I remember my teacher saying something about Blue-eyed Indians living in Asia. Found a wikipedia website when I looked up for more info about it.

"The Pashto-speaking Pashtuns refer to themselves as Pashtuns or Pukhtuns depending upon whether they are speakers of the southern dialect or northern dialect respectively. These Pashtuns compose the core of ethnic Pashtuns who are predominantly an Iranian people and found in southern and eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan. Many Pashto-speaking Pashtuns have however intermingled with various invaders, neighboring groups, and migrants (as have the other Iranian peoples) including possibly the Ghilzai who may have mingled with Turkic tribes, the Durrani who have interacted considerably with the Tajiks (another Iranian people), and Pashtun tribes north of Peshawar who have mingled with Dardic groups. In terms of phenotype, the Pashto-speaking Pashtuns overall are predominantly a Caucasoid people with Mediterranean features, but blonde hair and blue and green eyes are not uncommon, especially amongst remote mountain tribes."

Can somebody elaborate on their ancestry? I'm interested to know why they have green/blue eyes and blond hair.

Sorry if this is under the wrong category.

can you find a picture of what they look like. or give me their name so i can find a picture of them.

i have a theory these indians are the humanoid aliens called the nordics and the pleiadians. But that's just me. but the humanoid aliens do have green eyes(sometimes) and blue eyes and blonde hair. just me though. you can decide for yourself. I'll post a pic.

I'm pretty sure that Pashtuns are of Vedic or Aryan (Not the Nazi Aryan) descent. I know somebody who would know more about this than me, I'll see if I can coax her into posting tonight or tomorrow.

Sharbat Gula, pashtun woman.

Pashtuns are Iranian and Indian descendants. Hamid Karzai (president of Afghanistan) is a Pashtun himself. There are sayings that Pashtuns came from the Hebrews, or Alexander's Greeks (but the Nuristanis are from Alexander's Greeks, or so they say.) Unlike the Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, Turkmens, etc of Afghanistan, they are in the southern part of Afghanistan (ie. Qandahar, etc), and the eastern portion of Afghanistan. But yeah, some Pashtuns do have blonde hair and green eyes, in the mountanious region. Yeah, Afghanistan is a very mountainious region, there's many ethnic groups, like the Hazaras (mongolian ancestry?), and etc.

You should read a book by Gore Vidal called "Creation." It's historical fiction, but based on fact. Anyway, it the book he talks a lot about the Aryan origins of many peoples in the Mideast, Asia Minor, etc.

It's extremely possible that there is much genetic contribution from white races of the north into these areas. Again, we're not talking about the Nazi aryan concept, but about ancient northern tribes of white, blue-eyed peoples who frequently swept down to raid and plunder, but also to trade and establish ties.

Another interesting note: When Lewis and Clark explored the American west, they supposedly found some green and blue-eyed Native Americans among the Mandan tribes of North Dakota. Now that's amazing! Speculation is early Viking visitations to the New World centuries before Columbus.

these things are not uncommon, there are tribes in mongolia of which some people have blond hair. this is just because of mixing with other groups of people, supposedly the tribe in mongolia are descendants of the amazone women that used to live around russia but later moved to asia. (Discovery Channel)

plus many people in central asia have mixed decendants because of its position as being the middle of asia so a lot of different ethnic groups pass through and get busy with locals

Helllo
Actually i have many Friends who are 'Pathans' They are Blue Eyed.
They Refer Themselves to Genghis Khan and Aryans . In Pakistan they live mostly in state of N.W.F.P (North West Frontier Province) there are High Mountains there.....
Afghanistan and Iran also Consist of Pashtuns and Pathans...

That's all

Zeeshan

Ghenghis got around a good bit... It is easy to guess that he might have brought enough european courtiers/slaves back with him to establish a stable genetic base for these attributes.

Check routes of Indo-European languages.
See newest DNA studies in tracing back ancestry of Euros.
They came from Iran mostly.
Caucasians are native to the Middle East, all caucasians.

