[MillerCreek]

Yes, and some people even in the U.S. refer to Italians as "blacks." Many Italians prior to large numbers of Spanish moving in, were brunette and pale and some even blond. Some Italians still are! South Italy is mostly all dark skinned and dark haired, however, particularly Sicily.

A tangent...

[Cronos]

Yes, and some people even in the U.S. refer to Italians as "blacks." Many Italians prior to large numbers of Spanish moving in, were brunette and pale and some even blond. Some Italians still are! South Italy is mostly all dark skinned and dark haired, however, particularly Sicily.

Well, that would be because in the southern tip of Italy and in Sicily, the population is mostly of Phoenician or Greek origin with influxes from Berbers. Sicily was first colonised by Phoenicians and then became a mostly Carthaginian colony with some Greeks, then the GReeks took over -- the Greeks also had colonies in Neapoli etc. (that's why the Southern Italians and Sicilians are similar in culture to Greeks -- strongly passionate people).

in the middle you have Italic peoples while Rome was on the border between the Italics and the Etruscans. The north of Italy was actually occupied by Celtic Gauls -- called Cisalpine Gaul (the southern part of France was transalpine Gaul). Hence they WERE red-heads or blondes. Then you had the Germanic conquests of northern Italy, so no wonder you'd find that people around Trentino are more Germanic than the sicilians.