January 21, 2015

Bronze Age warrior from Poland

Google translation of original article:
Skull warrior was in such good condition that the museum was tempted by an experiment - a reconstruction of his face. Tasks undertaken by the research team of Dr. Dorothy Lorkiewicz-Muszyńska of the Department of Forensic Medicine, University of Medical Sciences. Every day with their ability to use the police, for example, when you need to identify a murder victim. The first step was to make a 3D scan of the skull.

- At the base using a special computer program was applied to the muscle tissue - explains the director Bartecki. - Method shows more than 90 percent. compliance with the real appearance of a man - says.

Proved invaluable assistance skeleton results Rogalin. Also genetic. Thanks to them, we know that the warrior had a dark complexion, dark hair and eyes.
This combination of traits is rather uncommon in modern Poles. It seems that eastern Europeans looked quite different four thousand years ago than they do today.

28 comments:

Krefter said...

Did Police test his DNA? Did they test genetic markers?

Davidski said...

He looks like Polish striker Robert Lewandowski in profile.

https://www.google.com.au/search?safe=off&hl=en&authuser=0&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1301&bih=678&q=Robert+Lewandowski&oq=Robert+Lewandowski&gs_l=img.3..0l10.1345.7254.0.7838.18.11.0.6.6.0.387.1889.3-5.5.0.msedr...0...1ac.1.61.img..7.11.1925.qSvdtcSOt-0

So we can safely say he wasn't a Greek.

Unknown said...

So would this individual likely be pre Indo European?

Užumiškiai said...
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Dienekes said...

But it's not unheard of. half of the players from Poland's national football team have dark hair: http://external.polskieradio.pl/files/79002e5a-cb3b-4dda-b820-b1e76c224579.file

And allele coding for dark eye pigmentation reaches 22% among Poles: http://alfred.med.yale.edu/alfred/SiteTable1A_working.asp?siteuid=SI007119S


Like I said it is the combination of dark skin, hair, and eyes that is unusual for a Pole. There are, of course, Poles with dark hair and dark eyes (and virtually all have the light skin allele in loci usually associated with skin pigmentation that are virtually fixed in modern Europeans). But, sampling an individual with dark phenotypes in all three traits is statistically improbable for the Polish population.

Making such a vast generalization based on only one person is ridiculous, to say the least.

I did not generalize based on one person, but based on the results of a large sample of individuals (mainly Ukraine and Russia) from the linked post. The one Polish individual does not seem to contrast with these individuals from Ukraine and Russia.

Krefter said...

"But it's not unheard of. half of the players from Poland's national football team have dark hair: http://external.polskieradio.pl/files/79002e5a-cb3b-4dda-b820-b1e76c224579.file"

It's the dark skin(practically non-existent) and brown eyes(under 50% today) which make him abnormal. Add to this, dozens of samples in Ukraine and Russia who were roughly contemporary with him had the same markers.

Dark hair is the majority everywhere in the world, except maybe in Sweden, Norway, and Finland.

Actual yellow hair is something like 20-35% in northern Europe at the most, the rest is dark(Brown-black, usually hard to tell difference), except for the occasional redhead, which will hit above 1% if you're lucky.

carriall said...

Hello, I am new here. Interesting finding. In my opinon, and absed on this single profile picture I'd say that from the morphological point of view he would fit with a nordic. If this is right then that sends us back to Coon's warning about ascribing blond colours to soft parts of sskeletical individuals who look morphologicaly nordic....and proves once again that "racial types" is a matter of morphology and not of colour

eurologist said...

"He looks like Polish striker Robert Lewandowski in profile."

Davidski,

Not at all, IMO.

Lewandowski and also Klose have narrow, tall, and short skulls without prognathism. Lukas Podolski has a more robust skull more similar to this one and with a slight hint of prognathism - but even his is not particularly long, at all. The skull reminds me more of a person you mind find, e.g., in Bulgaria.

Artmar said...

I personally know a director of a museum that will make an exhibition connected with this finding, Mr. Bartłomiej Bartecki. He said that Bronze Age warrior was found in context of post-Corded Ware local Strzyżów culture. Also he revealed to me, that mtDNA was obtained from this warrior and several other remains - U5b1, H1b, H2a, H1b, H1a, H2a, H6.(I don't know which mtDNA this warrior possessed)
However, site also shown several Globular Amphorae influences. So, many scenarios are possible.

Justin said...

Could these be farming migrants from the south, or farmer local hybrids?

Kurti said...

Another dark skinned, eyed European population. So only light skinned, light eyed and light haired individual so far = FARMER from Hungary lol.

But Andronovo on the other half of the globe had significant percentage of light har/skin/eyed samples.
Imagine if it turns out that the Indo_Iranians (who are the resulz of additional pastrolist admixture from BMAC) have spred these features into Europe.

Kurti said...

Heck by that time, light hair/eyes/skin were already known in ancient West Asia, described by Sumerians and attributed to Gutians and Subarians. Makes me wonder where this combination really originates and if it really has one single origin and didn't occure several times in many different West Eurasian populations.

Kurti said...

Sorry tripple post

@David

Looks more like a dark skinned, dark haired/eyed Podolski than Lewandowski to me.

Krefter said...

Kurti,

EEF doesn't mean identical to Sardinians, all it means is WHG+ENF, with no ANE.

Sardinians are at the southern-end of EEF. Gok2(had as much as Balts) and C01 had as much WHG as north Euros and Basque, but lacked ANE, which makes them appear Sardinian-like.

