indoeuropeans ??
the man of cro-magnon lived about 40,000 and he was depigmentated like the modern northen europeans!! blue eyes in europe are present before the indoeuropean invasion .
the Finns are not indoeuropeans but they have 90% of blue eyes…so indoeuropeans??? lol
The Finns are mainly germanic in origin even if their language isn’t indoeuropean, this according to the HUGO project. The dating of this mutation was done by studying variations on nearby genes – the less variation the more recently the mutation occurred.
Recent studies demonstrated that the irish, welsh, scots and british people in general descend from iberians (whether they were celts or not is another question). Their Y chromosome matches up to 90% with those of basque people and other spaniards and portuguese in less degree.
However, irish people have a very high degree of light colored eyes compared to spaniards and portuguese.
Was is that “Adam”, who lived in the shores of the Black Sea, the one responsible for all those blue irish eyes?
Or it was a random genetic drift originated in those ancient iberians?
If it was genetic drift it would be a neutral quality. But blue eyes spread much more over the northern sun-depraved parts of Europe suggesting that it is not.
The blue-eyes of the Irish may have to do with their relatedness to celts, scandinavians and other germanic tribes.
The Irish as well as Britons in general are a mixed population and not generally descending from anyone particular population.
According to HUGO all people in Europe are closely related. The only ones that stand out genetically speaking are the Basque and the Sami (and to some degree the Sardinians). These two also stand out because they speak a non-indoeuropean language.
Paradigm,
The studies I mentioned above are very recent, and they were performed by Stephen Oppenheimer and Brian Sikes, separately, by using the latest DNA techniques.
These results match those of the Genographic Project (by the National Geographic Society – google this).
What they demonstrate is that the old believe that the irish descend mainly from northern celts, who arrived by a massive invasion centuries ago is simply not true.
All the inhabitants of the Atlantic Fringe (from Galicia in Spain, to the french Brittany, Wales and Ireland, show a significant similarity in their DNA. Almost all of them belong to the Atlantic Modal Haplogroup, identified by the marker R1B.
However, the words “celt” or “Anglo-Saxon”, etc.. are denominations that not necessarily match a “pure race” (there’s nothing like a pure race) . Those DNA markers appeared long before these “races” were identified as such.
What we know now, is that after the latest glaciations, europeans were almost anihilated by the climate conditions, except for a small group of humans that found refuge in iberia, italy and south balkans. Those were descendants of the first cro-magnon people.
The iberian refugees later recolonized all western europe up to scandinavia.
Those who didn´t mix with later immigrants, like the basques, kept their original DNA traits intact. Others like the irish and welsh show an stricking genetic similarity, making them almost identical.
Of course, ireland got vikings, saxons, etc, etc, but non of them made a real dent in their genetic base. The same goes for the rest of the british islands, with the exception of England, that shows up to a 30% of north european genes.
Ireland and wales are up to 90% “basques”, the rest of spain and portugal show similar figures.
Check this out:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/genographic
http://www.bloodoftheisles.net
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7817
I still don’t get how the Iberians would have spread this mutation. Like Kranzl says, almost all Finns have blue eyes. But the haplo-group R1b, thought to be pre-indoeuropean, is virtually non-existent in Finland. Looking at the most blue-eyed nations, it’s clear that what they have in common is the I (as in Indoeuropean) group.
That said, the timeline seems to admit the possibility that it could have originated among the Iberians/Cro Magnon and then spread to the northern parts of Europe. Or maybe the same mutation turned up in both groups, although I’m not sure how often that happens.
Well, I’m affraid that I ask myself the same questions…
For example, I’m 100% galician (my parents are), and I’m tall, brown haired and with blue eyes. This would be what is typically known as celtic traits, which are very common in northern iberia, although probably not majority.
Possible explanations are:
1) Celtic genes.
2) Suavian or Visigothic genes.
3) My mother had an adventure with a tourist…
I will rule out nr.3 for now.
It is known that there were celts in Spain, and that they were numerous and powerful (they fought a bloody war against Rome for more than 20 years), and it is documented by many classical sources (greeks and romans).
