Blue-eyed humans have a single, common ancestor

[Susi]

Originally Posted by Yooo

Scandinavians are Germanic, sweetheart.

I know this but as they were referred as somewhat separate groups in the original post, I continued this trend. And don't call me sweetheart, it's patronising to me.

[Lutiferre]

Originally Posted by Susi

I know this but as they were referred as somewhat separate groups in the original post, I continued this trend. And don't call me sweetheart, it's patronising to me.

And with good reason. Scandinavians are not by definition Germanic, unless you are going to claim that Finland is a Germanic nation. And we cannot objectively debunk Finland as a part of Scandinavia, all though I bet a lot of Germanic nationalists would love to. But they are not Scandinavian, and I suggest they stick to dealing with the States, where they usually come from. Whats more, when it comes to ancestry and explaining the spreading of genetics (e.g. R1b) in terms of ethnolinguistics, Denmark was not spawned entirely by Germanic tribes. To avoid confusion, and to simplify everything, Scandinavians therefore deserve a group of their own. It is both relevant as a meta-identity and meta-cultural term, because Scandinavia and the Nordic countries usually follow certain cultural trends across meta-ethnicity (Germanic versus Finno-Ugrian) or simply identify with each other on a non-meta-ethnic basis. That is not always the case though, and we shouldnt forget that each country and more importantly region has their own culture and make-up that also deserves to be taken into the equation independently of any categories.

[Menydh]

As far as I understand it, Scandinavia as a geo-historical region includes Sweden, Norway and Denmark. As a geographical region, it includes only Sweden and Norway (Scandinavian Peninsula).

What you are referring to is Fenno-Scandia or Fenno-Scandinavia.

[Lutiferre]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

As far as I understand it, Scandinavia as a geo-historical region includes Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

As a geographical region, it includes only Sweden and Norway (Scandinavian Peninsula).

What you are referring to is Fenno-Scandia or Fenno-Scandinavia.

As a geo-historical region, Finland is also related to the other Scandinavian countries, and is therefore today widely considered Nordic, which in peoples minds equate with Scandinavian. The fact of the matter is that Denmark, Norway and Sweden represent the most undisputed Scandinavian countries. But I am merely referring to how people often see things, not the "truth".

Fenno-Scandinavia is not the same, since it does not include Denmark, Iceland and the Faraoe Islands. I believe it only includes Norway, Sweden and Finland, and perhaps islands in their respective seas.

[oubiña]

In genetic terms, this artical simply means that the one mutaton that leads to blue eyes in humans has no locus or allelic heterogeneity. You can imply by that (and other factors) the mutaton occured in only one person in the past and then spread to some human popultions. Probably there was selection.

[Lutiferre]

Originally Posted by oubiña

In genetic terms, this artical simply means that the one mutaton that leads to blue eyes in humans has no locus or allelic heterogeneity. You can imply by that (and other factors) the mutaton occured in only one person in the past and then spread to some human popultions. Probably there was selection.

We have many examples of amorphic and hypomorphic mutations in the melanic system towards depigmentation outside of Europe, including albinism, and several mechanisms by which blue eyes can be achieved. There is enough reason to believe that blue eyes have emerged independently of each other many times. However, it is a polygenic trait, and we cannot simplify it to one mutation. The study indicates that this specific mutation is only related to blue eyes that have no brown/green/hazel components at all, and most people referred to as blue eyed have some sort of hazel variant (with brown spots, however visible) which is an impurity (in relation to this Black Sea mutation), and thus their variant likely derives from a mixture of dark and light eyes, or just a completely other mutation.

On another note,

Originally Posted by http://www.springerlink.com/content/2045q6234h66p744/fulltext.html

The mutations responsible for the blue eye color most likely originate from the neareast area or northwest part of the Black Sea region, where the great agriculture migration to the northern part of Europe took place in the Neolithic periods about 6–10,000 years ago (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994).

This seems to confirm my Indo-European speculations by geographic proximity. But indeed they are nothing more than speculations.

Originally Posted by Earlier post

Assuming there really is a single origin for this blue eyed mutation, it must have been in the early Indo-Europeans, or something, because otherwise I cant see how this gene could have been spread so much. That would explain how its been breed into every single lineage in existence, in a limited occurrence, virtually.

[bioblitzkrieg]

being that blue eyes range from Iceland to Israel, Its kind of hard to imagine a single person's mutation within the past 6-10 thousand years spreading so fast and being present in such a huge geographic swath, isnt it possible that the same or similar mutation occured in different individuals, who were enduring the same environmental conditions? It would be like saying all light skinned people share a common ancestor that endowed them with that trait, yet in reality we know that this occured not through a single person's contribution, but through a population's collective adaptation to the environment and overall UV index.

earlier I had read an article stating that blue eyes and blond hair spread as fast as it did because of sexual selection, the first or early individuals to exhibit this new trait/mutation stood out amongst thier female peers, this unique feature secured the accelerated spread of thier genes, exponentially distributing the mutation from the time it arose somewhere between the Baltic and Black sea.

who knows, I really like blue eyes, but blond hair is not so important to me, as in men it may coincide with thin, prone to balding hair, and with women usually fades to darker tones after childbirth, a disharmonious pigmentation comprised of light skin, light eyes and dark hair has always come off to me as most striking, but then again, that could be narcissus talking

[Señor Malo]

Originally Posted by bioblitzkrieg

being that blue eyes range from Iceland to Israel, Its kind of hard to imagine a single person's mutation within the past 6-10 thousand years spreading so fast and being present in such a huge geographic swath, isnt it possible that the same or similar mutation occured in different individuals, who were enduring the same environmental conditions?

What I disagree about this article is specially the date at which the mutation took place; it says 6-10 000 Years BP but am pretty sure they were there before that and are probably older than the RH+ split into RH- rhesus

[Lutiferre]

Originally Posted by bioblitzkrieg

being that blue eyes range from Iceland to Israel, Its kind of hard to imagine a single person's mutation within the past 6-10 thousands years spreading so fast and being present in such a huge geographic swath, isnt it possible that the same or similar mutation occured in different individuals, who were enduring the same environmental conditions? It would be like saying all light skinned people share a common ancestor that endowed them with that trait, yet in reality we know that this occured not through a single person's contribution, but through a population's collective adaptation to the environment and overall UV index.

I believe so. Something that would contradict that and be in favor of a neolithic scenario of origin, would be if we could trace a high amount of neolithic input from the Black Sea region to Northern Scandinavia in the modern population through haplogroup distribution of the sex chromosomes. This does not correlate with the comparative level of blue eyes of Denmark and South Western Norway, and the levels of UP continuity, from maternal haplogroup H (from UP HV) and paternal R1b, but again, the most blue eyed regions of Scandinavia are in Sweden and Finland. The neolithic input is correlated with mtDNA haplogroup J/T, particularly high in frequency in the British Isles, Southern Scandinavia, Portugal, Italy and Greece, and theoretically R1a in the Y chromosome. But even where the rates of neolithic input are higher in Western Europe, they are at moderate to low levels, and the distribution of the haplogroups dont seem to correlate with eye color.

Originally Posted by Truth-Finder

What I disagree about this article is specially the date at which the mutation took place; it says 6-10 000 Years BP but am pretty sure they were there before that and are probably older than the RH+ split into RH- rhesus

Actually, it says 6,000-10,000 years ago, so the earliest period they are calculating with is 8000 BP.