Buddha's phenotype

After crossing the Khyber pass, the Indo-Aryan tribes split in two, one following the foothills of the Himalayas reaching as far as modern Bangladesh and the other taking a more western route and being involved in the founding of the Indian caste system.

Buddha being the prince of a small kingdom was descended from the former, Indo-Aryans who established themselves as the elite on the Indo-Gangetic plain, because of his royal ancestry we can assume he was a lot more north+west European than modern Nepalese:

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There are no reliable sources on his appearance, but from the genetic data something like this is not out of the question:

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The Origin of the Scythians

Scythians were a blend of Middle-Eastern and north European-like people.

Their Middle-Eastern nature can be confirmed by haplogroup G, which extends as far north as the boreal zone: 

                                 Along with haplogroup J2, reaches as far north as south Siberia:

Also the west-Asian genetic component in MDLP: 

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And finally the presence of Middle-Eastern mtDNA:

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^U3 and U1a are rare throughout Europe, but both are found highest in the south Caucasus among the Svans of Georgia. 

So while the Proto-Indo-Europeans may have been north-east European like, the Scythians themselves were a mix of N-E European and Middle-Eastern.

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The Gedrosia component that Tuvans, Mongols and Altains share is also indicative of at least  partial west-Asian origin of Scythians and early Indo-Iranians:

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Examples of Population Bottlenecks

Now what exactly is a population bottleneck? It's when due to some event, a population faces near extinction and is given either two options, make a miraculous recovery or forever be forgotten from the pages of time.

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Perhaps the most recent bottleneck event took place in the 90's during the Chechen-Russian wars. Chechnya lost 20% of it's population but partly thanks to the manner in which Islam promotes child birth, the average Chechen woman was able to pump out several kids and now the Chechen population is bigger than it was pre-war population. A complete 360 recovery:

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Another turbulent time in the Caucasus was during the Mongol invasions. In a span of a century 30,000,000 – 60,000,000 people globally were dead and that figure would be substantially higher if we include the Timurid invasions. Most of the dead were people who arrogantly tried to be heroes rather than swallowing their pride and submitting, the North Caucasians were one of these people and for this they payed dearly:

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Perhaps this is the reason why Adygei (Circassians) and north-Ossetians are the most Mongoloid people in the north Caucasus, with 7% being the average:

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Another example of a bottleneck is during the Hebrew exile in Mesopotamia, slowly assimilating into the urban populations when the Persians came and liberated them, brought them back to their ancestral homeland and created policies protecting Jewish customs, language and way of life. We know this through a cuneiform cylinder recovered in Mesopotamia.

"The Cylinder's text has traditionally been seen by Biblical scholars as corroborative evidence of Cyrus’ policy of the repatriation of the Jewish people following their Babylonian captivity (an act that the Book of Ezra attributes to Cyrus), as the text refers to the restoration of cult sanctuaries and repatriation of deported peoples."

Source

Ashkenazim Deciphered?

Ashkenazi Jews are thought to be the descendants of the biblical Hebrews, but there are a few problems with this proposition. Why don't Ashkenazim cluster with modern Levantines given that modern Levantines are largely untainted aside from some minor Arabian genes that came with Islam? Why are Ashkenazim showing links to Assyrians and Iraqi Mandaens as opposed to Druze, Lebanese and the like? Let's take a look at their history to answer this question. The first steps out of Canaan were during the exile in Mesopotamia and there exists the possibility they mixed with an Assyrian-like population during this time, this would explain their genetic ties to Mandaens and Assyrians....but it still doesn't explain why Ashkenazi Jews cluster smack dab in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. For them to be that far western genetically suggests they aren't purely the descendants of ancient Hebrews, but a hybrid population of Levantine and south Italian, plus a hint of central European. The mixing with south Italians happened when the ancestral Ashkenazi population became involved in business and finances in Italy during the late Roman era - this window of opportunity was likely when they assimilated Italian women, then migrated to the Rhine valley and assimilated German women, thus explaining the their European mtDNA. Of course most of this is conjecture but I think I am going in the right direction.

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The fact is Ashkenazim show high Atlantic_Mediterranean ancestry compared to Levantines and even Mizrahi Jews, thus hinting at a partial south Italian origin of Ashkenazi Jews.

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