What is known about the racial/ethnic composition of the original Proto-Indo-European speaking peoples...

>I would suspect that the original PIE would've had a fair complexion

Which ones? There was too much blood mixing going on to even talk about "original PIE" in a meaningful way.
Was it the Paleolithic Siberians who were the real PIE? Probably but they got heavily mixed with at first Europeans and then Georgians until they were no longer more than just a minority component.

They were genetically outside modern human genetic variation as they were a mix of an extinct group(Sibero-European hunters) and a not so extinct one(Caucasus natives).

Lezgins from Dagestan and Finnic speaking Mordvins from Central Russia are closest to them in terms of genetic similarity but still aren't all that close.

well, depends on your models, they certainly don't overlap with modern Europeans in terms of DNA but we can still try and understand how they looked like
their skulls IIRC are perfectly Europid as in the fit with the European variation, which makes sense since after all they mated with Euros
if not Europid, caucasian at least

Pic rel. Kurgan = PIE

This is probably the best possible example of what they looked like. Perhaps a little more exotic though.

>Yamna culture
>russian
K E K
E
K

Russian as in the guys who made the reconstruction were Russian

YAMNA'D

I believe they were a mixture of groups, but would the most dominant influence have had fairer complexions?

Why is it that where IEs went, things like red hair and colored eyes followed?

Ancient Europeans were pretty white, at least in northern Europe.

...

I think there are indications that a lot of the eastern expansions of IEs were actually an eastern re expansion of corded ware rather than the original steppe culture, that's why they'd have fairer traits in some occasions, since corded ware was seemingly the result of Yamnaya mixing with the seemingly already fair north/north-east Euros.

Except in Scandinavia where the Corded Ware got cucked big time by a local male with haplogroup I1.

It's fun to think about the wife of a steppe chief secretly fucking a slave and then the wife's son becoming a greater leader than his mothers husband ever was with dozens of wives, spreading his genes across a large section of Corded Ware.

...

Also at the time of Yamnaya expansion they brought plague with them, which caused depopulation in many places in Europe which might partially explain why they successfully overtook those territories.

Tocharians and Tarim mummies may not have been purely original Yamna but mixed with Indo-Iranian tribes who did in fact have blond hair and blue eyes because of selection.

Yeah maybe some were but it doesn't necessarily have a lot to do with modern Europeans.
If you want to believe dark Indo-Europeans had sex with hot 100% blonde women in Northern Europe go ahead but I think it's a cuck fantasy without much proof supporting it.

They were dark haired slavs

The others tooth gap is funny.

I'm imagining the Tocharians as something of blue-eyed goofy neighbors to the locals Asiatic folks.
"Hey, hey Lee, look at this metalworking, look at it"
"Stop it, I'm trying to farm"

Afanesievo were blonde/red hair as fuck and the Tocharians dervied from Afanesevo

>Was it the Paleolithic Siberians who were the real PIE?
if PaleoSibs were PIE then they were indeed Caucasoid since PIE is all about Rs and Mongoloids cant into Rs

What ancient DNA paper proved they were?
Unless you can provide a source I'm just gonna assume they were similar to other Yamnas so mainly dark hair, dark eyes and sallow skin.

Tocharian upper class may have had Indo-Iranian origins for all we know.

When did they begin to worship Dyaus Pita and the rest of the PIE pantheon?

>Mongoloids cant into Rs
P comes from Southeast Asia.

Ancients falls outside the scope of modern human variation(No pure WHG,ANE etc.).