Where Did Blue Eyes Originate From?

Posted by Monte Aldone

Studies carried out by scientists from the Institute of Forensic Genetics at the University of Copenhagen have concluded that all blue-eyed people share a common ancestor, someone who lived 6,000 to 10,000 years ago near the area by the Black sea.
 
Researchers analyzed and compared the unique genetic make-up of the chromosomes in the iris from 155 blue-eyed individuals from diverse regions such as Denmark, Turkey and Jordan.
 
All of the subjects that participated in the study had the exact same genetic "mutations" in specific chromosomes of the eye with very little variation on the genes, indicating that the "mutation" responsible for blue-eyes first arose and spread relatively recently. (Source: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00439-007-0460-x )

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Scientists conclude that this blue-eyed family spread out from an area north of the Black Sea following the last ice age.  These people were among the proto-Indo-European Aryans who subsequently spread agriculture into western Europe and later rode horses into Iran and India, explains Professor Hans Eiberg of the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Copenhagen.

Blue eyes are a recessive trait, and the gene must be inherited from both parents. (Green eyes involve a related but different gene that is recessive to brown but dominant to blue.) 
 
Following the ending of the last Ice Age, many Europeans inherited this rare gene associated with blue-eyed people that differentiated them from the rest of the human races.
 
Indeed, it appears that the elite and nobility that organized the earliest known agricultural civilizations all shared this trait, seemingly coming from the same bloodline.

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