I have an Afghani friend who is Pashtun (or Kandhari as he refers to himself). His family are light skinned, green eyes, light haired people. Its funny, his brother is very dark skinned, brown eyes, black hair. Heh.
Afghans are a very diverse group of people!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v455/nir...ya/Maqbool2.jpg < theres a picture of him if youre interested. Not too hard on the eyes either

hey he's cute!

The Pashtuns are likely the original Aryan race. Their facial features are sharper than those of most Europeans.

A few thousand years ago, large numbers of sharp-nosed, dolichocephalic Aryans (Pashtu) migrated out of the cold, icy mountains of the Afghanistan/ north Pakistan regions towards the milder climates and more fertile landscapes of Europe and India.

In Europe, they obviously encountered the more snub-nosed, brachycephalic (broad-headed) Gauls/Celts and Slavs. They were often at war with the Celts and Slavs, but there was probably some intermarriage as well as trade and commerce between the European Celts, Gauls and Slavs on the one hand, and the Aryan invaders on the other. This would explain why Europeans appear to have a mixture (to varying degrees) of snub Celtic/Slavic features, combined with the sharper features of the Ancient Aryan (Afghan) invaders.

In India, the Aryans encountered the snub-nosed, "black-skinned" Dravidians, and the Rig Veda indicates considerable warfare. The light-skinned, sharp-featured Aryans established a brutal "caste-system" in India. However, even here, I believe there was eventually (over the centuries) some racial inter-mixture and political accommodation between perhaps the poorer segments of the Aryan population and the down-trodden Dravidians.

All of this would also explain why the Celtic, Slavic and Indian languages have a noticeable Aryan influence, and are thus part of the "Indo-European" group of languages, a name which reflects the migrations of the Aryans, who invaded Europe and India.

Of course, the bulk of the Aryans remained in their original homeland (the areas that are now part of north-western Pakistan and eastern and southern Afghanistan). The ancient name of this region is "Aryana".

The Finno-Urgic peoples of Northern Asia introduced the "blond hair-blue eyes" gene into the other races. Asia steppe culture was nomadic culture and there was a lot of cross fertilization of races.

Lapiche

The ancient Indo-Europeans migrated into Pakistan, India, Iran, etc.. so its not surprising to find a remaining influence there.




I thought most people belied Indo-Europeans' homeland was in Caucasus area.

Ummm, Afghanistan is directly adjacent to these areas.
And actually, the languages spoken in the Caucasus /aren't/ Indo-European.

--Jaylemurph

I know I agree, I never said it wasn't.



Aren't Armenians in the Caucasus region?

Armenians are to the south of the region we're talking about, yes, but they form a very separate group from most other Caucasian tribes .
But most of the rest of the languages spoken in the area are Georgian languages with no close tie to Indo-European languages. Armenian itself is often considered related only most distantly to Indo-European, with attachments at best to very old Greek.

--Jaylemurph

Well, the Aryans originally came from these Afghanistan/ North Pakistan mountains (perhaps North-eastern "Iran" as well).The people of this region called themselves "Aryans" meaning the "noble" ones. Incidentally, the archaic name of their homeland was "Aryana" (to which the name "Iran" bears some noteworthy resemblance) . This is why there is a notable Aryan ("Iranian") presence there, consisting of people that are predominantly dolichocephalic ("long-headed") and displaying extreme leptorrhiny (thin, prominent noses).

This is in significant contrast to the Europeans, who display a varying mixture of alpine/brachycephalic ("broad-headed") measurements with varying degrees of dolichocephalic "admixture". The noses of the Europeans (Celts, Gauls, Slavs, Ugro-Finnics etc.) are also somewhat shorter and broader than those of the Aryans (Pathans, Persians, Kurds etc.). So the smaller degree of dolichocephalic admixture we observe in the European populations would likely have something to do with the sharp-featured, dolichocephalic Aryans migrating to Europe and encountering an already-established presence of Brachycephalic people there (i.e. the Celts and the Slavs, among others).

