> I guess we could clarify it thus--would you describe modern
> Persians (or =
> Arabs) as "white guys"? I'm prepared to believe that ancient
> Greeks were =
> *that* dark, and with that much variation (there are some very pale =
> Arabs).
I can testify to this, many people in arabia are no darker than my own uncles and cousins (on my mother's side which is a little darker than my own blond, blue eyedness). I'm not sure how recent this is though. The turks had a policy of forcibly relocating whole populations of troublemakers, on the basis that in their new land they would be foreigners and dependent on the Turkish peace for survival. I know that large numbers of Algerians were relocated to Syria and are still there, the 'white guys' are mostly Circassians from the Caucasus and although there are communities that have maintained their cultural identity, many individuals have assimilated into the arab way of life either by population diffusion or by inter-marriage. In Saudi you see a huge mix of ethnicities.
Western turkey has many fair skinned and haired turks too, though again I don't know how recent this is, or whether this represents an ancient ethnic heritage or the more recent effects (last few hundred years) of turkish imperial policy. Still, large population migrations are not entirely modern - parts of central turkey are called Galicia after the celtic tribes that settled there and the blonde, fair skinned Berber descendents of the Visigoths can still be found in the Atlas mountains of north western africa.
Simon Hibbs
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End of Glorantha Digest
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