EEFs still make a big chunk of all Euros ancestry, Yamna didn't come close to exterminating them, so it makes sense they were involved in the lighting process.

Andronovo was a Yamna descendant who migrated into Asia. They are like half-brothers on the father's side(Y DNA R1), to Euros, and so there's no surprise they had a similar evolutionary history.

We have to get autosomal DNA from this bronze age Pole, to know if he was a Yamna-CWC-type. Based on Reich leaks I would imagine genetically he is somewhere around central-north-east Europe.

Clay said...

He's a dead ringer for Martin Skrtel, the Liverpool defender who was born in Slovakia.

eurologist said...

"Looks more like a dark skinned, dark haired/eyed Podolski than Lewandowski to me."

Hah! (see my previous post).

More seriously, don't forget that current genetics covers perhaps something like 10%-20% of eye, skin, and hair coloration, while ignorant so-called geneticist claim they can determine such coloring on few and questionable SNPs in a snap like Simon can call an exceptional musician.

Tobus said...

@eurologist:while ignorant so-called geneticist claim they can determine such coloring on few and questionable SNPs

These "questionable" SNPs are the same ones that are routinely used in forensic and police work. It's called Hirisplex and it's reasonably accurate... Google it.



Tobus said...

@bmdriver:Europeans are nothing but Indian migrants. Who have turned white over the past 3000years.

Light skin alleles are found in both Otzi at 5,000ybp and Stuttgart at 7,000ybp. Your assertion of "the past 3000years" is too recent.

Kurti said...

@Krefter

From the way you build your sentence you make it appear like EFF is more WHG than ENF.

And WHERE did I even lost a word about Sardinians??

EFF is basically 4/5 ENF and 1/5 WHG. It is pred. ENF just with some early WHG admixture. Even some of this WHG could have been catched up ALREADY in the Near East. But the majority of it was in the Balkans.

Simon_W said...
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Unknown said...

Artur if you hear any more details let us know.

Simon_W said...

I fear the comment I wrote today got lost because I forgot to prove that I'm not a robot.

I said that man seems to have a very low skull height : skull length ratio, which is unusual for modern Poles and for eastern Europeans in general. Lewandowski doesn't have such a low ratio, at least not in the google pics. But such a profile could be easily found in present-day Norway and in Jutland. He may have been related to the people who took R1a-Z284 to Scandinavia.

Bulgarians tend to be more gracile and have on average a higher skull height : skull length ratio.

We shouldn't misinterpret pigmentation. The Sardinian-like EEFs were partly blond and light eyed. Northern-like DNA wasn't always associated with light pigmentation.

Unknown said...

"But Andronovo on the other half of the globe had significant percentage of light har/skin/eyed samples. Imagine if it turns out that the Indo_Iranians (who are the resulz of additional pastrolist admixture from BMAC) have spred these features into Europe."

People only seem to talk on and on about indo-europeans being the only major contributors in bringing lighter hair/skin into europe. And there is no doubt that these rla corded type seemed to play a major role, but why forget that the blondest and light eyes are highest in finland, karelia & estonia. basically light hair and eyes in europe has multiple origins and finno-ugrics did also play their part. hell even late neolithic farmers in hungary were getting light hair/eyes for whatever unknown reason

Krefter said...

"Europeans are nothing but Indian migrants. Who have turned white over the past 3000years."

Don't make this into a raciest thing. This is about ancestry and evolution. If Euros had ancestors who had skin color similar to Indians, that doesn't make them Indian.

The term white is only relevant when it comes to culture in the modern world. Ancient DNA shows that Euro-genes are much older than light skin, and so there's no such thing as the white race. Euros are a composite of 3 very different people who lived in west and north Eurasia 10,000YBP>, as are middle easterns.

eurologist said...

Krefter,

Your statistics of skin, hair, and eye coloring within Europe are way off.

"These "questionable" SNPs are the same ones that are routinely used in forensic and police work. It's called Hirisplex and it's reasonably accurate... Google it."

Tobus,

I don't need to google anything - my assertions are well-known. The number one SNP for West-Eurasian light skin still allows a very dark tone even in double carriers - ask Razib Khan, who has stated he is one of them.

Artmar said...

@Simon_W
Scandinavians also aren't that low skulled - Brits are.
Although it's irrelevant, because cranial index can develop in various ways withough significant genetic change. Early Slavs were quite dolichocephalic and had lower profiles than modern ones, although debrachycephalisation is in process since some decades.

@Annie Mouse
Unforutnately Bartecki is forbidden to reveal too much.
I can't obtain an info on Y-chromosomes now.

Unknown said...

Also I'm Polish and I read this source in original. Dark doesn't means black there. You have skin tone on reconstruction, is rather swarthy. Regretabbly I don't have cranofacial measurements, which will be very helpful. But nose looks rather narrow. There is no prognatism. This is denifinietly not negroid It could be some Berberoid (which is consider white by Polish typologist) element mixed with Cromagnoid. According to Polish sources the very slight Berber admixture was noted from Meghalitic times in Central European skeletal remains. And it is connected from migrants from Southern Europe.

jewel snake said...

Here is full reconstruction of this worrior. Our, polish dark complections is quite different from , for example US dark commplection. He was White :)
1 http://lubiehrubie.pl/files/news/lead/1198985090-wojownik150419.jpg

2 http://s.tvp.pl/images2/a/8/f/uid_a8f27ef1f7349763dfb44cc0b98591331428430928907_width_736_play_0_pos_0_gs_0_height_414.jpg