There are currently theories that modern Balkan Slavic groups were native to the Balkans in pre-history in terms of Proto Slavic ethnic/linguistic groups. Does this study substantiate this?

No, this study does not address such theories. Historical testimony is fairly overwhelming that the Slavs did not originate in the Balkans where they arrived in the 1st mill. AD. But the study points to the possibility that the elements which would later form the Slavs were of southern origin.

As always, BS :D

Soon I'll get the study, and we'll talk... so much for your another bubble...

I wanted to address Nika’s question about whether the Southern Slavs were native to the Balkans in light of some genetic studies. The problem is that these studies are often in conflict. In addition, much of the historical, linguistic and archeological evidence is often interpreted politically. Compounded with the reality that much of the Balkans, Pannonia and the Russian Steppes have seen seemingly endless waves of migrating people of very diverse languages and cultures, the picture becomes quite complex. What is clear, is that from about the 6th century on the Slavs went from obscurity to being the most populous ethno/linguistic group in Europe. Something interesting must have happened.

It seems to me that this paper is positing a close genetic relationship between and recent common origins of West, East and South Slavs. This contradicts Cavalli-Sforza who shows a close genetic relationship between Poles, Russians and, surprisingly, Hungarians, but no close relation between these groups and South Slavs. Also, there was a study measuring the frequency of a particular cystic fibrosis mutation common in West and East Slavs. See here, http://www.mh-hannover.de/kliniken/kinderheilkunde/kfg/cf/dork2000.pdf. The mutation was not present in South Slav groups at all except for Slovenians, and to a lesser extent in Macedonians – though it does appear again in Greece and Turkey. There is also a higher frequency in Germans and Austrians, indicating that the Slavs that migrated into those areas where eventually Germanized.

This study also picks up a marker in Czechs, but not in Slovaks, that is common to Celtic people. That would mean that when the Slavs migrated to Bohemia, a Celtic place name, there were some remaining Celts, though they may not have been culturally Celtic any longer. This finds corroboration in Cavalli-Sforza, who finds a closer relation between Czechs and Irish/Scottish than between any other Slavs. This Celtic admixture also draws Czechs further away from Poles and Russians.

Unfortunately, neither the Russian study nor the cystic fibrosis study included Hungarians. It would be interesting if Hungarians are basically Magyarorized Slavs, whereas many of the people to their south, were Slavicized. The Bulgars are a known Turkic tribe and there is some evidence that Croats and possibly Serbs are both originally Iranian, probably Sarmatian tribes. Assuming it was the West and East Slavs that originally spoke a recognizably Slavic language, then sometime in the 5th or 6th century, the Southern Slavs would have been Slavicize, but without much gene flow.

One possible way to account for this is when the Slavs and Avars began invading the Byzantine Empire in the 6th century, the Slavic invaders where migrating through the Balkans to attack the Byzantines and were able to impose their language on the Croats and Serbs. This may have been possible because there was already cultural and religious links between W/E Slavs and Southern Slavs. If the Southern Slavs weren’t Slavic, then they were very likely remnants of the Scytho-Sarmatians who had a dominating presence along the North shore of the Black Sea, stretching into Hungary and the Balkans. This dominance lasted for nearly a millennium and undoubtedly influenced the Proto-Slavs to the North. Much of Slavic religious terminology and mythology is Iranian in origin and probably occurred at this time. These proto-Slavs may have spoken a Baltic dialect and it was the contact with the Scytho-Sarmatians when the Slavic language began to take shape.

The gene flow between the Scytho-Sarmatians and the Slavs was probably mostly from the S-S to the Slavs. This may help resolve the conflict between the Russian study and the cystic fibrosis study. The cystic fibrosis study isn’t picking up the cf mutation in South Slavs because the gene flow was in the opposite direction. The Russian study is picking up genetic similarity between South and North Slavs because there was gene flow prior to the Slavic migration from proto South Slavs to the proto North Slavs. This would also mean that the though the South Slavs spoke an Iranian language and the North Slavs spoke proto-Slavic, they shared a pagan pantheon and much religious terminology. In fact, they may have both called themselves Slavs. According to a plausible theory by Phillip Lozinski, 1964, (see http://members.tripod.com/~Groznijat/fadlan/lozinski.html), the word Slav, which means “glory,” but in the sense of glorify or worship. In this case, “Slav” may have referred to the religious belief of the people. So Slavs were ethnically diverse, but religiously coherent. So the South Slavs were not really Slavicized because they were already Slavs. But the did acquire a new, though somewhat related, language.

