# Humanities & Anthropology > Anthropology & Ethnography > Guess the Ethnicity >  Guess her ethnicity and region

## Tomenable

Here you go, later I will tell you from which region/city she comes:

One photo also shows her mother or her friend (I'm not 100% sure):

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## ElHorsto

Very difficult. I guess she is from Caucasus or south Central Asia. But her mother or friend looks very different, so I may be totally wrong.

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## Sakattack

Polish or Ukrainian?

Sent from my Robin

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## Angela

Despite the fair pigmentation she doesn't look European to me. I'll go with El Horsto...some atypical Central Asian, maybe. You just have to look at one of the full face pictures and picture her with black hair and brown eyes.

I wouldn't bet on it, though. :) Strange phenotypes pop up all over the place. With that very wide face and eastern look could she be from one of the Siberian influenced groups in Russia?

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## ElHorsto

> Very difficult. I guess she is from Caucasus or south Central Asia. But her mother or friend looks very different, so I may be totally wrong.


After taking a second look, I now think Afghanistan or nearby would probably fit even better. But she also wouldn't look out of place in south-eastern europe. Difficult.

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## Angela

> After taking a second look, I now think Afghanistan or nearby would probably fit even better. But she also wouldn't look out of place in south-eastern europe. Difficult.


I thought that's what you meant by central Asia, although I suppose Afghanistan would be south central Asia? Whatever, that seems about right.

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## ElHorsto

> I thought that's what you meant by central Asia, although I suppose Afghanistan would be south central Asia? Whatever, that seems about right.


Yes you are right, that's what I actually mean, sorry for confusion. I thought there is something between, but no. I'd better take a look to the map first next time.

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## Tomenable

Very good job ElHorsto and Angela!  :Smile: 

And also not a bad guess, Sakattack.  :Smile: 

Afghanistan is a close enough answer.

She is a Pamiri Tajik from the town of Khoros in Western Pamir region of Tajikistan, near the border with Afghanistan.

You can see her in this documentary (skip to 7:00):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKaecMDew60#t=7m00s

But she could also easily pass in Europe or North Caucasus, even though she would be atypical in Europe (indeed her face is wide). On another forum I asked about her too and all European users guessed her as a native European - including Latvian, Northern Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Slovak, South-East Polish, Hungarian, Finnish, and even as French. Only two users who are of Iranic ancestry immediately recognized their own stock.

She could maybe pass as a French (Alpinid-like type?), so even that guess wasn't bad.

One user also considered her Turkic or with Siberian admixture.

Many of Iron Age Scythians probably looked like her, although many also had longer and narrower faces (like her mom or friend) and / or were darker-pigmented. IA Scythians from the Volga steppe can be modeled as BA Potapovka/Andronovo/Sintashta + Siberian admixture, according to Davidski:

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2015/1...thian.html?m=1

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## ElHorsto

> But she could also easily pass in Europe or North Caucasus, even though she would be atypical in Europe (indeed her face is wide). On another forum I asked about her too and all European users guessed her as a native European - including Latvian, Northern Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Slovak, South-East Polish, Hungarian, Finnish, and even as French. Only two users who are of Iranic ancestry immediately recognized their own stock.


If Europe then I would have guessed southern Europe. She doesn't look slavic to me. Sophia Loren also has wide bizygomatic, likewise also the bulgarian soccer player Krassimir Balakov. North-East Europe and north Eurasia also have it of course, but it is still somehow different. 
Mentioning Bulgaria, some historians believe that proto Bulgars were more linked to Tadjiks and Indo-Iranians rather than Turkics.

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## Tomenable

> If Europe then I would have guessed southern Europe. She doesn't look slavic to me. Sophia Loren also has wide bizygomatic, likewise also the bulgarian soccer player Krassimir Balakov.


She doesn't look typical anywhere (neither in Tajikistan) and doesn't have a common phenotype, but I sometimes see Polish women who look like her. IMO this type is more common in North-East Europe, not South Europe. Sophia Loren is indeed similar, but she doesn't have typically Italian appearance, and doesn't have this "eastern vibe" that Angela noticed.

Or maybe Sophia Loren even does have an "eastern vibe", yet her looks are still not typical but "exotic" in Italy.

Bulgarians are a mixture of Southern and North-Eastern influences. That's why you will find it there.




> Mentioning Bulgaria, some historians believe that proto Bulgars were more linked to Tadjiks and Indo-Iranians rather than Turkics.


Yes, this is possible that Bulgars were largely of Iranic ancestry, even if they were Turkic-speakers.

BTW, according to autosomal comparisons Pamiri Tajiks are very similar to that Iron Age Scythian.

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## Tomenable

Here another Pamiri Tajik woman:



And yet two more - darker types:



Again a different Pamiri phenotype:

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## Tomenable

> But she also wouldn't look out of place in south-eastern europe. Difficult.


Do you also count southern Ukraine and Southern Russia as south-eastern Europe, or just the Balkans?

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## ElHorsto

> Do you also count southern Ukraine and Southern Russia as south-eastern Europe, or just the Balkans?


The southern fringes of Ukraine and Russia are indeed very southern mixed (as far as I know, I've never been there). I think they are transitional to the Balkans and Caucasus. So the answer is partially yes, if you mean these fringe regions only, which are a tiny minority within Ukraine and Russia. 
One example coming to my mind is former soviet president M. Gorbatchev, who looks more like a greek-georgian mix rather than russian. He was born in Stavropol/Caucasus which has only 80% ethnic russian population. The Black Sea coasts in general were settled by greeks in antiquity (Sebastopol, Mariupol, Sozopol, Turkey...).

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## Angela

The first girl in post 11 looks European to me, and also the girl on the right in the second photo. They certainly produce some beauties in that part of the world. 

As to Sophia Loren, I think her "exotic-ness" was as much a product of artifice and make-up as of genetics, although even her coloring wasn't "typical", in that it's not that common to have green eyes and lightish hair with an olive complexion. Also, the extreme width across the cheekbones isn't that common. However, the upward tilt of her eyes is definitely mostly make up. They're all family traits in her case, as is resistance to aging, apparently. In the last picture, she's 

This is her when she was young:


This is when she knew what to do with herself:


She's 80 in this picture:

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