As for "nomenclature", there is no ancient people that called themselves "Indo-European". This would otherwise be a meaningless term except for the fact that it denotes the migration patterns of the Aryan migrants, who invaded Europe and India after abandoning their cold, harsh and desolate mountain home ["Aryana" the region that is now part of Eastern Afghanistan/ North-western Pakistan]. Hence, it is also useful in designating the languages that were influenced by these Aryan invasions into Europe and India (thus "Indo-European").



Well, genetic tests confirm that a people of the Caucasus (the people of Dagestan from this particular example) are from the middle-east and yet many are also closely related to the Turks of Anatolia and Cyprus. [see reference below]. Chechens and Ingushetians are also from the Caucasus and are adjacent to the people of Dagestan.

However, they do not speak an "Indo-European" language, thus I certainly have to wonder how the "Indo-European" homeland could be here?

Finally, reputable linguistic studies generally trace the "indo-European" language migration patterns from an "Iranian" (Aryan) origin source.


Aformentioned Reference:
[1] Hum Biol. 2006 Aug;78(4):465-76.Links
Genetic structure of Dagestan populations: a study of 11 Alu insertion polymorphisms.
Yunusbayev B, Kutuev I, Khusainova R, Guseinov G, Khusnutdinova E.
Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics, Ufa Science Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, Prospekt Oktyabrya, 71, Ufa, Russia.

That's correct, but the study of their culture and of their language /is/ called Indo-European studies. The term "Aryan" is seldom used in modern linguistics (it stopped being used commonly at the beginning of the last century), and when it is used it's synonymous not with (Proto-) Indo-European as a whole, but the smaller division of Indo-Iranian languages:


The quote is from an article you can read here.


Furthermore, the exact location of PIE speakers' homeland has never been determined. We know the general area (somewhere in the Caucasian steppes, probably not the mountains themselves:


This image is from the Wikipedia discussion of The Kurgan hypothesis, one of the models of Indo-European langauge movement. It's old and has some flaws, but is still the most accepted of the various models suggested.

--Jaylemurph

"Zerjal et al [2003][29] identified a Y-chromosomal lineage present in about 8% of the men in a large region of Asia (about 0.5% of the men in the world). The paper suggests that the pattern of variation within the lineage is consistent with a hypothesis that it originated in Mongolia about 1,000 years ago. Such a spread would be too rapid to have occurred by genetic drift, and must therefore be the result of natural selection. The authors propose that the lineage is carried by likely male-line descendants of Genghis Khan, and that it has spread through social selection.

In addition to the Khanates and other descendants, the Mughal emperor Babur's mother was a descendant. Timur, the 14th century military leader, claimed descent from Genghis Khan."

This was my favorite fun fact about Khan. He is "grandfather" to .5% of all the men in the world. Wow!

Europeans have been trading and invading Asia for over a thousand years, the British were there from the late sixteen hundreds to the middle of nineteenth century, from the very beginning solders and civilian employees not only married the local girls but were encouraged to do so by the army and government, giving a grant and married quarters to those that did marry asian women.

Possibly, and I'm not sure (and you can confirm/clarify your intent), but it seems that you are trying to imply that British rule is of some genetic relevance when explaining why there are caucasian-looking people in "Asia". Let's examine your claim.

The British empire ruled Indian territories (south-east of Pakistan) for roughly 200 years or so. However, I don't see much of a genetic impact on the Indian population as a whole. They had control of the Bengal for a very long time, but somehow, the Bengalis don't look particularly British; at least that's my humble opinion (of course, you are free to dispute this). The British had control of what is now part of the Pakistani Punjab for roughly 100 years. But there is no evidence of Anglo-Saxon genetic impact here, either. Yet these Punjabis are more Caucasian than the people of India, the latter who were part of the British empire for a longer period of time than the Punjabis.

