A 7,000 year-old northern european hunter-gatherer's skin pigments decided his skin tone CNN reported Monday.
The only change was a blue tone in his eyes similar to northern Europeans CNN reported.
Carles Lalueza-Fox, a researcher at the Spanish National Research Council undertook the study initially thinking the remains were that of a European who searched for and ate animals and plant The New York Daily News reported.
"The biggest surprise was to discover that this individual possessed African versions in the genes that determine the light pigmentation of the current Europeans, which indicates that he had dark skin, although we cannot know the exact shade," Lalueza-Fox told CNN.
"These data indicate that there is genetic continuity in the populations of central and western Eurasia," Lalueza-Fox told The Daily News. "In fact, these data are consistent with the archeological remains, as in other excavations in Europe and Russia, including the site of Mal'ta, anthropomorphic figures - called Paleolithic Venus - have been recovered and they are very similar to each other," Lalueza-Fox told The Daily News.
"Even more surprising was to find that he possessed the genetic variations that produce blue eyes in current Europeans, resulting in a unique phenotype in a genome that is otherwise clearly northern European," Lalueza-Fox told The Daily News.
Scientists named the human La Brana 1 for the site where it was found, La Brana-Arintero CNN reported. The species resided at the site in Mesolithic times or the changeover from the stone age and Paleolithic or tool making periods, and Neolithic or times when people smoothed out stones CNN reported.
Julio Manuel Vidal Encinas, an archaeologist found La Brana 1, along with a second known as La Brana 2 in 2006 in the mountains in Valdelugueros Spain The Daily News reported.
Weather conditions kept the remains in good shape.