On the other hand, there is no single classical source calling “celts” to the inhabitants of the british isles (they were simply called britons,picts, scots, gaels, etc…but not a single mention of celts). It was in century 17th or 18th when some schollars began calling them celts, and the myth persisted until today.
There´s only one comment from Julius Caesar, were he says that the inhabitants of the coast spoke a language very similar to those of the belgians, while those living further inside were simply britons. Those belgians were probably recent immigrants and it is believed they were germanic with celtic culture.
So I believe that probably, after the glaciations, iberian people colonized all western Europe, from spain to southern scandinavia and from ireland to east switzerland.
This was before the word “celt” was even invented. Later, some groups began differentiating one another, culturally and probably genetically to some extent, while receiving some immigrants from other haplogroups (for example I).
Think that in these ancient times, human groups were comformed by relatively few individuals, so a single genetic variation would spread pretty fast to their offspings by means of selective relationships (blue eyes would get more chicks, and others would die virgin
. Read about Niall of the nine hostages…
There many factors that could make a group differentiate from other of the same origin such as percentual variation of individuals with different characteristics, cultural considerations ( such as ideal of beauty in each culture), population bottlenecks (it happens when a small group gets nearly extinted or anihilated, and when the few survivors transmit their unique characteristics to their sons), etc, etc…
So we have now different peoples, with different phisical traits, but with the same genetic footprints (iberians, most germans, basques, celts, etc… are all R1B).
This is what makes the study of european populations so difficult.
For example, an english man would get its DNA identified as R1B: Does his paternal line descend from an ancient iberian? Or a saxon, or celt (which is probably synonim of iberian)? Probably his ancestors lived in britain for ever, or perhaps they came as invaders from germany, but anyway, one or the other has the same origin (but probably different milleage).
What we know for sure now is that all of them, basques, celts, britons, irish, welsh, galicians, etc, etc share a common origin and their genetic footprints show a very close and recent relation.
My pet theory is that blue eyes originated among the indoeuropeans and then spread all over Europe because the pallor that came with it was beneficial in synthesizing Vitamin D. If Rosenberg and Kagan are right it may have become especially common up north were resources were scarce and having fewer children would actually propagate your genes more effeciently.
But as the great forests were decimated in southern Europe and there was Vitamin D in abundance and more land for agriculture, the advantage was lost. In fact, with just a tendencey to have fewer children the blue-eyed would dwindle.
Looking at old frescs from antiquity and even paintings from the Renaissance you see a lot of blonde people.
It’s funny though, I always thought of the Brits as closely related to Scandinavians on account of their looks and the language. Not so, appearantly.
I may be wrong, because I only visited Britain once (and I only stayed in London, which is not a good place to see the native genes).
But I got the impression that most british people don’t look very “nordic”. Perhaps a minority would pass as germans or scandinavians (for example David Beckham), but most look like average europeans (not mediterranean, not nordic ==> brown hair, pale skin).
For example, Elthon John looks very spanish to me, also Orlando Bloom and not to mention the Gallagher brothers. Other british people would pass like plain mediterraneans (Sean Connery, Catherine Zeta Jones, etc).
And this matches the recent studies mentioned above.
Up to 30% or so of english have a germanic origin (or better said, up to 30% of english genes are germanic), and that shows in the same proportion on their look.
And in Spain, most people don’t look like the spanish stereotype (black hair, dark skin alla “Antonio Banderas”). Actually this mediterranean look is more common in the eastern and southern coasts., where greeks and phoenicians and later moors made an impact.
I see that there’s a common denominator which is in between the nordic and the mediterranean look, and that is probably the original iberian who later colonized all western europe (celt?).
Note that classical sources locate the origin of celts in iberia (there’s a comment by Herodotus who seems to locate the Keltoi at the source of the Danube and/or in Iberia, but the passage is unclear. And there was a comments by a roman general who talks about the river Ister, identified mistakingly as the Danube, but it was in reality the Tagus).
Perhaps the most common iberian is not different that the most common british.