Perhaps now it’s possible to sketch a more coherent picture of Slavic ethnogenesis that takes into account some of these genetic studies. The bulk of Northern Slavs are probably descendants of a Baltic people that separated from Balts and where isolated by the Pripet Marshes and the dense forests of Northeast Poland, Belarus and Lithuania. I haven’t seen much indicating the relationship between Slavs and Balts, other than Balts having a Finnish marker that Slavs don’t have. The cf marker is present in the Baltic countries, but that could be due to more recent Slavic migration than that marker being present in a hypothetical proto-Balto/Slavic population. The proto-B/S people themselves may be descendants from an early proto-Balto/Slavic/Germanic population Though Germanic is usually associated with the Western branch of the IE language, there is sufficient evidence (see http://www.geocities.com/cas111jd/norse/german_origin.htm, for example) that Germanic was originally a satem language and later became more “centumcized.” This is picked up genetically from both Cavalli-Sforza and the Russian study. Both show a reasonably close genetic relationship between Gernans, including Western Germanic people where there wouldn’t be much recent gene flow, and Northern Slavs.

It is also likely that there was plenty of gene flow throughout Europe in the last ten thousand years, which has helped keep the European gene pool relatively homogenous. One possibly is the relationship between the Veneti (see http://www.angelfire.com/country/veneti/ToulaevAncestors.html) and Slavs. Though the Veneti were probably not Slavs, they may have contributed certain markers that the Russian study finds that Slavs share with Balkan populations and Central Mediterranean populations. Slavs themselves may not have originated in Southern Europe, but there still could be shared markers due to later migrations.

The proto Slavs emerged on the Northern Slopes of the Carpathian mountains sometime in the first millennium B.C. in what is now southern Poland, Slovakia and Northwestern Ukraine. They fell under the influence of the Scythians and then the Sarmatians. Their earlier migrations would have been to the Northeast and have escaped notice of classical ethnographers. When the great migrations started in the 5th century, the Slavs mainly migrated West into Bohemia, Germany and Austria, with only Bohemia remaining Slavic. Their Southern migration likely went only into modern Hungary and Slovenia. This migration also could have been east from Slovenia, if Slavs inhabited Slovenia prior to the migration. Some Slavs did migrate into the Balkans to attack Bynzantium. These Slavs, possibly the Eastern Slavic tribe the Antes, imposed their language on their co-religionists Serbs and Croats. When the Bulgars invaded the Balkans, they adopted the language of and mixed with the recently Slavicized South Slavs. Later, when the Magyars invaded Hungary, they were able to impose their language on Slavs living there. Though I’ve seen population estimates that there were 400K Magyars invading Hungary and 400K people, mostly Slavs, living in Hungary, the genetic studies indicate that the Magyars were either able impose their language on a great many more Slavs, or that the invading Magyars already contained a strong Slavic element.

I think I’ve woven together a plausible scenario, where there wasn’t a dramatic Slavic migration into the Balkans. Of course, with more and more genetic studies becoming available, this largely speculative analysis may take on more credibility.

Steve, thanks for this long and interesting entry. I'll be sure to research the Serb-Croat/Iranian connection. I often wonder whether there is an Asian (Iranians are renowned for their high-rooted very convex noses) connection to the strongly Dinaric facial features that are found in the Balkans. These are definitely more ancient than the Slavic migration, but maybe they were re-inforced by them.

>> Though I’ve seen population estimates that there were 400K Magyars invading Hungary and 400K people, mostly Slavs, living in Hungary

I think the Magyars that arrived in Hungary were themselves not truly Magyar, but a hybrid of Magyars with some sort of Iranian element. Y chromosome research may be missing their genetic signature because few of them might have had Asian Y chromosomes (I have a post above on this subject). Also, note that patrilocality means that some gene flow from women would have further diluted the original Asian component in the Hungarian gene pool.

In fact this study doesn't suggest that Southern Slavs are that close to West Salavs. East Slavs are almost identical to west Slavs, while Southern slavs are not that close. There is another study which says Bulgarians are not signficantly Slavic

Actually, the very latest info suggests this:

The Ice Age split European populations into several groups.

One of the groups sought refuge in the west, in France, another in the Ukraine, and a third in the Balkans.

Basically, most Europeans are descendants of these people, plus later migrants from the Middle East and even North Africa.

There are now major differences between Slavs and Western Europeans (Germanics and Celts) because of the Ice Age period.

