Hunter-Gatherer European Had Blue Eyes and Dark Skin
Early Europeans were not all light-skinned, according to an article in the journal, Nature. Some may have been quite dark.
Two hunter-gatherer skeletons were discovered in a cave in the mountains of north-west Spain in 2006.
The cool, dark conditions meant the remains (called La Brana 1 and 2) were remarkably well preserved. Scientists were able to extract DNA from a tooth of one of the ancient men and sequence his genome.
The team found that the early European was most closely genetically related to people in Sweden and Finland.
But while his eyes were blue, his genes reveal that his hair was black or brown and his skin was dark.
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The man was also lactose-intolerant and also lacked the ability to digest cereal grains. Both abilities developed among humans after agriculture became the dominant lifestyle.
Interestingly, I just read a report elsewhere that suggests European hunter-gatherers like these two fellows were supplanted by lactose- and grain-tolerant agriculturalists moving in from the east, about 6,000 to 7,000 years ago.