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What's so hard to believe about a largely "black" (with blue eyes) population being displaced/integrated with by subsequent migrations? That scenario is suppor

What's so hard to believe about a largely "black" (with blue eyes) population being displaced/integrated with by subsequent migrations? That scenario is supported by the myths of those islands and human migrations are the story of humanity and human cultural developments. If you want to argue with the science or point out deficiencies you're encouraged to. That's the beauty of science.

ummonk 6y ago
Dark-skinned people in non-fishing populations in the British Isles would have had seriously weakened immune systems from vitamin D deficiency. The theory is implausible on its face. Edit: apparently the theory is about paleolithic people (who did a lot of fishing) in Britain being dark-skinned, which is certainly believable.
- jdminhbg 6y ago
  Fish has lots of Vitamin D in it.
  - ummonk 6y ago
    And has not been a major component of British food since the neolithic. Edit: I guess that's what the whole argument upthread is about - apparently researchers said that paleolithic british settlers were dark skinned, and became light skinned with the switch to agriculture. Which is very plausible.
kypro 6y ago
It's not that it's hard to believe, it's just that it's not supported by the science. Geneticists simply said that they had the genes for blue eyes while the European genes associated with fair skin were not present. What wasn't said was that they were black – that was something the media simply made up because it fit with their agenda. It seems fair to assume they were darker than modern Northern Europeans, but similarly it seems quite a stretch to assume that they were as dark as African peoples.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > but similarly it seems quite a stretch to assume that they were as dark as African peoples. “African peoples” have a pretty broad range of pigmentation, and “black” isn’t used exclusively for African people, anyhow; e.g., indigenous Australians. It's funny how White people use “black” with almost unlimited breadth right up until that challenges the original whiteness of territory they view as an ancestral homeland, and then immediately start demanding that the blackness be viewed maximally narrowly. Couldn't find a better illustration of how race is a fluid social construct.
  - dolgo 6y ago
    Fascinating that you singled out white people. The original poster could have any ethnic heritage, but you went with white. Why is that? It may be a good idea to interrogate your biases.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > Fascinating that you singled out white people. The original poster could have any ethnic heritage, but you went with white. I wasn't commenting about the original poster but about the broad community that have been making this exact argument about this exact issue since it entered the public debate, and a wide number of other issues for, well, almost the entire time that population studies that would support this kind of discussion of the past have existed. (And, yes, you can see identical behavior referencing different identity divides besides white and non-white in the same period over the same broad class of past-population issues, but this specific issue of darker-skinned past inhabitants of the British Isles is one of the focuses of whites and the flexible nature of the label “black”.)
  - dzvYJk7Bjx 6y ago
    Would you say the same if someone questioned the original race of Sub Saharan Africans in distant history? If someone argued some were originally not Black and so therefore the ancestral homelands of Afro-Black people are in question, would you say the same thing or is race only a social construct when trying to define the white race? That is certainly the way the logic seems to be but I think that cuts two ways. If race is a social construct then there isn't a Black nation, Black peoples, or anything ancestral to anyone who identifies as Black. Is that a stance you will defend? It seems like there is a clear definition of race for Black and Brown people but not for white people, often done so politically, and I think that bias is why people question whether the headlines of the GP article are valid and at present it does seem to be a stretch to call Cheddar Man "black".
johndrocky 6y ago
this isn't in regards to the paleolithic - according to the modern left Richard the Lionheart was an asian immigrant that lived on curry, elizabeth I and any other historical figure else is reduced to a mulatto mob sporting product placements and virtue signaling The problem is the erasure of history and identity. It is just as ridiculous as having Dolph Lundgren play an egyptian pharoah in a film
vmh1928 6y ago
Focusing on skin and eye color seems imprecise and really, why even bring it up? DNA mutations or markers spread in a population. Then some members of that population travel to distant lands and intermarry (or not, maybe just die,) and spread their DNA mutations around and then die. Hundreds of year later someone sequences the DNA and says, hmm, here's a marker for X population but I found it in territory Y indicating that people moved around or were taken as slaves so there was a lot more mixing than history expects. Does your theory about the original Britons imply some direct-from-<some continent> migration? If so you'd expect markers for populations on that continent to be present in historical samples without the associated markers associated with a migration via a more lengthy route. So let's test for that which will either prove or not-prove the theory and leave the silly adjectives for twitter.