Both groups were closely related at one point, but then diverged over time.

This is why the gene EU18 is so common in Germanic and Celtic people today..

On the other hand, the related EU19 is extremely common amongst the Slavs.

The border area between the two genetic markers is East Germany, Western Poland, the Czech Republic and Austria. It is here that the west and east Caucasoids mixed in more recent times - probably over the last 1000 years or so.

So in terms of Slavic ethnogenesis, the Slavs originated in the east. The original Slavic marker gene is EU19, also knowns as R1a. All Slavs carry this gene, and so do many other people who have come into contact with Slavs.

But, due to the mixing, the west Slavs do also show genetic markers from western Europe. While the south Slavs have obvioulsy been influenced by Balkan populations.

Another interesting thing is that the EU19 marker is also considered to be a Indo-European one.

A variation of the gene is actually quite common in Scandinavians, like Norwegians and Icelanders. It is thought that it comes from the people who spread Indo-European speech from the east to west.

But yes, EU19 is most common in Slavs, and especially northern Slavs. It seems that they are the closest living relatives to the original Indo-Europeans, the Kurgan people.

Dear Dienekes,

What are your comments on the following words of Mario Alinei, the renowed archaeolinguist:

"I have to commence by clearing away one of the most absurd consequences of the traditional chronology, namely, that of the 'arrival' of the Slavs into the immense area in which they now live. The only logical conclusion can be that the southern branch of the Slavs is the oldest and that from it developed the Slavic western and eastern branches in a differing manner and perhaps at different times."

"Today only a minority of experts support the theory of a late migration for the Slavs... because none of the variant versions of such late settlement answers the question of what crucial factor could possibly have enabled the Slavs to have left their Bronze-Age firesides to become the dominant peoples of Europe. The southwestern portion of the Slavs had always bordered on the Italic people in Dalmatia, as well as in the areas of the eastern Alps and in the Po lowlands."

"The surmised 'Slavic migration' is full of inconsistencies. There is no 'northern Slavic language', it is rather only a variant of the southern Slavic... The first metallurgic cultures in the Balkans are Slavic... and connected with Anatolia... Slavic presence in the territory, nearly identical to the one occupied by them today, exists ever since the Stone Age... The Slavs have (together with the Greeks and other Balkan peoples developed agriculture... agriculturally mixed economy, typically European, which later enabled the birth of the Greek, Etruscan, and Latin urbanism. Germanic peoples adopted agriculture from the Slavs... The Balkans is one of the rare regions in which a real and true settlement of human groups coming from Anatolia is proven...].

REFERENCES
Mario Alinei, Origini delle lingue d’Europa, Vol. I: La teoria della continuità, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1996;

Vol. II: La continuità delle principali aree etnolinguistiche dal Mesolitico all’età del Ferro, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2000.

BIOGRAPHY

Mario Alinei is Professor Emeritus at the University of Utrecht, where he taught from 1959 to 1987.
Founder and editor of "Quaderni di semantica" review.

He is president of "Atlas Linguarum Europae".

Among his main works the following ones have been published by Il Mulino: La struttura del lessico (1974) and Lingua e dialetti: struttura, storia e geografia (1984).

My personal opinion is that Dr. Mario Alinei is not acquainted with the overwhelming majority of facts pointing to the arrival of Slavs in the 6-th AD.

Yanni,

Thanks for the article. I don't know much about Slavic ethnogenesis to comment about the content. One thing is definitely certain: the Slavs were intruders in Byzantine territory. This means that their origins are to be sought outside it. Moreover, as far as I know, there is no linguistic evidence for a correspondance between the ancient Balkan IE languages (Illyrian, Dacian, Thracian, etc.) with Slavic.

This is a interesting discussion, but I wont to notice that in Bulgaria, in the last 10 years the historians say that the proto-bulgarians was non a Turkic tribe, but a Iranian one or a Iranian with same Turkic inflow. The so called "Turkic origin" is a mistake. So please Steve Chmielewski check your answer - "The Bulgars are a known Turkic tribe" :)
The historians also notice that “the proportion between proto-bulgarians and the slovenians was 40 : 60” in old Bulgaria.
Hmm there is something interesting in your answer - "there is some evidence that Croats and possibly Serbs are both originally Iranian, probably Sarmatian tribes". Let mi see ... I don't known a Croats history as well as Bulgarian and Serbian, so I will writing only for Serbians. I’m not sure that Serbs are originally Iranian tribe, all historical evidence present them slavs, but it’s interesting to known that the big part of present-day Serbia, was in the past Bulgarian territory . The capital of Serbia was for many years a big bulgarian stronghold. So maybe there is same truth in your words.