Finally, the British generally failed to subdue the Pashtun tribes of the North-west. The British either had no direct control (or negligible control at best in a few cases) of the Pashtun tribal areas. They had the least amount of contact with these conservative Pashtun tribes on a personal level (especially when compared to the prolonged British presence in India).

However, the *dolichocephalic* Pashtuns seem to be more Caucasian in appearance than the predominantly Brachycephalic British, never mind the Indians and Punjabis. Incidentally, Lord Elphinstone visited Afghanistan in the early 1800s and commented on the strong caucasian appearance of the Pashtun tribes, long before the British empire even reached the Northwestern regions (the book he wrote was called "The Kingdom of Caubul").

Yet by your line of reasoning (assuming that's what you were trying to say), the Indian population ought to be at least as caucasian-looking as the Punjabis and Pashtuns, because the Indians were in contact with the British for a much longer period of time.

It's interesting, then, that the people who had the least contact with the British empire (i.e. the Pashtuns), are the most caucasian of all these groups. In terms of common-sense and logic, I think an alternative explanation would have to be favored.

Ali --


I thought it was a bit odd when you broke out the term "Aryan" to describe Indo-Iranian language and culture, but I /knew/ that was a bit... dated.
Your idea of racial characteristics being described through skull size, the cephalic index, is pretty obsolete. It's only one step or so away from Eugenics...

I just want to post this link that talks about how and why it's discounted...
Maybe you're posting from 1903...

--Jaylemurph

So you say. I guess we should stop calling the Scottish people "Scottish" because it is such an old word.



Really? How do you figure?

Describing people's ethnic characteristics and origins solely through "eye-color" or "hair-colour" (as some folks have been doing on this thread) is even more obsolete by the standards of physical anthropology.

As for cephalic index (which often also correlates with facial features to some degree), these are actual observable characteristics (with a hereditary basis) just like eye-colour and skin colour, but even more reliable than the latter.

Incidentally, some of your friends in the scientific community have been trying to argue that "caucasians" were among the first inhabitants of the new world/ the Americas.

Their evidence?...
...The "skull measurements" of some ancient bones they have found (obviously, eye-colour, hair colour etc. isn't of much help here).

I guess you should tell them that their methods are "obsolete".



Quoting the website you just cited :

"In 2002 a paper by Sparks and Jantz re-evaluated some of Boas's original data using new statistical techniques and concluded that there was a "relatively high genetic component" of head shape.[3] "
[From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalic_index ]

So what was that you were saying about cephalic index being "discounted"?



No, it's 2007, but thanks for asking.

No, it's that the term is not used because it's outdated and can carry a dubious connotation. If you'd like an accurate comparison, it'd be like calling a person from Sudan a blackamoor.



I certainly agree with the first half of that. Being so new, you may not have read discussions where people theorized an alien super-race on Earth based on nothing more than red hair and alledged they literally have blue blood.

But the cephalic index study by Sparks and and Jantz is one modern study that is still being debated. I'll be happy to come back to it later.
What's not being debated, though, is that the idea of cephalic index was one that led to several eugenics programs and was used by Nazis to defend their views, and -- Sparks and Jantz apart -- hasn't been a part of mainstream science for years.
From the same article:


[emphasis mine]

--Jaylemurph

There was to many British over a to longer period for it to not have affected the Asian gene pool, Pashtun is a generic term used in many parts of Asia for any light skinned person, the resent mistaken sighting in Morocco of maddie McCann was later explained to be the daughter of a Pashtun Family, To think these Asian peoples and tribes have been static is a mistake, Modern Pakistan, Bangladesh and india are less than 100 years old and made up of displaced people, the tribes of the Hindu-Cush have been invaded so many times it's impossible to tell there origins, the original inhabitants being slaughtered by Muslim hoards, Hindu-Cush translates as Hindu Slaughter, the survivors left the region on mass creating the gypsies of the world.
There's whole villages of light skinned people in India with British names, they don't know when there ancestors came to the Asian continent and have no connection with the UK.

May I add this link to a vid On youtube that shows what may have been Celts that migrated from europe to asia as far as the borders of china!!!

