WHGs, EHGs, and EEF

 Text from a twitter post.

Phenotypes and Genetics of Europe’s Founding Populations

Modern Europeans descend from the fusion of three major Mesolithic and Neolithic lineages:

The WHG (Western Hunter-Gatherers) of Western Europe, the EEF (Early European Farmers) originating from Anatolia, and the EHG (Eastern Hunter-Gatherers) of the Eurasian steppe.

The WHG, Mesolithic hunter-gatherers who lived between 12,000 and 6,000 BCE, had dark or olive skin, light (blue or gray) eyes, and dark brown hair. Genetically, they lacked the light-skin variants (SLC24A5, SLC45A2) but carried those responsible for light eyes (HERC2/OCA2).

The EEF, the first Neolithic farmers arriving from Anatolia between 8000 and 5000 BCE, introduced to Europe the derived SLC24A5 mutation associated with lighter skin. They likely had light to medium complexions, dark hair and eyes, and more Levantine or Mediterranean features.

The EHG, hunter-gatherers of Eastern Europe and the Eurasian steppe, had light skin, light eyes, and often fair or blond hair, due to the combination of SLC24A5, SLC45A2, and KITLG (rs12821256) variants. They represent the “steppe” component that later contributed to the rise of the Indo-European cultures.

From the fusion of these three ancestral groups , western, Anatolian, and eastern, between 5000 and 3000 BCE emerged the great genetic and phenotypic diversity of Europe: light and dark eyes, hair ranging from black to blond, and skin tones from Mediterranean to Nordic.

(Sources: Lazaridis et al., Nature 2014; Haak et al., Nature 2015; Mathieson et al., Nature 2015; Olalde et al., Nature 2018; Skoglund & Reich 2016.)

 I'll add myself that WHG and EHG constitute a cline, actually. While there is kind of a border between the two populations running from the Baltic to the Black Sea, more or less, they also clearly have the same original origin and constitute kind of a cline, like I said. And of course, the Scandinavian Hunter Gatherers were a mixed population who's origins were in both hybridized together. 

Quick note

https://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2026/01/new-iron-age-samples-from-southeastern.html

From the post's author in the comments: "I think the levels of Germanic ancestry in Eastern Europe might be significantly underestimated, especially the Germanic admixture dating to the early Middle Ages.

It's likely that even Balts have non-trivial levels of Germanic autosomal ancestry, and they cluster east of Poles in intra-European PCA."

That would, of course, make perfect sense, since we know already that both during the Migration period, and afterwards during the Viking age and the founding of the Rurikid dynasty that there was significant Germanic intrusion into the area. While they seem to have mostly lost their languages eastward of a certain point, and in the 20th century, millions of Germans were literally expelled from areas in the east that they'd lived in for centuries, the point is that they did, in fact, live there for centuries, and while they maintained some cultural cohesion, there was no doubt plenty of admixture. Especially for those who became culturally invisible over time, like the East Germanic peoples and the late stage Vikings who founded the Rus.