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beorna View Drop Down
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Posts: 925 		  Quote beorna Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Roman/Greek Ethnicy and Physical Traits
    Posted: 03-Jan-2010 at 16:10
I hadn't expect we would share one opinion :)
With the Romans it is the same. What era, what Romans? There has never been a typical Roman ethnic type, they include a lot of ethnics, in the North Celtic and Etruscian, in the South Greek, but as I showed above, there was as well no typical Greek habitus.
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Posts: 326 		  Quote Kanas_Krumesis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Jan-2010 at 21:18
Originally posted by beorna

about what Greeks do you speak? about modern one, about those of the Turkish occupation, about those of the Slavic invasion, about those of The Roman Empire, the Hellenistic Era, the Classic or the Dark ages or even of the Minoan period?
It is not completely clear but the first "Greek" groups arrived in this area 4000 years ago, the Dorians just 3000 years ago. The oldest historic literature that we know is from about 500 BC and even Homer isn't older than 750 BC. Usually do we speak of Greeks with the first Ionian and Achaian migration, but a Greek community surely never existed before the dark ages.
These first groups came probably from the NORTH, but that doesn't mean Scandinavia or Germany. They came from the Balkans, but perhaps they or at least some came from Little Asia and belonged to groups like the indoeuropean Luwioi. Among these Indoeuropeans and of course among the later Dorians there were blond and blue eyed people, while the original population of the Minoian culture and earlier was of an mediterranian habitus. So in later times (the indoeuropean) blond became a sign of nobility, because the indoeuropean groups succeeded, so it seems that not every Greek that was called blond in literature was it really.
Modern blond Greeks can be of many origins. They can have old Indoeuropean, Greek ancestors, as well as Celtic or Gotic ancestors, they can descend from medieval knights, from Turkish christian slaves, from Vikings or modern tourists and many more.
 
This is strained! Give me some proofs if you can... It smells like Arthur Kempf! BTW Julius Ceasar  wasn`t blond, so he wasn`t noble...?! Most of the byzantine emperors also wasn`t blond.
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Posts: 925 		  Quote beorna Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Jan-2010 at 22:33
Homer, Hesiod or Herodot describe Greeks often as blond, especially Gods and heroes. But of course others like Odysseus were black haired (Od. 6: 231).
It would be great, if you would read my postings well. There is nothing that smells racistic. There are the original greek sources that claimed it blond and as I wrote, I am convinced that in the sources there are more blondes than in real. And, nobody says that you most be blond to be noble.
If you want to claim somebody a racist than do it with these greek authors.
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Posts: 326 		  Quote Kanas_Krumesis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Jan-2010 at 02:49
I don`t claim anyone as rasist. We talking about history. Blond hair never was sign of nobility among indo-europeans. That was my opinion. Now when I read easy your post I find my mistake and apologize. You talk from present day point of veiw, but why you think that in the literature sources there are more blondes than in real? Real when- now or in ancient times? In 1000 B.C. (The Iliad) greeks were much more close to their original indo-europeans roots than in late Antiquity. So the big persent blond hair among The Iliad hero`s  must be normal for all greek population at this time.
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Posts: 925 		  Quote beorna Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Jan-2010 at 03:15
This is from wikipedia. It shows the distribution of blondes. The two most brown colourse have an percentage of less than 1% and 20%. the light brown has 20-49% and the two brightest yellows have a percentage of over 50 and 80%.
If the indoeuropeans came from the areas between the Black Sea and far east, then we have a problem to explain why they were blond. of course it is a modern map, but was it really different to ancient days?
and as I said, it is not clear, where the early "Greeks" came from. all we know ist that greek writers gave the attribute of blond to a lot of gods and heros. We have to suppose that in relation a greater part of the greek nobility was blonder than the normal people. But why, we don't know. A more norther origin  of the invading "Greeks" is possible. It is also possible that Greeks in ancient days where having more blondes but this mustn't.
Sorry for my rude tone.
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Posts: 473 		  Quote Patrinos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Jan-2010 at 05:35
Originally posted by Kanas_Krumesis

