Expert: John Shea - 3/11/2004

Question
thank you very much for such a considered answer and your time,
i have a few more queries which your answer brings up.

such as were the darker eygptians not the nubian african slaves brought from the south and i read the skulls of some eygptians such as queen nefereti was of caucasian type.

also did romans not bring slaves from the middle east and north africa ? so would it not be likly these factors changed the ethnicity of the ancient and present day inhabitants

and as you stated the envoiromental factors affect the coloring of people from north to south but could this not be simply due to african admixture which becomes less and less as we move north into europe, this theory is not conventional but in the south european countries their have been genetic tests which confirm the gene flow from sub suharan africa to north africa and then to europe.


thanks again for your time  

Answer
Hello again, Bei,
Egyptians.  Like I said, there probably was a lot of variation in the skin pigmentation of Egyptians.  Dynasties whose rulers hailed from Nubia were probably darker skinned than those from the North.  Remember, these were the rulers, their complexion may not have been representative of the entire Egyptian population.  As for slaves, remember that the Egyptians enslaved Southwest Asians.  (Book of Exodus).

Romans did indeed enslave North Africans (e.g., Carthage), but they also enslaved East Europeans, and basically anybody who fought them and lost.  If you think about it, though, hauling enslaved people overland or overseas in boats was a very dicey proposition even in recent times. It was probably not very cost-effective for Romans or anybody else in antiquity to enslave large numbers of people and relocate them hundreds of miles away.  My guess (I am not an expert on Rome) is that most of the slaves were from adjacent regions (Spain, southern France, Balkans), a smaller number of people, perhaps ones with desirable skills from further away (North Africa, SW Asia, Germany, northern France), and only rarely from areas outside Roman political control.  These latter "exotics" probably get mentioned more often in the literature, and may have been more valuable, because of their unusual appearance (in the eyes of Roman writers).
The upshot of all this is that the number of enslaved people with very different genes from those living in the Italian peninsula would be very small, probably too small (given the harsh life these people lived) to make much difference in the gene pool or appearance of the people who lived in Italy or their modern descendants.  There might be traces of such admixture hiding in "junk DNA" somewhere, but the genes involved probably have nothing to do with physical appearance.
If you want to research this more, I suggest you look among the other experts for someone who has expertise in Roman history and archaeology, they can give you a more authoritative answer on the composition of the slave population in Rome.  I am certain that this subject has been the focus of a lot of research lately.
Best Wishes,
John Shea