Dear Jean Auel: Ayla and Jondular had blue eyes, but were black

January 26, 2014
Dear Ms. Auel:
We all know what a stickler you are for thorough and accurate research, so I think it appropriate to drop you a (public) note about new research out of Spain that concludes:  7,000 Years Ago European hunter-gatherers had Blue Eyes but Dark Skin.
So the Cro-Magnon characters in your series, Earth's Children, which is set 25,000 years ago, may have had blue eyes, but today, they would probably be described as black as the DNA that controls color of their skin is African.  Not to say that this changes anything but the descriptions of the Cro-Magnon folks, a minor point really.
Who knows what color the Neandertals were.  Probably black as well, but until this is proved, we can only speculate.  I enjoy your books and marvel at the detail while you carried on an interesting story line.
Just thought you'd want to know.
Respectfully,
Jim

La Braña 1, the name given a 7,000 years old individual from the Mesolithic, whose remains were recovered at La Braña-Arintero site in Valdelugueros (León, Spain) had blue eyes and dark skin according to Carles Lalueza-Fox of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), in collaboration with the Centre for GeoGenetics (Denmark). La Braña 1 represents the first recovered genome of an European hunter-gatherer.


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The Mesolithic, a period that lasted from 10,000 to 5,000 years ago (between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic), ends with the advent of agriculture and livestock farming coming from the Middle-East. The arrival of the Neolithic, with a carbohydrate-based diet and new pathogens transmitted by domesticated animals, entailed metabolic and immunological challenges that were reflected in genetic adaptations of post-Mesolithic populations. Among these is the ability to digest lactose, which La Braña individual could not do.
Lalueza-Fox states: "However, the biggest surprise was to discover that this individual possessed African versions in the genes that determine the light pigmentation of the current Europeans, which indicates that he had dark skin, although we can not know the exact shade."

"Even more surprising was to find that he possessed the genetic variations that produce blue eyes in current Europeans, resulting in a unique phenotype in a genome that is otherwise clearly northern European."

The study of the genome suggests that current populations nearest to La Braña 1 are in northern Europe, such as Sweden and Finland. In addition, the work points out that La Braña 1 has a common ancestor with the settlers of the Upper Paleolithic site of Mal'ta, located in Lake Baikal (Siberia), whose genome was recovered a few months ago. Lalueza-Fox concludes: "These data indicate that there is genetic continuity in the populations of central and western Eurasia. In fact, these data are consistent with the archeological remains, as in other excavations in Europe and Russia, including the site of Mal'ta, anthropomorphic figures -called Paleolithic Venus- have been recovered and they are very similar to each other."

DNA with an "exceptional" preservation
La Braña-Arintero site was discovered by chance in 2006 and excavated by Julio Manuel Vidal Encinas, archeologist of the Council of Castilla y León. The cave, located in a cold mountainous area with a steady temperature and 1,500 meters below the sea level, contributed to the "exceptional" preservation of the DNA from two individuals found inside, and they were called La Braña 1 and La Braña 2.

According to Iñigo Olalde, lead author of the study, "the intention of the team is to try to recover the genome of the individual called La Braña 2, which is worse preserved, in order to keep obtaining information about the genetic characteristics of these early Europeans."
*  *  *  *  *

Story Source:  The above story is based on materials provided by Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), 

 Journal Reference:  Iñigo Olalde, Morten E. Allentoft, Federico Sánchez-Quinto, Gabriel Santpere, Charleston W. K. Chiang, Michael DeGiorgio, Javier Prado-Martinez, Juan Antonio Rodríguez, Simon Rasmussen, Javier Quilez, Oscar Ramírez, Urko M. Marigorta, Marcos Fernández-Callejo, María Encina Prada, Julio Manuel Vidal Encinas, Rasmus Nielsen, Mihai G. Netea, John Novembre, Richard A. Sturm, Pardis Sabeti, Tomàs Marquès-Bonet, Arcadi Navarro, Eske Willerslev, Carles Lalueza-Fox. Derived immune and ancestral pigmentation alleles in a 7,000-year-old Mesolithic European. Nature, 2014

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 10, 2014 at 6:12 PM

    ... Blue eyes and dark skin are such a beautiful combination. Perfect for any work of fiction.

    I love your blog. I am in danger of reading it all night.

    ReplyDelete

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