Patrinos,  greeks in majority are meditteranean with some semithic (actually not big) admixture from ancient Egypt and Syria. This fact can`t be ignored. In late Antiquity hellenistic civilization adopt most of the old Middle East civilization, and there was no matter where are you living- in Athens, in Antioch or Cyrenaica (which made joint province with Crete in roman times). You are hellen- follower of greek way of live, language and culture. Ancient people travel a lot. May be more than present days. There wasn`t borders during Roman empire. They swap ideas, barter and gene. For example great Apuleius work on both greek and latin language. He was born in Africa, from Berber origin, but studied Platonist philosophy in Athens for years.
BTW Alexandria was very attractive place to living for ancient intellectuals and citizens from older Greece. Famous for refined way of live. Something like California today Smile

Do you have in mind any migration of middle eastern people in Greece? I really don't, at least any important one... 

The only such migration i know to Balkans is the one of the Paulikians and Armenians in modern day Bulgaria...

The Greek colonization after Alexander was truly huge, from Greece to East, some call it "third Greek colonization", and was indeed important. But this affected these areas not proper Greece. And mostly their urban centers(new Greek colonies(like Alexandria, Antiocheia etc) or preexistent important cities like Damaskos) not its hinterland which kept its languages, special culture etc. Until the Arab conquest they kept their distinct identity despite the big Greek influence, and this was expressed and by the many anti-Chalcedonean heresies that were against the Greek influence, then spreading by Greek Constantinopolitan Orthodoxy. 

And i don't think California is known for its culture level more for its coasts and Schwarzenegger ... in contrast to Alexandria which reached Athens' fame and reputation...


Originally posted by beorna

about what Greeks do you speak? about modern one, about those of the Turkish occupation, about those of the Slavic invasion, about those of The Roman Empire, the Hellenistic Era, the Classic or the Dark ages or even of the Minoan period?
It is not completely clear but the first "Greek" groups arrived in this area 4000 years ago, the Dorians just 3000 years ago. The oldest historic literature that we know is from about 500 BC and even Homer isn't older than 750 BC. Usually do we speak of Greeks with the first Ionian and Achaian migration, but a Greek community surely never existed before the dark ages.
These first groups came probably from the NORTH, but that doesn't mean Scandinavia or Germany. They came from the Balkans, but perhaps they or at least some came from Little Asia and belonged to groups like the indoeuropean Luwioi. Among these Indoeuropeans and of course among the later Dorians there were blond and blue eyed people, while the original population of the Minoian culture and earlier was of an mediterranian habitus. So in later times (the indoeuropean) blond became a sign of nobility, because the indoeuropean groups succeeded, so it seems that not every Greek that was called blond in literature was it really.
Modern blond Greeks can be of many origins. They can have old Indoeuropean, Greek ancestors, as well as Celtic or Gotic ancestors, they can descend from medieval knights, from Turkish christian slaves, from Vikings or modern tourists and many more.

Blondism a sign of...indoeuropean... nobility???? Where? in ancient Greece? Please share your sources...

Well blond for Greeks is not the same as the Swedes mean it. The really blond is extremely rare, you can find more "kastanoxanthous"(brownblond) haired.

"Xantho Genos"-"the blond nation" was something exotic for Greeks of late byzantine and ottoman period, in the legends.

One question, does a Swedish with dark hair has to have a mediterranean ancestor or something?

And Greeks having Celtic,Gothic, Turkish or Viking distant ancestors its  rather improbable... Slavic or Albanian maybe, but not the above...
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Posts: 925 		  Quote beorna Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Jan-2010 at 06:14
I gave some authors that called greeks heros blond in my postings above. But Odysseus e.g. was called with blueblack hair. These authors never explained what they meant with blond, if whiteblond or dark blonde. and if you read my posting, you see that I never called all Greeks blond or the nobility blond or anything like that. I just said, I repeat it again, that ancient Greek authors called their heros often blond and that blond was beautiful for those. and I said, that if people of the nobility had a greater percentage of blond people, it is possible, that this is a result of influence from regions North of Greece, which doesn't mean Scandinavia but other parts of the Balkans.
Well, black haired people in Sweden today may have a hundreds of possible ancestors, even mediterranian. I don't know. can you completely deny it?

