A facial reconstruction of a 10 000 year old man from the mesolithic of Western Sweden has recently been revealed. The skeleton of the man was found in a bog 1994. A DNA analysis has been performed on the skeleton which among other things shows that he belonged to a group called Scandinavian Hunter Gatherers, who was a mix between Western Hunter Gatherers and Eastern Hunter Gatherers. According to the analysis he had blue eyes and light or medium blonde hair and a skin color affected by inheritance from both groups.
This spring the reconstruction will be exhibited at a museum in Falkoeping, Western Sweden.
The reconstruction was made by well known paleoartist Oscar Nilsson
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
^ Strange. A Mesolithic Swede looks similar to a modern day Swede yet a Mesolithic Briton looks like this..
And we are to believe there is a relation between these Western European men??
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
It is probably because the Mesolithic Swedes are the result of two early immigrations, one from the south, which consisted of Western Hunter Gatherers who probably looked like the Cheddar man in the picture above. But Scandinavia also experienced a wave of Eastern Hunter Gatherers from the East. Some of them were light skinned. These two groups gradually merged into Scandinavian hunter gatherers, who could show traits from both peoples. So in Scandinavia one can find both darker and lighter individuals. Britains early population mostly consisted of Western Hunter Gatherers.
It seems that the alleles for the lighter variants was favored by selection so those alleles may gradually have become more common, at least in certain areas. But more dark skinned groups probably also continued to live in parts of Scandinavia parallell with the lighter skinned variants. Thus a late Mesolithic individual like the girl "Lola" from Denmark (whose DNA was found in a "chewing gum" made of birch tar) seems to have had the typical Western Hunter Gatherer traits, darker skin and blue eyes.
Paleoartist Tom Björklund made a picture of how the phenotypic landscape can have looked like in the Scandinavian Mesolithic.
Here is his own words about the painting
quote: Mesolithic mix
When the last Ice Age ended, Fennoscandia really was a Terra nullius, an uninhabited barren landscape, empty and lifeless – except for some Norway lemmings (the only endemic vertebrates in the region) which had survived on nunataks along the Norwegian coast.
But soon, following the retreating ice, came the first humans from two directions representing populations quite distinctive from each other, the old European hunter-gatherers from the south and others from the north-east, the process resulting in a rather interesting cocktail of cultural and genetic heritage.
The illustration may be a bit exaggerated in order to emphasize the point, I don't know exactly how dark or light people were in respective groups and if there were individuals with blond hair at all at this point or if it is a post Mesolithic trait. Anyway, we don't have much left in us of those ancient ancestors, two additional waves of migrations washed away most of it.
(Paleoartist Tom Björklund, 2018)
Here is Oscar Nilssons reconstruction of two 8000 years old Scandinavian Hunter Gatherers from Motala in eastern Sweden:
Here is Tom Björklunds interpretation of how the Danish Mesolithic girl "Lola" could have looked like:
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
^ Still, when scientists say Cheddar Man or others in Europe had "dark skin" one must ask just how dark?? Do they actually know the exact complexion or hue of these persons based on the alleles alone??
For example in Irish mythology the demonic and presumably aboriginal Fomorians are described as "dark skinned". Does this mean they were 'black'??
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
Probably the alleles can just tell us if they would have had a lighter or darker complexion. When it concerns eye and hair color they seem a bit more sure.
For example the HIrisPlex-S system is said to have difficulties to see the difference between different dark skin tones.
Thus for example in a study I once read they compared real skin tones among the Karitiana with results from HIrisplex-S. They were designated as dark/Black. Still there are many peoples who are considerably darker. So dark or black covers obviously several skin tones.
Here is a Karitiana couple and as comparison a Jarawa child from the Andaman islands. Still a genetic test seems to show them both as dark to black. Hopefully though these systems may be able to discern more nuances in the future.
In old times even people with dark hair, dark eyes and maybe just a somewhat darker complexion could be described as black, at least here in Scandinavia. Since most people were fairly light, darker individuals were seen as somewhat deviant.
When concerning the Irish. At least from the iron age there are several bog bodies preserved with skin and hair, and they seem to have looked like todays Irish people.
Posted by BrandonP (Member # 3735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ Still, when scientists say Cheddar Man or others in Europe had "dark skin" one must ask just how dark?? Do they actually know the exact complexion or hue of these persons based on the alleles alone??
I think we reconstruct WHG as dark because their genomes showed the ancestral alleles for certain genes affecting skin color instead of the derived alleles that you find in modern Europeans. If WHG had evolved lighter skin at all, those alleles would be for different genes (indicating independent evolution), as appears to have been the case for East Eurasian peoples.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
One can note that at least some of the Scandinavian Hunter Gatherers had the derived alleles that lead to lighter skin. They inherited them from Eastern Hunter Gatherers.
It is interesting that the steppe herders who migrated into Scandinavia about 5000 years ago descended from Eastern Hunter Gatherers and Caucasus Hunter Gatherers. They also had some additional admixture from other groups.
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
The problem is that terms like "dark" or "light" are qualifying terms or at least quantitative on a scientific basis. Humans come in a range of complexions. In Europe alone people in the Mediterranean coasts are "dark" compared to say Scandinavians who are "light" compared to them.
Even in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Khoisan are obviously "light" in comparison to "dark" Pygmies or even "darker" Nigerians.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti The problem is that terms like "dark" or "light" are qualifying terms or at least quantitative on a scientific basis. Humans come in a range of complexions. In Europe alone people in the Mediterranean coasts are "dark" compared to say Scandinavians who are "light" compared to them.
Even in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Khoisan are obviously "light" in comparison to "dark" Pygmies or even "darker" Nigerians.
Yes, light and dark is only relative terms: Light in comparison to what, dark in comparison to what? Black and white are also terms that mostly do not cover the true skin colors of the peoples who are designated those terms. So maybe in scientific literature there ought to be some more objective criteria, like some of the chromatic scales that sometimes have been used. The problem when it comes to colors deduced from aDNA is to know more exactly which alleles corresponds to a certain color. When it concerns for example HIrisplex-S they have tried to do that but at least for the darker colors the resolution is not so good yet. Thus for example the designation dark/black can correspond to a range of skin tones. Perhaps in the future these tools can contribute to a better resolution.
Also within different groups skin color can vary, between individuals and between the sexes. These smaller variations within groups must be even harder to pick up with genetic tools. So the science of phenotyping ancient peoples based on aDNA is still in its infancy.
Earlier I started a thread with a couple of studies showing skin color variations among people in todays North India and in Malaysia. These studies showed variability in skin color caused by different factors. So it is indeed a challenge to better catch the variation among ancient peoples.
