I have always considered the original, unmixed Mediterranean peoples (from Sumerians to ancient Egyptians to Greeks to Romans to some of today's SoEur/NorAf/ME populations) to be blood kin. Blondism and rufosity continue to be persistent across Southern Europe and Northern Africa, and select parts of the Middle East, despite millennia of race mixing. The Sumerians made sure the world knew they had blue eyes, using gorgeous lapis lazuli for the irises of their statute(tte)s.