False claims that ancient Europeans were black:

Another great example of why I shun “scientific articles” from mainstream as well as a few scientifically claimed sources is that I minimize my educational excursions to what is fact-finding rather than storytelling.

Graham Hancock on X: “QUOTE “People that lived in Europe between 40,000 years ago and 8,000 years ago were as dark as people in Africa… We have always imagined that [Europeans] became light-skinned much faster.” END QUOTE https://t.co/tVhEyg74x5″ / X (twitter.com)

QUOTE “People that lived in Europe between 40,000 years ago and 8,000 years ago were as dark as people in Africa… We have always imagined that [Europeans] became light-skinned much faster." END QUOTEhttps://t.co/tVhEyg74x5

— Graham Hancock (@Graham__Hancock) August 22, 2023

The above claim is 100% false.

Let’s look at the quote Graham Hancock is using:

People that lived in Europe between 40,000 years ago and 8,000 years ago were as dark as people in Africa… We have always imagined that [Europeans] became light-skinned much faster.

Here is what pops up at the top spot:

A new look at Ötzi the Iceman’s DNA reveals new ancestry and other surprises

As I have previously stated, I can no longer force myself to read articles from most science publications other than for the purpose of finding the actual study.

The actual study is here:

https://www.cell.com/cms/10.1016/j.xgen.2023.100377/attachment/10edf088-8aae-401a-aaa6-ce990c25a646/mmc1

Look straight towards page 5.

The paper actually says this about the Iceman: His phonotype shows “light skin pigmentation” (Table S10), with a score of 0.591 (Table S11), slightly higher than present-day Europeans (0.589), with the closest genetic affinities to Sardinians: https://www.cell.com/cms/10.1016/j.xgen.2023.100377/attachment/10edf088-8aae-401a-aaa6-ce990c25a646/mmc1