Blond and blue-eyed Caucasians: a myth or reality?

When it comes to talking about the inhabitants of the Caucasus, as soon as the image is formed dark man in the head, with dark hair and thick black eyebrows. That's right, according to the majority, look Ossetians and Ingush, the Georgians and Armenians. But often in the families of the representatives of this ethnic group are born bright children. No, to the blond Scandinavian them away, but light-brown hair, gray, blue or green eyes meet not so rare.

Mixed marriages: the natural lottery

Why is this happening? One reason, of course, mixed marriages in previous generations. Gene "whiteness" is recessive, so brunettes in mixed pairs born more often. However, the genetic information is preserved through several generations can be born a smiling blue-eyed blonde. And then the young father is not necessary to catch at the heart, we must first look into the album with family photos. There's sure to find golden-haired beauty, or a man with hair the color of ripe wheat.

Ancestral Heritage

But not only the closest ancestors can be a cause of the blond kid in the Caucasian family. It is enough to turn to historical sources to find out that the ancestors of the Ossetians and Ingush were quite unlike his contemporaries. The chronicles are described as high, with white skin and advantageously blond hair.

Alana, this so-called nomadic ethnic group, live in the vast area stretching from the Roman empire to Asia. After numerous wars, some of them settled on the territory of modern Ossetia and Ingushetia, mingled with local tribes. But here came into play heredity and evolutionary mechanisms - dark hair usually inherited, in warm climates have skin rich in melanin, is much more comfortable. Therefore, the population is gradually becoming more and more like his contemporaries. The proof of this hypothesis are the notes and researcher ethnographer II Pantyukhov. He argued that the percentage of light eyes in individual peoples of the Caucasus ranges up to 30%, which is comparable to the Europeans and the Slavs.

Blonde Circassians

Circassians were among the most numerous ethnic groups living on the territory of modern Stavropol Territory. Ethnographers described them as "fair-haired, with a red mustache and light skin, gray or hazel eyes."

However, during the Russian-Caucasian war, a large part fled to Turkey. But many remained. The closest genetically to the Circassians inhabitants of the village of Carmel, they are difficult to distinguish from Europeans exactly as long until they begin to talk.

There is also a hypothesis that the Circassians are descendants of the Slavs, particularly the Cossacks as self "Cossack" is often found in the studies. (Russian antiquity monuments of art. Tolstoy and N. Kondakov)

The Caucasian Albanians

lived on the territory of the Caucasus and the tribe, which was called the Albanians - white-skinned, fair-haired Caucasians. They are strikingly different from the Turks, they were taller, had a totally different beliefs and culture. Even self nation comes from the Latin albus - "white", which confirms the theory of the historians of the tribes, unlike common today Caspian type.

Unfortunately, much of Albania was destroyed during the numerous wars with the Arabs, but "genetic echoes" are found among his contemporaries.

Svans

In contrast, Albania, Svans not disappeared, not melted in the turbulent cauldron of small ethnic groups. They, as well as four thousand years ago, living in the mountainous region of Georgia (from 600 to 2500 meters above sea level). Their language is quite different from the Georgian, but gradually disappears, remaining only in the everyday speech of the older generation.

The boy Swann.

Tsarist colonel Bartholomew described the people as high, with a haughty profile, blond, blue-eyed. He noted their simplicity and kindness, as well as what Svans faithfully honored its own traditions. Their culture has long been developed in isolation, it is possible to preserve the genetic uniformity.

Svans. Grandmother with grandchildren. 1929.

And even after the unification with Georgia in one state, Georgians feared Svan. Blond highlanders honored tradition, and vendetta was one of the most common ways of resolving family disputes. Therefore, mixed marriages have become commonplace only in the last few decades. And gene "golden curls" often manifests itself, displacing the dominant Caspian appearance.

The Chechens

Modern Chechens and Ingush are direct descendants of the Vainakh - Hurrian ethnic group. However, around the third millennium BC, these tribes mingled with the other carrying a genetic traits kromanoydnoy race (the modern representatives of this race are Slavs and the Finns and Swedes).

Blue-eyed Chechens.

Genetic "cocktail" and explains the wide variety of types of appearance in Chechnya. When genes are dominated Near Eastern race, a child is born dark-skinned, with dark hair. When prevails kromanoydny type - looks virtually identical to the Slavic.

Nomads: migration for the sake

Another genetic branch, which became part of the ethnic heritage of the Caucasus, mostly blond and white-skinned nomadic Cumans, fled from multiple harassment by the warring tribes. They gradually assimilated, merged with the local people and actually melted into the dominant ethnic groups in Caucasia.

Dmitry Kharatyan - an Armenian father and a midshipman on his mother.

That is why blond among Caucasians is not uncommon - many of them in Chechnya and Dagestan, and in Armenia and Georgia. And this mixture of races in its own well, because it once again reminds us that every person has left to posterity, is immortal. His tiny part of the lives through the centuries. And through the centuries of the world looking blue eyes, exactly the same as a young lad, who built the legendary towers of Svaneti.