But the british received more genes from nordic populations in later times, while the spaniards received more from the mediterranean, therefore the common perceptions of whiter british and darker spanish.
I believe that, if we don´t count those spaniards heavily influenced by mediterranean genes, all the rest would look very much like the irish or welsh.
Galicians use to say that irish people are galicians who speak english…
Who knows?
Luis
There is also the fact that blue eyes and similar visible features only make up a minor part of the DNA. The Indoeuropean I-group is most common here in Sweden as well as on the Balkan, so although we don’t look very much alike we are clearly related. And africans who look very much alike are sometimes only distantly related.
But I guess at the rate that genetic information is being obtained these days, we’ll know all about how different people are related soon.
Well, you can see distant groups with similar characteristics everywhere.
For example, native australians are as black as africans, but not related at all.
The same goes for some natives of Papua and New Guinea. They really look african, but they are not.
Anyway, scientists recognize that DNA technology is in its infancy, and we need more tests and researchs to get a clearer picture. Although I believe they are headed in the right direction.
However, this is a race against time because of globalization, migrations and admixture of people everywhere.
When I go to my parents towns, in the mountains of northern Spain, I only see very old people and they are being assisted by colombian or peruvian young women, who work for low wages. Young people go to the cities and mix.
This happens everywhere
So conducting this kind of tests in the near future would be extremelly difficult.
Yes, but even if we’re increasingly mongrelized you can still track specific variants of genes. You can also retrieve DNA from corpses. I read somewhere that scientist had even extracted DNA from ancient egyptian mummies.
Sure! But you can’t ask a mummy where he/she comes from or who her parents where, or whether she and her ancestors lived there for generations or came from another place, etc, etc.
For example the Genographic Project looks specifically to people from native, isolated populations, those who can relate to the same kind of people and life style for generations. This way they get better results that can be interpreted more easily.
It also depends on which people you look at. Here in Sweden there are records on most people dating back to the late 1700s. I could easily find a record of my great grandmothers great grandmother for instance.
But it’s true that information is inevitable lost. One can only hope that science comes up with new methods and techniques that to some degree compensate for that.
You all have it TOTALLY wrong. There is a common misperception that people who speak indo-european languages from India to Iran and throughout most of Europe are actually indo-european. In fact, most people in Europe are from the much much earlier migration of early man throughout Europe as the last ice age retreated 10,0000 years ago. Then the indo-europeans came much later and just spread their language and culture and added just a small bit to the gene pool.
In fact 8,000 to 10,000 years ago when this single blue-eyed ancestor lived there just a few hundred thousand people living outside of Africa and southern/eastern Asia so it is no surprise that this one person had so many descendants. In fact EVERYONE on earth today is descended from just one woman who lived 40,000 years ago!
ONE OTHER BIG MISPERCEPTION: that Irish and Welsh are actually of Celtic stock. It was much more recently discovered that Irish and English share the same gene pool of early man that migrated through spain and france to ireland and england as the last ice age retreated 10,000 years ago. The celtics swept through spain, and france, and ireland MUCH later and just added their culture and language and a little bit to the gene pool The irish and english and scots are pretty much all the same gene pool The black irish are just descendants of a small group of seafarers from spain that came in the last few hundred years.
Tony: I never said anything about how much the Indoeuropeans have added to the European gene pool. But if you look at a map of haplogroups you’ll find that there are a lot of people from the I-group in roughly the same regions were indoeuropean languages are spoken. And especially where people have blue eyes.
Nor did I express surprise at the fact that the gene variant behind blue eyes spread rapidly. In fact, I claimed that it would, since it was beneficial at least in Europe. And according to the Genographic Project all humans are ancestors of a group of people who lived 60 000 years ago.
As for the Britons and the Celts, this has already been discussed here.
Tony,
I don’t know why you said we’re totally wrong.
Read again, and you’ll see that we pretty much agree with what you said.
Although I wouldn’t identify language with gene stocks. Often, they don’t match at all.
One final thought:
Our current genetic constitution existed long ago the words “celtic” or “briton” were even invented. Those groups (and more) are likely to share the same origin, according to the recent studies mentioned above.