"And Greeks having Celtic,Gothic, Turkish or Viking distant ancestors its  rather improbable... Slavic or Albanian maybe, but not the above..."

Well, I didn't say that there is a strong Gothic or Celtic influence or Viking or a strong influence of middleeuropean christian slaves of the Turks. all I said is that it is possible that A person who is blond has these ancestry. for another person it may be completely different.
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Posts: 326 		  Quote Kanas_Krumesis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jan-2010 at 00:59
Originally posted by beorna

This is from wikipedia. It shows the distribution of blondes. The two most brown colourse have an percentage of less than 1% and 20%. the light brown has 20-49% and the two brightest yellows have a percentage of over 50 and 80%.
If the indoeuropeans came from the areas between the Black Sea and far east, then we have a problem to explain why they were blond. of course it is a modern map, but was it really different to ancient days?
and as I said, it is not clear, where the early "Greeks" came from. all we know ist that greek writers gave the attribute of blond to a lot of gods and heros. We have to suppose that in relation a greater part of the greek nobility was blonder than the normal people. But why, we don't know. A more norther origin  of the invading "Greeks" is possible. It is also possible that Greeks in ancient days where having more blondes but this mustn't.
Sorry for my rude tone.
 
beorna, first of all there is really big difference between ancient times and now. For example in Altai mauntain today live dominant people with mongoloid feature. But there was found in couple of years many scythian mummies from over a 3000 years ago which look like modern scandinavians. Read my post http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=27850&PID=627986#627986
 
Second, blond hair can`t be 100 % evidence about indo-european ancestry. On the map you posted I see that Bulgaria and Greece share same zone percent blond people in population with most of the France, Belgium, Luxembourg and westernmost part of Germany (Rhineland). At the same time West Balkan countries (Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia) have bigger % blond people in population than for example Belgium and Rhineland. So are this people less conect with indo-europeans than bosnians or croatians? BTW countries with biggest % blond in the world are Finland and Estonia. Over 85-90 %. They aren`t indo-europeans, but finno-ugric and speak uralic language. This fact is shown on the map. Blond hair can`t be criterion of indo-european home place.  
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Posts: 2537 		  Quote Mosquito Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jan-2010 at 04:28
Sami/Lapp people are often blond and are definatelly not indo-europeans.
"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche
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Posts: 925 		  Quote beorna Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jan-2010 at 04:47
For the parts east of the Caspian Sea I would agree, allthough we don't know much about the indoeuropean population, even if we have some europide mummies. It seems that the mongolid type at the pre-christian days was dominant at least around the Baikal and east of it.
For Europe I can't see very big migrations that could be responsible for a dramatic change in hair colour.
-
Blond is no sign of indo-european ancestry? Well, you could be right, but as well wrong. If you look at the map, than we really have to ask the question if indo-europeans were in a high grade blond. But first of all we have to ask, where did blonde ones evolved? It seems it is a genetic change that can happen everywhere, but especially in Europe it has an advantage in opposite to dark hairs. But we don't know, why it didn't happened in Northern America and Northern Asia too. Perhaps a lack of special vitamin D is the reason, maybe.
 
