(09-12-2012 12:38 AM)Julius_Cesar Wrote: Yes that's true although I wouldn't call italians particularly dark, but they tend to be ethnic looking (if you know what I mean by ethnic as being noticeably different from your own ethnic group), compared to northern europeans (mostly scandinavians, dutch and nortern germans), Some southern germans/austrians and swiss-germans can have darker features aswell (darker hair , eyes, etc) but still look pretty central/northern european physically wise (specially body types and facial structures), I wouldnt confuse them with a spaniard or italian.
But I have noticed some people at the british Isles can be about as mediterranean looking as some spanish/portuguese or italians, for example sean connery and catherine zetal jones types, but well I dont think most people would count the Brits/Irish as germanic people, not even the english, since the vast majority of their ancestry is of brethonyc/pre-celtic origin and not of modern germanic one.
eveyone agrees that itaians are dark skinned. theyre a mediterranean race and considered to be the darkest of that whole mediterranean region. theres a sharp contrast between them and nothern europeans and spaniards. i've seen some southern germans with darker features.. and thats cuz theyre mixed with italians, obviously. i've been to italy a thousand times and i see the contrast stand out like a sore thumb.
you got to understand that the celts mainly from france, spain, england and parts of germany share a DNA string that makes them a bit more unique than italians. i think this gene is called the atlantic gene, if i'm not mistaken. but since italy is situated in the middle part of upper africa and closer to the middle east than france and spain, we can trace their genes from those parts of that genetic influence.