Luis
Yes. Some of the assumptions seem quite stupid. I wish I was more well read on science and am pursuing an education in the sciences very soon.
To say that there are fewer blue eyed people in the world than brown eyed people because blue eyed persons are introverted or reserved and are lessly likely to socialize, thereby reproduce, is so presumptuous and baseless.
For whatever reason, the gene for blue eyes is GENERALLY, NOT ALWAYS, less dominant than the gene for brown eyes and in most cases where there is one blue eyed parent and one brown eyed parent, a child is more likely to inherit brown eyes than blue eyes unless the brown eyed parent is also a carrier of the gene for blue eyes. I myself have pitch black hair, mildy olive skin, and dark brown eyes and have a blonde haired, blue eyed grandmother who was only able to produce one child with redish brown hair and hazel eyes and lighter skin who is my aunt. One of my aunts and my father inherited olive skin, dark eyes, black hair, and my uncle and 3rd aunt inherited brown hair and dark brown eyes as well as lighter skin. Apparently, my grandfather was not a carrier for this gene.
I guess professor Eiberg used some offhand observation of some Scandinavians and used it as a basis for a scienific finding. His observation is also very ethnocentric. Being of Middle Eastern ancestry, I had spoken to some Kurds who had relatives in Sweden and who had come into contact with Swedes in Sweden and out of Sweden. Their take on the introvertedness of Scandinavian women where the bedroom is concerned is quite different. They opted to have Scandinavian women as girlfriends prior to marrying women from their own ethnic group because their chances of having sex with them were much greater. They found Scandinavian women easily accessible. Of course, I will not turn this into some kind of a scientific finding because it is linked to sociological and cultural issues.
I find that a lot of people find the strong presence of brown eyed or darker featured peoples as a threat such as this professor who most likely will not admit to it and their findings only appeal or make sense to those who want to believe the same.
Also nothing in science is concrete especially as it dates back to ancient history, can we really prove that blue eyes originated between 6000 to 10000 years ago and that it is a sign of evolution? So then why do we have people with downs syndrome who have blue eyes and geniuses with brown eyes? I guess the gene has nothing to do with progress or having evolved. It is a rare gene in this world and is attractive because it is less common. I think dark skinned people though are more attractive with colored eyes than dark eyes because it gives them a unique look, but average Scandinavians are very plain to me.
CaliPersian:
“To say that there are fewer blue eyed people in the world than brown eyed people because blue eyed persons are introverted or reserved and are lessly likely to socialize, thereby reproduce, is so presumptuous and baseless.”
No, it’s not baseless since there has been research conducted on this. I referred to it in my post.
“I guess professor Eiberg used some offhand observation of some Scandinavians and used it as a basis for a scienific finding. His observation is also very ethnocentric.
Being of Middle Eastern ancestry, I had spoken to some Kurds who had relatives in Sweden and who had come into contact with Swedes in Sweden and out of Sweden. Their take on the introvertedness of Scandinavian women where the bedroom is concerned is quite different.”
Eiberg has no theory linking eye color to introvertedness. It’s Rosenberg and Kagan. And their research is not based on offhand observations. Look it up.
As for Swedish women being easy, sure they are in comparison to Kurdish women, but we all know what happens to Kurdish women who engage in pre-marital sex. Being sexually inactive under threat isn’t introversion; it’s fear. I prefer to live in a country where men and women can choose for themselves. “Of course, I will not turn this into some kind of a scientific finding because it is linked to sociological and cultural issues.” So why bring it up in the first place?
I find that a lot of people find the strong presence of brown eyed or darker featured peoples as a threat such as this professor who most likely will not admit to it and their findings only appeal or make sense to those who want to believe the same.
Playing the Race card are we? That’s just lazy. If you have something on Eiberg (Rosenberg, Kagan), then let’s hear it.
“So then why do we have people with downs syndrome who have blue eyes and geniuses with brown eyes?”
Why wouldn’t people with blue eyes have Down’s syndrome? Why wouldn’t there be brown-eyed geniuses? Nothing here contradicts that.