Dear Friends!
This late winter there was published my last book, The Ancient Hungary I.
My hypothesis allows, that the ethnogenesis of the "invading" magyars and the aboriginal peoples of the Carpathian Basin should happen on a different way, as we think now. Based on different evidences, I think, that the hungarian language must be spoken in the Basin, and the "invaders" should have had any other different language, they could only assimilate into the aborigines.
That means, this aboriginal language seems to be very similar to the european ancient language, the same as celtic.
As I read, Mario Alieni thinks, that the etruscan seems to be "an archaic hungarian", and this is very correct, because I gave evidences in my book for wandering peoples from Hungary between 800-400 BC to Etruria.

THE ANCIENT HUNGARY
THE GREAT ANCIENT WORLD WAR AND THE ROME-SYNDROME

This book about the ancient history of Hungary provides many surprises for the western European reader. The European ancient history begins today with the Greeks and Romans. The Roman Empire receives an explicit place in it. The European history will be generally discussed from this point of view and a great influence of the history of Rome can be detected even in the today’s Europe. This book visualises a much more ancient European history, when the continent had yet a single language or closely related languages with its rather uniform civilisation and culture. The author presents the roots of the Celtic (means Eastern coming) Europe, its language and civilisation that was a creation of the people with agglutinative languages. He presents the archaeological proofs for the many parallels between Celtic and Etruscan founds and many examples are given for the Celtic and ancient bronze-age Hungarian parallels. He is convinced that the ethnic development of Celtic civilization is bounded to the Carpathian Basin (Old-Hungary). He presents proofs for the relations between Sumerian, Celtic and Hungarian languages. He shows on a vast tableau the living presence of the Sumerian, Celtic and Hungarian languages in the today’s languages of Europe. However, the grammatical system was not adopted. Only a great part of the vocabulary was transmitted into the ancient Indo-European languages. Through the contradictions linguistic material he documents the statement that the linguistic development of the Western European languages does not correspond with the historic description and in several instances leads to contradictions. Especially great changes are suggested in the Latin and Etruscan fusion. To study this problem the decoding of Etruscan texts is suggested with the help of the Hungarian language. This could be realised on the basis of related Sumerian, Hungarian, Hurritic and Celtic languages, but for this a large-scale study of the Ural-Altaian language family should be evaluated. He presents examples that Etruscan texts become understandable with the help of the Hungarian and related language. The changes severely influence the present view of the Roman History, shorten significantly its duration and influence also its role in the European history. A long fight began with the entrance of the inflecting (Indo-European) peoples on the scene of history. By this the peoples of the first European high culture was abandoned and eroded except several Celtic islands and the greater part of the Carpathian Basin. This was the Great Ancient World War.
Its story begins with heavy Roman attacks after the Mediterranean World become part of the Empire. As a consequence vast sources of human, economical and military power ready for new offensive wars. At the same time three large fronts were opened towards Gallia and Britannia, against the Carpathian Basin (the Ancient Hungary) and Pontus, and in the Ancient East against the Parthian Empire, on altogether many thousand's kilometers long military front-zone. Also capable commanders were at hand. The intrigues, the mad power fights of members of the first triumvirate characterise the epoch. In the first act of this war between inflecting and non-inflecting (agglutinative) peoples the exponential growth of the Empire could be stopped. It could not conquer the territories behind the Rhine and Danube and the Parthian Empire could resist over centuries. This stabilization, however, made impossible to strengthen the Empire with novel external sources. The corruption and the growing inefficiency of the slave-keeper society deteriorated slowly the functioning of the state. When the military emperors came to power, even Rome ceased to be the centre of the empire. Atilla supported by the emerging German allies failed the rests of the overaged, agonising empire. He could suspend the Slave Empire, but he could not restore the ancient Celtic Europe. He even did not conquer Rome, however returned to the Carpathian Basin. The allied Germans had another opinion they wanted Rome and let murder him. Somewhat later they got what they wanted. However, the Hunnian king of Rome, Odoaker should have been killed before. The Germans settled the ruins of Rome and inherited the idea of the Empire.
