Europeans Were Brown-Skinned and Blue-Eyed, 7,000-Year-Old Genetic Map Reveals [Video]

The hunter-gatherers that inhabited Europe 7,000 years ago were dark-skinned and blue-eyed, according to a recent investigation carried out by specialists of the Institute of Evolutive Biology of the CSIC.

The study published by the Superior Council of Scientific Research (CSIC) indicated that they were able to recover the genome of the individual found in the La Braña-Arintero Valdelugueros excavation, considered as the oldest human of the prehistoric age, with an estimated age of 7,000 years, and whose characteristics include blue eyes and dark skin.

The individual belongs to the Mesolithic period, which lasted from 10,000 BCE to 5,000 BCE and ended with the arrival of the Neolithic period, when diets shifted towards carbohydrates and domestic animals.

Lalueza-Fox, a CSIC researcher, said that his biggest surprise was when he discovered that the individual possessed the African versions of the genes that comprise the clear pigmentation of modern-day Europeans and a genetic variant that produced blue eyes, which indicates that it's very likely that prehistoric Europeans were dark-skinned and blue-eyed.

"However, the biggest surprise was discovering that this individual possessed the African versions of the genes that comprise the pigmentation of modern-day Europeans, which indicates he had dark skin, although we don't know the exact tone."

"It's even more surprised to discover that he possessed the genetic variations that produce blue eyes in modern Europeans, which results in an unique phenotype in a genome that is otherwise unequivocally Northern European," Lalueza-Fox said.

The research highlighted, furthermore, that the genome suggests that the closest modern-day populations to La Braña 1 are Sweden and Finland.

"This data indicates there's genetic continuity between the populations of central and western Eurasia. In fact, these data coincides with archaeological remains, since different excavations in Europe and Russia, including the Mal'ta site, have recovered anthropomorphic figures -called Paleolithic Venus- that are very similar," the researcher concludes.

Watch the video of the Ancient European HERE.