Early European hunter-gatherer had blue eyes and dark skin

A European hunter-gatherer who lived 7,000 years ago had the unusual combination of dark skin and blue eyes, scientists have found.
Researchers from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), in collaboration with the Centre for GeoGenetics, Denmark, have analysed the first complete genome of a European hunter-gatherer recovered from La Brana-Arintero site in Valdelugueros, Spain.
Named La Brana 1, the 7,000-year-old individual from the Mesolithic Period, had blue eyes and dark skin and was lactose intolerant, according to CSIC researcher Carles Lalueza-Fox.
The Mesolithic, a period that lasted from 10,000 to 5,000 years ago, ended 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 Brana individual could not do.

"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," Lalueza-Fox said.
"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," Lalueza-Fox said.

The study of the genome suggests that current populations nearest to La Brana 1 are in northern Europe, such as Sweden and Finland.
In addition, the work points out that La Brana 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.
"These data indicate that there is genetic continuity in the populations of central and western Eurasia," Lalueza-Fox said.
"In fact, these data are consistent with the archaeological 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," Lalueza-Fox said.

La Brana-Arintero site was discovered in 2006 and excavated by Julio Manuel Vidal Encinas, archaeologist of the Council of Castilla y Leon.
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 skeletons found inside, and they were called La Brana 1 and La Brana 2.
The research is published in journal Nature.