ummonk 6y ago

Dark-skinned people in non-fishing populations in the British Isles would have had seriously weakened immune systems from vitamin D deficiency. The theory is implausible on its face. Edit: apparently the theory is about paleolithic people (who did a lot of fishing) in Britain being dark-skinned, which is certainly believable.

jdminhbg 6y ago
Fish has lots of Vitamin D in it.
- ummonk 6y ago
  And has not been a major component of British food since the neolithic. Edit: I guess that's what the whole argument upthread is about - apparently researchers said that paleolithic british settlers were dark skinned, and became light skinned with the switch to agriculture. Which is very plausible.

kypro 6y ago

It's not that it's hard to believe, it's just that it's not supported by the science. Geneticists simply said that they had the genes for blue eyes while the European genes associated with fair skin were not present. What wasn't said was that they were black – that was something the media simply made up because it fit with their agenda. It seems fair to assume they were darker than modern Northern Europeans, but similarly it seems quite a stretch to assume that they were as dark as African peoples.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> but similarly it seems quite a stretch to assume that they were as dark as African peoples. “African peoples” have a pretty broad range of pigmentation, and “black” isn’t used exclusively for African people, anyhow; e.g., indigenous Australians. It's funny how White people use “black” with almost unlimited breadth right up until that challenges the original whiteness of territory they view as an ancestral homeland, and then immediately start demanding that the blackness be viewed maximally narrowly. Couldn't find a better illustration of how race is a fluid social construct.
- dolgo 6y ago
  Fascinating that you singled out white people. The original poster could have any ethnic heritage, but you went with white. Why is that? It may be a good idea to interrogate your biases.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Fascinating that you singled out white people. The original poster could have any ethnic heritage, but you went with white. I wasn't commenting about the original poster but about the broad community that have been making this exact argument about this exact issue since it entered the public debate, and a wide number of other issues for, well, almost the entire time that population studies that would support this kind of discussion of the past have existed. (And, yes, you can see identical behavior referencing different identity divides besides white and non-white in the same period over the same broad class of past-population issues, but this specific issue of darker-skinned past inhabitants of the British Isles is one of the focuses of whites and the flexible nature of the label “black”.)
- dzvYJk7Bjx 6y ago
  Would you say the same if someone questioned the original race of Sub Saharan Africans in distant history? If someone argued some were originally not Black and so therefore the ancestral homelands of Afro-Black people are in question, would you say the same thing or is race only a social construct when trying to define the white race? That is certainly the way the logic seems to be but I think that cuts two ways. If race is a social construct then there isn't a Black nation, Black peoples, or anything ancestral to anyone who identifies as Black. Is that a stance you will defend? It seems like there is a clear definition of race for Black and Brown people but not for white people, often done so politically, and I think that bias is why people question whether the headlines of the GP article are valid and at present it does seem to be a stretch to call Cheddar Man "black".

johndrocky 6y ago

this isn't in regards to the paleolithic - according to the modern left Richard the Lionheart was an asian immigrant that lived on curry, elizabeth I and any other historical figure else is reduced to a mulatto mob sporting product placements and virtue signaling The problem is the erasure of history and identity. It is just as ridiculous as having Dolph Lundgren play an egyptian pharoah in a film

vmh1928 6y ago

Focusing on skin and eye color seems imprecise and really, why even bring it up? DNA mutations or markers spread in a population. Then some members of that population travel to distant lands and intermarry (or not, maybe just die,) and spread their DNA mutations around and then die. Hundreds of year later someone sequences the DNA and says, hmm, here's a marker for X population but I found it in territory Y indicating that people moved around or were taken as slaves so there was a lot more mixing than history expects. Does your theory about the original Britons imply some direct-from-<some continent> migration? If so you'd expect markers for populations on that continent to be present in historical samples without the associated markers associated with a migration via a more lengthy route. So let's test for that which will either prove or not-prove the theory and leave the silly adjectives for twitter.