Posted on 01/16/2005 12:47:07 PM PST by IGBT
London - Red hair may be the genetic legacy of Neanderthals, according to a new study by British scientists.
Researchers at the John Radcliffe Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford were quoted by The Times as saying the so-called "ginger gene" which gives people red hair, fair skin and freckles could be up to 100 000 years old.
They claim that their discovery points to the gene having originated in Neanderthal man who lived in Europe for 200 000 years before Homo sapien settlers, the ancestors of modern man, arrived from Africa about 40 000 years ago.
Rosalind Harding, the research team leader, told The Times: "The gene is certainly older than 50 000 years and it could be as old as 100 000 years.
"An explanation is that it comes from Neanderthals." It is estimated that at least 10 percent of Scots have red hair and a further 40 percent carry the gene responsible, which could account for their once fearsome reputation as fighters.
Neanderthals have been characterised as migrant hunters and violent cannibals who probably ate most of their meat raw. They were taller and stockier than Homo sapiens, but with shorter limbs, bigger faces and noses, receding chins and low foreheads.
The two species overlapped for a period of time and the Oxford research appears to suggests that they must have successfully interbred for the "ginger gene" to survive. Neanderthals became extinct about 28 000 years ago, the last dying out in southern Spain and southwest France. - Sapa-DPA
The darker color you refer to is NOT the original color of the general Irish population ~ rather, it's just a process of recessive genes for those characteristics becoming more widespread. That way there's simply more opportunity for two recessives to come together and give you the dark ones.
The original Scanderhoovian people were the Sa'ami, and they are in all essential respects the same as the ancient Sumerians, possibly the Dravidians, and also the foundational population in the part of China were Shang Dynasty glyphs were developed. When in Sumer, where they invented writing, they called themselves the "black headed people".
Those red-haired fellows are the descendants of Irish slaves so prized by the Vikings. I gather there was something of a shortage of women in that society, so they had to bring home girls from wherever they could be found.
best regards,
Alkhin
I am sure my husband would totally disagree with you about redheaded tempers. </sarcasm
Alba, the Northern portion of Great Brittain, was then renamed Scotland by invading Scots from what is now Ireland.
Ir came from Galicia, or, as it is more properly known "Carvajal", which is the country just to the West of the Basque territories in the Spanish peninsula.
No doubt many Basque servants were taken by their Gaelic speaking lords in Carvajal to the new lands in Scota (now Ireland). The result is that for the most part there is no genetic difference of any significance between the Basque and Irish populations. Hover, the Basques speak Basque, and the Irish speak English.
As a practical matter, just about 100% of the population in the lands adjacent to the Bay of Biscay are closely related. This proves that mankind has made use of boats in the dating process for a very long time.
As were most of the well known British pirates. At least they were according to tradition.
Before someone brings up the matter of Bluebeard's coloration, remember that I said most pirates.
People sometimes forget that "Norway" was more a state of mind than a single country located on the Western shore of the Scandinavian peninsula.
I ran into this fellow when I suddenly realized one day in working on a genealogical trail that both the Donnell and Hughes family in who I had an interest were more likely Norwegian than Welsh and Scots, and so they were!
Oh, yeah!
Leonardo Da Vinci was freed from Padua to go to France by Rene d'Anjou, a red-head.
Geez! My red headed math PhD son is a what???????
Ha! What a belly-rumbler.
Well Done.
Hi there! Would you be able to answer the question I have asked TWallace as well?
My wife is very much a redhead. Several years ago she had surgery. The female doctor that did the surgery came out and was talking to me while my wife was in recovery. The doctor said she believes that redheads are a distinct and separate race from all other humans. She said they react to medications and anesthesia different than any other races.
My wife takes high blood pressure medication. The doctor told her she would always be cold and she is always warm. If a medication says it causes drowsiness, it makes her wide awake and an insomniac. Maybe there is something to this theory.
Recent work reveals that the Gaelic of the Classical period was very closely related to Greek, and that the separation of the two language groups may have occurred quite a bit more recently than had been understood earlier.
That puts the German speaking tribes in stark relief and substantiates both the Greek and Roman contentions that they could tell the difference between the Celts and the Germans quite readily, not just by listening to their languages.
I believe there was a time (1930's?) where there were those who thought there was some advantage in having all the white, Western European tribes originating somewhere in the Baltics, and then migrating from there all over the Continent. That's how the Nazis ended up adopting Celtic folk imagery for use in their recreation of what they believed to be the Aryan "good old days". The point(s) of origin were more likely somewhere in Ukraine and Bulgaria, but lots and lots of folks migrated up from the South spreading agricultural technology. The result is that all European males carry one of three different male (Y) chromosomes rather than sharing just one.
The various names applied in Classical times to different Celtic groups, or Gaelic speaking peoples of any variety, are NOT simply names of various Germanic tribes. Rather, they are names which were usually properly applied originally, but were later misused by others in an effort to "move uptown" by adopting histories that really belonged to other, more advanced people. They've been most successful with "Teutonic". This originally applied to people living beyond the Rhine, and later on adopted by 19th and 20th Century German Romantics to apply to all Germans.
What do scientists know. Most are Democrats
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