6vids total....

http://youtube.com/watch?v=MS_Mt_hseNA

http://youtube.com/watch?v=VGBOxw-CSV8

http://youtube.com/watch?v=OTQNboJg_zQ

http://youtube.com/watch?v=fTMLhPe8k4M

http://youtube.com/watch?v=07i8ym2udWo

http://youtube.com/watch?v=N_mqTBTu7PQ



My explination to the blue eyes in the region around Afganistan is the Macadonian Greek invasion led by Alexander the Great he controled that region for a while...

Actually I'm pushto and i have to say i had blonde hair and blue eyes as a child but it turned into brown hair and brown eyes as i got older =(

The way i see it I'm a descendant of Greeks, led by Alexander the Great, who conquered Persia->mostly blonde hair and blue eyes. It would be cool to have an Ancient Greek warrior as an ancestor.

It goes even further than China. In Japan there are a people who have some charectoristics of Europeans, although being obviously mixed.

They recently discovered an Roman outpost in China... AFAIK, and happy to stand corrected, but i thought it was generally accepted that all Caucasians were originally from the Northern Indian sub continent?

i think most of the caucosoids or the aryans are from the ariana or modern afghanistan area!!

the people you are talking about in Japan are the Anius.Sorry if I have mispelled their name. They say their ancestors came from the sky.
National Geographic Magazine has done articles on them before.
Yes,I've seen the photos of the celtic or European mummies found in China. through out these areas,people traded and were also driven out of and into new areas by wars,etc.Certainly they was an mingling of peoples by marriage or otherwise.
There are other people,like I think the Turaregs of North Africa, and some other peoples who have blue or green eyes,etc.
Aberigone children are tow headed,ie: blonde haired when young.Seen in National Geographic just such kids in Australia.
I think our ancient ancestors had more contact with each other than we know.
St.Thomas,one of the apostles is believed to have brought Christianity to India.No doubt he followed some of the ancient trade routes,like the Silk road or some other trade route.So if he could do that,then why not other travelers.
Look at the giant heads carved by the Olmec. They have many of them negroid features.Could these people have carved black faces,blacks perhasp that traveled with Phonicians or Egyptians? I say this is in some egyptian mummies several years back.they found what a;peared to be cocaine.Could there have been travel and trade between the new and old worlds?

Also,there are people in Italy and Spain who have blonde hair and blue eyes,etc.The Visigoths,Vandals and others invaded these areas.In fact the Visigoths had a kingdom in Spain until driven out by the Muslims.
The Vandals even immegrated into North Africa. So anything is possible.

Doubtful.

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHG/jour.../013572.web.pdf
"Three populations have possible origins from the armies of Alexander the Great: the Burusho, the Kalash, and the Pathans. Modern Greeks show a moderately high frequency of haplogroup21 (28%; Rosser et al. 2000), but this haplogroup was not seen in either the Burusho or the Kalash sample and was found in only 2% of the Pathans, whereas the local haplogroup 28 was present at 17%, 25%, and 13%,respectively. Greek-admixture estimates of 0% were obtained for the Burusho and the Pathans, but figures of 20%–40% were observed for the Kalash(table 3). In view of the absence of haplogroup 21, we ascribe this result either to drift in the frequencies of the other haplogroups, particularly haplogroups 2 and 1, or to the poor resolution of lineages within these haplogroups, resulting in distinct lineages being classified into the same paraphyletic haplogroups. Overall, no support for a Greek origin of their Y chromosomes was found, ..."

Reference:
Am. J. Hum. Genet. 70:1107–1124, 2002
1107
Y-Chromosomal DNA Variation in Pakistan
1Biomedical and Genetic Engineering Division, Dr. A. Q. Khan Research Laboratories, Islamabad; 2Cancer Research Campaign, Chromosome Molecular Biology Group, Department of Biochemistry, and 3Institute of Biological Anthropology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom; and deCODE Genetics, Reykjavik