The numerous proofs presented led the author to deny the theories founding the Indo-European history and linguistic and does not agree with the idea to consider the inflecting people as homogeneous family. He denies the Indo-European nature of the Etruscans, Hettitas, Scythians and Celtic peoples. By this four large supporting columns are fallen from the artefact building of Indo-European history. He says, now we can understand why the linguistic is so important for the Indo-Europeans and funs of Finno-Ugrians. The indogermanization of the Scythians made possible the building of the genealogy up to India and from India to Europe again. The reclassification of the Celtic culture served the foundation of the idea of superb Europe, in the opposite case it should have been accepted that the Western civilisation is not of Indo-European origin. The transformation of the Hettites meant the artificial disruption of the linguistic unity of the ancient Eastern agglutinative cultures. However, this made impossible to accept the idea of the movement of these people towards Europe. The Indo-European presentation of the Etruscans supported the idea of Indo-European nature of the Roman people and Empire. We should put the question, does have the Indo-European history and linguistic arguments for the Indo-European origin of the European culture? We can give the answer: no one left.
The author would like to build up the European history on a much more profounded fundament. He thinks that the real truth is more important than to have artefacts for the European supremacy. He is convinced that a real view of the sunrise of the European culture and civilization will be a benefit for everybody who would like to see the history as it truly happened. The Indo-European view of the history and its errors were fully accepted and teached also in Hungary. Even the present official history is based on it. This caused significant losses for the Hungarian nation, its consequences are far reaching and the fall of Hungary after the First World War was also partly caused by it. (Trianon) He is convinced that the ancient and early mediaeval Hungarian history can be truly written only on this new perspective of European history. He stresses that these newer findings do not allow the use of false stereotypes about Hungarians and related peoples. He thinks that the smallest competitor for the ancient European common history is the Celtic tradition and not the heritage of the slave-keeping societies. In the Indo-European history the largest error will be considered in the fact that the basis of it was chosen wrong. Therefore a world has been created that never existed. And what is even more profound, in this artificial framework they could not find place for the civilisation streams originating from the East. There were, however, several scientists, like the German Müller-Karpe and Schachermeyr, who recognised some of the mistakes. The author went ahead on this road to deny other significant misunderstandings to provide the possibility to have only one European history.
In this book the history of the Carpathian Basin receives new insights. A large number of archaeological findings from here will be compared with the founds in Asia Minor, Aegean region, Mesopotamia, Caucasus area and Turan. An incredible large amount of parallels and overlapping were discovered. It had not a peripheral, but a central role in the ancient history. It was the connecting and transmitting place to pass the heritage of the East to the West of the continent. By the same way the Hungarian related moments will be presented in the history of the East, Pontus and especially in the Parthian Empire led by daha-scytians related to the Hungarians.
This new evaluation of the old Hungarian history has a long tradition. The author published the book about “The Treasury of Hungarian ancient History” by the Publishing House Magyar Ház, Budapest, 1998. This is historical chronology and views the ancient Hungarian history back of 10.000 years. It summarises the knowledge of the not official Hungarian historic research and views. The genesis of the agglutinative Hungarians will be discussed in the area Caucasus, Mesopotamia and Carpathian Basin. He comes to the conclusion that in the Carpathian Basin the Hungarian or an early Hungarian language has been used since approximately 5.000 years. More exactly, the settled agricultural ground population with its culture and civilisation was able to integrate the later coming peoples that were mostly related to Hungarians. The Treasury measures the time with large scale. The “Ancient Hungary” takes only a smaller part for the investigations and a near view. The knowledge of that book surely helps to understand the relations and ideas of this book, too.

The Publisher

That was the foreword in english. I made also linguistic researchings in 25 european languages. As you know, the hungarian is based on a very comprehensive root-system. This root words are the bases of further word families, which are similar not only in their forms, but also in the meanings, too. If I find any other language, which contains the roots in the family 100 %, they are the same. If there is less, than 100 %, these all are taking over any linguistical matter. I found 100 % the celtic and sumerian. Germans 50-68 %, slavs about 66%, latin, portugal, spain over 70%.

Mesterhazy, Zsolt

Dear Mr. Mesterhazy,

I am corresponding with Dr. Bonani G.O.-né Tamás-Tarr Melinda regarding professor Mario Alinei's new book.
I wonder if you would have your book:"The Ancient Hungary I" forewords in Hungarian? (for Melinda)
"This book about the ancient history of Hungary provides many surprises for the western European reader. (...)
(...) The knowledge of that book surely helps to understand the relations and ideas of this book, too."

Regards!
(Thanks in advance!)

