Present-day Europeans owe their blue eyes to hunter-gatherers, their height to Asian nomads, and their blonde hair to Anatolian Neolithic farmers, a new study suggests.

Scientists looked at how the ancient mixing of ancestries has helped shape our bodies today, including which historical groups have contributed to higher or lower heart rates, cholesterol and body mass index (BMI).

Most of the contemporary European genetic makeup was shaped by movements that occurred in the last 10,000 years when local hunter-gatherers mixed with incoming Anatolian farmers — from present-day Turkey — and Asian nomads, or Pontic Steppe pastoralists.

The latter originated from what is now parts of Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan.

European hunter-gatherers, Anatolian farmers, Steppe pastoralists, and Siberian populations of ancient humans were all separated for thousands of years and evolved in different directions.

But when they finally came together, their DNA, or genome, came in contact and genetic variants characterising each of them intermixed, according to a study led by researchers from the University of Tartu in Estonia, and the University of Turin.

more at dailymail.co.uk

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