The problem of maps is allways the same. If you use other groups than <1, 2-20. 21-49, 50-80 and >80 than the coloured areas will probably be different. What we can say is, that the western region were influenced by a neolithic western cultural region, while east of rhine we have the so-called danubian cultures. So there was probably a different population in the West, that probably came fom Northern Africa after the end of the ice age or even before. The difference in the South of europe is, that these regions have more sun, so dark types have an advantage. This could be so as well on the Balkans. That the highest level of blondes is in Middle Sweden and western Finland is probably a result of old relations. It shows, that language and ethnical descendance mustn't be the same. The Ural-Altaic Finns weren't the first who came there, they just brought the language and later there was a migrstion from Sweden as well. That shows not every region with a high rate of blondes is indoeuropean and every region without is not. it is not that easy - and I wish I could write this all in German :)
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Posts: 473 		  Quote Patrinos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jan-2010 at 05:23

If someone wants to relate the expanse of the indoeuropean languages with "blondies" because in the today indoeuropean people there is at least a minority of blonds among them ( and majority in some cases) another can say, following the same concept..., that it was the "meds" who were responsible for the spread of the indoeuropean languages since you can find north mediterranean types(brown hair, brown eyes(like Spanish, Italians,South French, Greeks,etc) from Iran to Wales...

I think that kind of theories are, if not "dangerous", at least childish...



Edited by Patrinos - 05-Jan-2010 at 05:26
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Posts: 925 		  Quote beorna Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jan-2010 at 06:24
Every population has a special percentage of hair colours. The percentage of blondes in the Netherlands is higher than it is in France or Spain. if we go back in history we can say that the percentage of blondes in the Germanic nations was higher than those of the Iberians. We e.g. cannot say the same about the Celts. It is said, that the Celts were red and blond, but the Germanics were more, so the Celts stood somewhere betweenn Iberians and germanics. Celtic tribes or Indoeuropean tribes that migrated to Spain, see Celtiberians, brought a population to the Peninsula that was in a higher grade blond than the Iberians, but e.g. if we look to France, we can't say that the invading Germanic nations, Franks, Burgundians, Gothics had big influence because they were just some hundredthousands in a native mass of millons.
 
Let's go to Greece. There lived during the neolithicum and later a in a great percentage a population with dark hairs. I can't remember any minoic painting that shows blond minoans. after the "Greek" invasion we have sources that claimed especially heros and gods blond. so we have to suppose, that the percentage of blonds among the "Greek" invaders was higher than in the native Minoan population.
 
I didn't connect the indo-european migration with the spreading of blonds or even white, blond and  blue-eyed arians. If you look exactly, you can red that I showed the problem of hair-colour-distribution, especially in those regions where Indo-europeans shall come from.
BTW those theories are just then dangerous if you prefer one "race" and put it above others. Please understand, that I don't do this.
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Posts: 2537 		  Quote Mosquito Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jan-2010 at 07:02
Well, notion "indoeuropean" has rather linguistic than racial meaning. Genetically many nations are different while linguistically very close. Slavic nations make good example of it. For example Poles are genetically closer to scandinavians than to Balkan slavs but languages of western, eastern and soughtern slavs are related.
 
This map was posted here in AE many times, so why not once more:
 
 
"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche
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Posts: 589 		  Quote cavalry4ever Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jan-2010 at 07:03
To put things straight: Arthur Kemp is a white supremacist and has nothing to do with History.

So called blond "nordic race" was found in  German and Slavic tribes which were considered barbarians by Romans and late comers to Europe. They had not too much culturally in common with original inhabitants of Greece or Italy. Francs, Lombards, Visigoths, Ostrogoths etc were germanic tribes that invaded Greece and Rome and managed to mix in with local population. On a genetic level all Europeans are interrelated and there is no difference. Blond hair and lack of pigmentation means that tribe spent many millennia in northern climate and needed to loose skin pigment to fabricate vitamin D. It is just a result of natural selection. Dark haired people have slightly more pigment. The recent genetic studies show that if whites migrated back to warm climates, after many generations they would revert to black color of skin.
Blond is a recessive gene and it needs for both parents to carry it for offsprings to become blond. As time passes there will be less and less of blond people.


Edited by cavalry4ever - 05-Jan-2010 at 07:05
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Posts: 2537 		  Quote Mosquito Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jan-2010 at 07:09
And that is right, all those newcomers in Europe were barbarians who get civilised by the touch of Greco-Roman culture :) Being blondies didnt make anyone a master race, rather slave labour in the latifundia and mines of Roman gentry or whores in roman brothels.