Dear Dienekes,

What do you think on the Florin Curta's book:

The Making of the Slavs : History and Archaeology of the Lower Danube Region, c. 500-700.

Well, it seems to me as if Curta's study and professor Alinei's theory although mutually independant analyses, point to the very same direction and that is: the slavic populations were living on the Balkans from time immemorial and are not newcomers as the German Historical School from the 19-th century taught us.

with love,

Christina

Christina, thanks for bringing that book to my attention. I'll try to read it and I will blog about it if I manage to do so.

The problem of Slavic ethnogenesis is a difficult one, so I'm interested in seeing how the accounts of Slavic infiltration are explained by the author.

I mostly reject Mario Alinei's theories of linguistic continuity from the Paleolithic onwards. They are too extreme to be taken seriously.

PS: I edited your post cause I think it's better to link to offsite content unless it's in the form of brief quotations.

Dienekes, thanks for your comments.
Regarding the professor Alinei's theory I have to say that for many top archaeologists it makes perfect sense. As a young archaeologist I find it as a most powerfull model that fits the archaeological findings throughout entire Europe. I read his two volumes published by Il Mulino in Italian and from what I know I can say that many archaeologists and linguists consider it as a most sucsessfull general model.

Christina,

I can't say that I'm familiar with Malinei's arguments, but the notion that Indo-European languages could have been distributed throughout Europe (and Asia?) from Paleolithic times onwards is very difficult for me to accept. I don't necessarily buy the whole IE urvolk/ursprache/urheimat argument, but I just don't see how people distributed in so wide a geographical area could speak languages that were so clearly related to one another.

I would be most interested in reading about the continuity theory more though, so if you could point me to some English-language resources (web/print) that use this theory, I'd appreciate it.

Dear Dienekes,

Thank you for the comments.

Considering Alinei's explanation of the IE languages, one of his main arguments lies in the fact that the split of those languages arised much earlier than it was thought (clay tablets from Asie Minor which show that Luwian and Hatti languages existed as well formed and separate IE languages as early as 4000 BC). So, the latest dating of the split could be in the Meso-Neolitic times (9000 - 6000 BC). In his model the split of the languages arised as a consequence of the split of IE populations which occured about the same period.
Alinei's theory also allows for invasions and infiltrations, however only of elitaire (not massive migration) character, mostly during the "recent" metal ages.
Unfortunately his two volumes (1996 and 2000) as far as I know are in Italian language, but hopefully they will be translated in English soon.

with love,
Christina

>> Considering Alinei's explanation of the IE languages, one of his main arguments lies in the fact that the split of those languages arised much earlier than it was thought (clay tablets from Asie Minor which show that Luwian and Hatti languages existed as well formed and separate IE languages as early as 4000 BC). So, the latest dating of the split could be in the Meso-Neolitic times (9000 - 6000 BC). In his model the split of the languages arised as a consequence of the split of IE populations which occured about the same period.

Luwian was an Indo-European language. If tablets from 4000BC are found in Anatolia in Luwian, then this will have a major impact in our understanding of the IE problem. I haven't seen this finding reported anywhere, so I presume that it's contested. If you can find a reference about this, please post it here or e-mail me.

I've read that the proto-Slavic people developed in the region roughly corresponding to Poland. Before the Indo-European migration, there existed in that area Uralic tribes of the Lapanoid anthro. type, and Nordics. Then the Indo-Europeans washed over.

(1) Were the Uralics there Caucasian and White?

(2) Did the Indo-Europeans have a darker complexion (like present-day Persians)?

(3) How come the proto-Slavs were described as tall and fair with fair hair?

>> (1) Were the Uralics there Caucasian and White?

Proto-Uralics

(2) Did the Indo-Europeans have a darker complexion (like present-day Persians)?

The original Indo-Europeans were probably not as dark as present-day Persians and not as light as present-day Northern Europeans.

>> (3) How come the proto-Slavs were described as tall and fair with fair hair?

The Proto-Slavs were not described as extremely fair.

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Thanks for answering my previous question. I quess it seems that the Uralic tribes were almost a race unto themselves - neither Caucasoid nor Mongol. If so, what explains the fact that in Present-day Poland and the Baltic states that the population is 'white.' Is this because the Uralians were white themselves or because of contact with the Nordic groups? Were Slavs just a darker group (like Magyars perhaps) that intermixed with the Germanic peoples, or was the original Uralic stock 'white' but with differing skull/facial structure? Thnx.