The Origin of Fair Haired/Skinned Northern Italians?

[hyidi]

Italians with fair hair and fair skin more related to Western Europeans or another type of Italians?

There is two types of Italians, which are- North Italians with fair completions and south Italians with dark completions. I know of Italians genetics being dark, I'm am wondering where did the fair genetics in Italians originated from?

[Olavssønn]

I'm am wondering where did the fair genetics in Italians originated from?

There did exist fair traits among the ancient Romans (such as blue eyes and lighter shades of hair), but it was certainly not as common as among Germanic and Celtic tribes.

There is a lot more Germanic and Celtic ancestry in the north of Italia than in the south, which definitely is at least one of the reasons for the higher frequency of lighter traits in this region.

[Sigurd]

There is two types of Italians, which are- North Italians with fair completions and south Italians with dark completions.

Northern Italians aren't particularly fair, but their pigment varies little from that of adjacent regions (South-Eastern France, Switzerland, South Tyrol, parts of Slovenia) and will result from a Germanic-Celtic-Romance mix, as these were at different points in history the leading ethnicity in the region. Notice there's no such thing as an 'Italian' ethnicity, that's a 19th-century construct of post-Roman romanticism.

For the South of Italy, Roman writers mention as early as the 1st century CE that it was difficult to find an actually Roman person, rather than descendant of a freed slave, in some parts of town. It stands to reason that a good part of Southern Italian genetics are owned directly to their Empire.

I'd say that your average actual Roman, prior to bastardisation with members from unrelated ends of their Empire, will have looked little different from your contemporary average Northern/Central Italian and a lot less like your contemporary average Sicilian. So your question should really have been: "Where did the dark genetics in Italians originate from?"

[Wulfaz]

The Flavius and Rufus were so common Latin names, they mean Blonde and Redhead as probably the light complexion was common the original Latin tribes. Remember, that the Guanchos, the original inhabitans of the Tenerife (Canary Islands) were tall, blond blue-eyed Cromagnid ones. The Old Testament says Esau, Jacob's brother was reddish (and the red hair is quite common among ashkenazis) and the Amorites (an original semitic tribe) were commonly blondes side by side they had large concave downturned nose and strong eyebrows. The pigmentation of the Mediterraneum and the Middle-East was so different in the past probably. Hence a light pigmented one in the South is not necessary a visigoth/langobard/etc. descendant.