Edited by Mosquito - 05-Jan-2010 at 07:10
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Posts: 589 		  Quote cavalry4ever Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jan-2010 at 07:15
A bit extreme, but good point. The Slavic tribes and slaves have the same Latin word origin.
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Posts: 925 		  Quote beorna Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jan-2010 at 07:16
That is true mosquito and it is very interesting why languages and genetics are so different.
 
But we must recognize, this is often mentioned in popular press, that there are no typical Slav, Germanic or other genes, but just Genes that one can find more often in a special population than in an other one. For example if a lot of Germans or Polish share the same geges, that doesn't mean that the Polish are of German origin or Germans of Polish. It just means, that both MAY have the same ancestors, who could have belong to a completely other ethnic group, long before Polish and Germans existed..
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Posts: 589 		  Quote cavalry4ever Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jan-2010 at 07:23
Originally posted by beorna

That is true mosquito and it is very interesting why languages and genetics are so different.
 
But we must recognize, this is often mentioned in popular press, that there are no typical Slav, Germanic or other genes, but just Genes that one can find more often in a special population than in an other one. For example if a lot of Germans or Polish share the same geges, that doesn't mean that the Polish are of German origin or Germans of Polish. It just means, that both MAY have the same ancestors, who could have belong to a completely other ethnic group, long before Polish and Germans existed..

There was new research about genetic mix of various people. The interesting conclusion was that Europeans lived in extremely tough environment and have more genetic damage and mutations than people on other continents. This was explained by heavy inbreeding due to periodic population crashes reducing Europeans to small populations.


Edited by cavalry4ever - 05-Jan-2010 at 07:24
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Posts: 925 		  Quote beorna Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jan-2010 at 07:23
Originally posted by cavalry4ever

To put things straight: Arthur Kemp is a white supremacist and has nothing to do with History.

So called blond "nordic race" was found in  German and Slavic tribes which were considered barbarians by Romans and late comers to Europe. They had not too much culturally in common with original inhabitants of Greece or Italy. Francs, Lombards, Visigoths, Ostrogoths etc were germanic tribes that invaded Greece and Rome and managed to mix in with local population. On a genetic level all Europeans are interrelated and there is no difference. Blond hair and lack of pigmentation means that tribe spent many millennia in northern climate and needed to loose skin pigment to fabricate vitamin D. It is just a result of natural selection. Dark haired people have slightly more pigment. The recent genetic studies show that if whites migrated back to warm climates, after many generations they would revert to black color of skin.
Blond is a recessive gene and it needs for both parents to carry it for offsprings to become blond. As time passes there will be less and less of blond people.
We should forget the term race at all, that's why I usually put it in "...". Races do exist at cattle, not at humans. The relation to the sun radiation is correct and it is true that population are getting darker if they change their climatic zone, but this lasts probably at least centuries or more possible milleniums.
Your lst statement isn't completely true. It is not so clear if it is really recessive, and it is at least not recessive where people have a evolutionary advantage. it is of course in modern times not as important as it was, but it is still the same process.



Edited by cavalry4ever - 05-Jan-2010 at 07:30
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Posts: 925 		  Quote beorna Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jan-2010 at 07:29
Originally posted by cavalry4ever


There was new research about genetic mix of various people. The interesting conclusion was that Europeans lived in extremely tough environment and have more genetic damage and mutations than people on other continents. This was explained by heavy inbreeding due to periodic population crashes reducing Europeans to small populations.
That is a good point. Remember the plague. Imagin if special haplogroups gave more protection than others. In my area there died around 1350 about 60% of the plaque and BTW during 1618-1648 there died another 70% (by war, starvation, plague and others).
Genetics are a bit like gambling. If you throw 12 times, you must have 2 times 1, 2 times 2, 2 times 3 and so on, but sometimes you have 4 times a 1, 6 times a 4 and 2 times a 6.
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