“I guess the gene has nothing to do with progress or having evolved.”
This, ironically, is what Eiberg claimed in the first place when he said that the mutation was neutral. But other research makes this higly unlikely as it’s been mainly confined to areas where sunlight and food has been scarce, and as it seems linked to introversion.
If you want prehistory go to Plato, and look at what he says about Atlantis. I know, I know its all crap right? Well I used to know that, now not so sure. Sometimes called the Sea Peoples, when their homeland was destroyed (3 times beginning about 3200 bc and then completely around 1,200 bc) and they tried to conquer land in Africa and eur-asia. The Trojan war was the beginning of it all, the first World War. The people they fought against were originally colonized by them circa 3,000 bc when civilizations all over the world were formed by them and ruled by their royal half-breed descendants. But by then their relative Ramses II was too powerful and they too weak to prevail. They lost but their descendants live. Some, the Alans, traveled from east Med. sea area to France and eventually England. I suspect that is part(lots of other reasons) of why the Fitzalan earls of Arundel were declared to have precedence in their bloodline. The Tuatha de Danaan (the Shining Ones)were supposedly direct refugees from earlier disaster. Check out the native Guanches of Canary Islands. No room here for real proof, but if you look into all of it deep enough without preconcieved notions, some of the new Atlantis arguments are pretty pursuasive as they would have to be to overcome ole knee jerk reation of “bs”! It certainly would easily account for this otherwise inexplicable spread of blue eyes over 10,000 years. And by the way, add 1+1(1st generation),
2+2,4+4,8+8,16+16…within 2,000 years you get far more people for ancestors than were in the world then, so lots of duplications of same ancestor. And for 10,000 years? Well, I’m not doing the math. Suffice to say
oops, hit submit accidently, sorry
Suffice to say, they were all over the world, and pretty much all the planet can claim them for ancestors according to the math. That doesnt mean one actually got any of that particular ancestors genes, just that they were ancestral.
Who knows about pre-history. Obviously blue eyes originated in one group of people. I’m not sure about Atlantis, but the Sea Peoples, who many think are related to the Tuatha de Danann, could well be candidate. They may have started off from the Black Sea area and then reaching Greece and later perhaps founded the Etruscan settlement in Italy, while others left the Mediterranean for the British Isles. I know some Scots their people are related to Scythians (closely related to the Alans), who are in turn considered close to proto-indoeuropeans. And so on.
But genetic studies suggest that the Guanches are Berber in origin. My guess is that Plato got his story from legends about the earlier pelasgian inhabitants of Greece, perhaps most related to the Ionians. Then to make it suggestive he gave them an origin far, far away. Which at that time was outside the known world of the Mediterranean.
Of course all this is speculation. Perhaps one day we can retrieve DNA from all this times and places and make sense of it.
Has anyone ever thought that what was a “simple” mutation 10000 yrs ago could be a prep for an eventual period of global ice age?
Thththought
I vageually recall psychiatrist Jerome Kagan saying something about northern Europeans having not only blue eyes but also a higher metabolism to keep them warm and that these qualities may be genetically related.
Haplogroup I is not indoeuropean (anyway there are different sub-clades…Scandinavian I is different from Yugoslavian I ) the haplogroup associated with the spread of the indoeuropean is R1a….clearly blue eyed North-Western europeans are not related with blue eyed russians..
Obviously the mutation that cause blue eyes arose indipendently in different european population
Conclusion : blue eyed folks ARE NOT related…
(i have blue eyes too anyway)
last message…not only western european Y-Dna is different from eastern Y-Dna but also mtDNA is very different…
bye
It’s very unlikely that the several mutations of the same gene took place at the same time and only in or around Europe. Mutations are extremely rare.
As for Yugoslavians, I’ve been to Croatia which seems to have the highest concentration of this haplogroup. People there are tall, with big eyes and narrow noses, and quite often blue eyes as well (think Goran Visnijc), all typically indo-european features. And they even behave much more introverted than other people in southern Europe.