I think I would know the answer about europe, but what about n america? Is it blue or brown? And also, would like links to surveys from reputable websites in order to back up info.
What’s the answer for Europe?
I would assume brown in both North American and Europe (and probably everywhere in the world) since brown eye color is the dominant gene. In an especially heteogenous landmass such as a continent, I would think the dominant gene would, well, dominate. However, I’ve been searching for numbers, and it’s been extremely difficult coming up with anything definitive.
I too would like to know the obvious answer for Europe. And also how ‘caucasion’ should be defined.
Can’t say, but it’s spelled “Caucasian.” 
To start with, awhile back I came across 2 surveys, one in england and one ireland. The english survey stated most english had brown eyes-around 70%, and the irish survey stated 1/4 irishmen had brown eyes-do to their celtic heritage. Pure celts lack melalin. and have something else which gives them freckles and red hair, but only comprise 2% of the population.
I keep hearing from alot of peeps from chatting on the web, that most americans have a celtic background, and are of blonde hair and blue eyes variety. I’m finding this hard to believe.
Especially in the US, where a large 'Hispanic" population could be someone whose parents are from Spain or someone whose parents are indigineous Indians from Mexico. Makes the caucasian classification even more difficult.
Also, most people forget that Mexico is part of N. America.
But I’d guess brown would be the answer. And, btw, there is more than one gene that controlls eye color. It’s at least 3, as has been discussed in other GQ threads.
This question just screams “HOMEWORK” to me. Doesn’t it to you?
To start with, find out how these surveys define ‘English’ and ‘Irish’. They’re terms that are no more clear-cut than ‘American’.
Nope, most Americans do not have a celtic background. Check out this page (not a PDF but mos tof the links are) which has neat maps about the distribution of American ancestries.
If you check out the Census 2000 link, you’ll see that the largest self-identified group is German at 15.2%. Ok, I should totally know this being of prit near pure celt ancestry mysolf (and having red hair and blue eyes) but celts are Irish and Scottish, right? The Irish are the second largest group, comprising 10.8%. Anyway, most Americans, even if you just include the caucasian Americans, do not have blue eyes.
I have Welsh, English, Scottish and Irish heritage*, (In that order, Scottish and Irish being even.) both my paternal and maternal grandmothers were redheads, and my paternal grandfather was a redhead with freckles as well. My father’s siblings are redheads, (with blue and brown eyes) as are most of their children. My father is a dark brunette (almost black) with brown eyes. My mother is brunette, (born a dishwater blond) and so was her sibling. My mother’s eyes are hazel. My hair is dark brown, with copper and blood red highlights, I’m told this is “dark chestnut”. My eyes are hazel. All of my siblings are brunettes of varying shades(more than one was born a dishwater blond), 2 have blue eyes, and 2 have brown eyes. Most of the people I’ve seen are naturally brunette, with brown eyes. There are also lots of people with black hair naturally, and I’d say dishwater blond is fairly common too, but can’t be certain because many people dye their hair.
I’d say the people saying Americans are all blond with blue eyes have never really seen the people in more than one state. I have been to Texas, Virginia, Maryland/D.C., Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Colorado and the natural hair color of most of the people there (that I saw) was brown or black, with varying eye colors according to heritage. Natural red hair is uncommon here. Some states have more natural blondes than others, but I always thought it was due to heritage, because there were large settlements of people from Norway, Denmark, and Sweden who settled there. There are people with black hair and brown eyes in the region I live in, who have some amount Native American ancestry, but there are also lots of people of Celtic, and German ancestry, as well as quite a few others. Here are the demographics for Kansas just as an example.
*As well as quite a few others, including Native American (on my mother’s side, my father is primarily Welsh) either Sioux or Blackfoot tribe.
Adding, most of the people who have some Native American ancestry count themselves as caucasian, not mixed heritage or Native American, so that’s why the census doesn’t reflect it. Many people have small amounts of Native American ancestry. Mine goes back to my maternal grandfather’s grandmother. (That’s great great grandmother.) It still shows in me and my siblings though, I look as though I have Native American ancestry in my facial features. I look a good deal like the lady in the picture titled “Sioux Indian With Eagle Feather” on this site, scroll down.
Um…I stated caucasians in n america…something like 10% mexicans are caucasian, and most being ‘mestizos.’ I generally thought most americans were of mostly british, french, spanish, and german/dutch. origin. I found ‘the largest group of celtics’ claim kinda absurb.
Much much thanks for for the info, they couldn’t back up their claims and something sounded funny.
How exactly do you figure that?? The fact that a genetic factor is dominant doesn’t mean that a majority of the population will show the trait… only that all people who carry a copy of the gene will show the trait (if the factor is truly a dominant gene in the classical sense.) Nor does it mean that over generations, a greater proportion of the population will acquire a copy of the gene that the preceding generation did, unless natural selection is at work.
For instance, suppose that the gene for brown hair is dominant over blond hair (which might be correct,) and that 19% of the population of Heteralia has brown hair. you would probably expect 18% of the population to have one brown-hair gene and one blond-hair gene, and 1% would be ‘double-dominant’, having two brown-hair genes.
It’s complicated, but if you assume that the people involved are all equally likely to have kids and equally likely to pass on either gene to their children, the next generation will have the same proportion of brown-hair genes in it. Based on how likely brown-hairs are to marry each other or blond-hairs, the proportion of double-dominants might vary slightly, with a corresponding change in the overall brown-hair population, but that’s it. Dominant traits do not spread out through a population and dominate it unless natural selection is working in their favor.
Hmmm…interesting. I’m surprised that germans are the largest. I’ve heard that germans have asian genes and even share some physical features. Possibly harbored in their genome from the major invasions of southern Germany by tribes from Asia such as the Huns and Mongol hordes which invaded Europe at various times during the period of 1600-700 years ago.
You are, of course, correct judging by my back of an evelope analysis of the problem. There appears to have been a flaw in my original logic.
Actually, they’ve found that the Celtic language has Germanic roots, and IIRC, they believe the people who became the Celts traveled across the Alps long ago. Maybe some of the Germanic peoples have features that reflect Mongolian ancestry, but don’t think they all do.
Celtic languages, and what’s your source on that? Are you saying that the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family is an offshoot of the Germanic branch? To my knowledge they’re not even particularly closely related. The Celts once inhabited much of Europe and no doubt they traveled across the Alps at times, but that’s not to say that they’re particularly closely related to Germans or to Germanic people.
Of course. They are a mixture of of several. The original europeans were celts. And they had red hair and freckles. Asian invasions changed the landscape of course.