Quote:
Originally Posted by Carnyx
Because of the constant mixing with non-European slaves for generations?
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No. The elements we see today are the same we had in the past largely, the main difference lies in the proportions. So we rather deal with interpopulation and intrapopulation change INSIDE OF EUROPE with non-European slaves playing no significant role in any part of the continent. Merchants (Jewish, Armenian etc.) and conquerors (Turkic, Mongols, Huns, Moors etc.) were most likely far more important than slaves - with most slaves being European and the percentage of extra European, yet non-Europid individuals was very low among them.
Trends like that of Alpinisation, Baltisation and Dinarisation, or referring to a more recent thread, general trends of reduction and brachycephalisation, were the result of different living conditions, changing habitats and selective regimes.
So f.e. the Nordid type while living in a relatively colder region of Europe, is a type for the temperate climate and high level individual and group selection. If the conditions are worsening, f.e. the climate becomes colder, nutrition bad, plagues and infant mortality dominate, with positive selection for generally advantageous traits being low, we will see a shift towards a more reduced saving variant.
If light Northern people move in an area with high UV-intensity and local plagues like Malaria, they also suffer from it, like you can see in the examples of the failed colonisation projects in parts of Africa and India, the high loss rates of European soldiers in those regions - in most cases more died because of diseases than in action on the field.
Selection is everything, since even if there would be a Nordid-Negrid mixed population and the selective regime totally goes for the Nordid trait combination, the Negrid traits will disappear in a limited number of generations and in the end you might find a type being more extremely Nordid by basic traits and specialisation, than an untouched group of Northern people with various variants, high variation and low selective pressures in that direction.
And in the end pigmentation is primarily an adaptation to the UV-intensity of a given region and not all light pigmented individuals are Nordid, not Nordoid neither and not even Nordeuropid. Its just one trait out of others and shouldnt be overestimated, but put into context.
If looking at the basic morphological pattern, craniofacial traits, stature and body proportions, Southern European Europids and even non-European ones are in many ways much closer to and more like Nordids than lets say Eastbaltids. Their morphological deviation is lower - if there would be a significant Negroid or whatever input, they should deviate more strongly, but thats not the case and the genetic data also points to no such genflow of significance.
When dealing with various Near Eastern variants of the past and today, we can often see a change, like we can see changes in Europe. So we should rather ask why certain types appeared and what their advantages-disadvantages were, how they became dominant in one region or time and became less common or even disappeared in another.
Thats an interesting subject and to reduce it to "Europeans mixed with non-European slaves" is not just a simplification but just false, a myth I might add. That doesnt mean such slaves didnt exist throughout the Roman Empire, even in Britain and Gallia, but they were never a really important component in the make up an European people. Non-Europid slaves were primarily important in certain parts and rather lower social segments of North Africa and the Near East, though even then we shouldnt generalise.