White Europeans evolved only ‘5,500 years ago’

[Æmeric]

I assume this article is discussing Nordish Europeans as it refers to skin tone:



White Europeans could have evolved as recently as 5,500 years ago, according to research which suggests that the early humans who populated Britain and Scandinavia had dark skins for millenniums.

It was only when early humans gave up hunter-gathering and switched to farming about 5,500 years ago that white skin began to be favoured, say the researchers.

This is because farmed food was deficient in vitamin D, a vital nutrient. Humans can make this in their skin when exposed to sunlight, but dark skin is much less efficient at it.

In places such as northern Europe, where sunlight levels are low, the ability to make vitamin D more efficiently could have been crucial to survival.

Johan Moan, of the Institute of Physics at the University of Oslo, said in a research paper: “In England, from 5,500-5,200 years ago the food changed rapidly away from fish as an important food source. This led to a rapid development of ... light skin.”

Moan, who worked with Richard Setlow, a biophysicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York state, said vitamin D deficiency could be lethal. Research links it with heart disease, diabetes, arthritis and reduced immunity.

Their research says: “Cold climates and high latitudes would speed up the need for skin lightening. Agricultural food was an insufficient source of vitamin D, and solar radiation was too low to produce enough vitamin D in dark skin.”

Such findings need to be treated with caution. The history of the colonisation of Europe is highly complex because its climate has been dominated by a series of ice ages, punctuated by warm periods.

This means early humans ventured to Europe not just once but many times over the past 700,000 years, returning each time the ice melted only to be driven back again when it returned.

Furthermore, the ice ages coincided with, and may even have driven, the evolution of modern humans, with several species such as Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons appearing at various times.

The idea that human evolution has often turned on chance mutations is well established. Some researchers have linked the entire evolution of language with mutations in a gene known as FoxP2 occcuring about 50,000 years ago.

Source (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6814896.ece)

[Psychonaut]

I should really do some reading on this because it's always seemed somewhat odd to me to assume that we would've begun with black skin and then become progressively paler. When we look at our closest relatives, chimps, they're white as snow when shaved:

http://neatorama.cachefly.net/images/2008-02/cinder-naked-gorilla.jpg

Would there've been enough time after we lost our fur and before we left Africa for our skin to darken? Or would the darkening have been a later specialization that occurred only in those who stayed in the regions that necessitate it?

[Lutiferre]

I should really do some reading on this because it's always seemed somewhat odd to me to assume that we would've begun with black skin and then become progressively paler. When we look at our closest relatives, chimps, they're white as snow when shaved:

http://neatorama.cachefly.net/images/2008-02/cinder-naked-gorilla.jpg

Would there've been enough time after we lost our fur and before we left Africa for our skin to darken? Or would the darkening have been a later specialization that occurred only in those who stayed in the regions that necessitate it?

Though the facial features of negros are slightly ape-like. Not that this makes them apes.

[Brännvin]

White Europeans could have evolved as recently as 5,500 years ago, according to research which suggests that the early humans who populated Britain and Scandinavia had dark skins for millenniums.

It would not be consistent with this information (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article735078.ece), if already there was blond hair in Europe to 11,000 years ago.


In northern European populations, the occurrence of blonde hair is very frequent. The hair color gene MC1R has at least seven variants in Europe giving the continent a wide range of hair and eye shades.



Based on recent genetic information carried out at three Japanese universities, the date of the genetic mutation that resulted in blonde hair in Europe has been isolated to about 11,000 years ago during the last ice age. Before then, Europeans mostly had black hair and eyes, which is predominant in the rest of the world.

Information from the same Times.

[Allenson]

It's true that when agriculture reached what is now the British Isles, there was a very sudden drop off in the amount of seafood consumed. Analysis of the bones of some of the first agriculturists reveals that their diet consisted of almost exclusively of meat & grains. Some believe that to the early farmers, eating seafood was a taboo and when the native Brits/Doggerlanders adopted agriculture, they adopted the entire cultural package, including not eating any seafood. Before this, seafood was a mainstay for the Mesolithic hunter/gatherer/foragers of NW Europe. The massive shell middens found on the western islands of Scotland are testament to this.

Whether or not this lead to a massive depigmentation or not is of course open to debate. My hunch is that depigmentation happened much earlier than this but was perhaps accentuated during the agriculturization process.

I doubt very much that the early hunter/gatherers of Europe were as dark as the modern Negroes and nor do I believe that the first humans out of Africa were that dark either. There seems to be this popular misconception out there that just because humans came to be in Africa and that the modern, dominant type in Africa (at least south of the Sahara) is the Negroid, that we all somehow descend from Negroids. The Negroid is a relatively recent trend in the human physical type and is likely no older than the Europid type.

And, as Psychonaut mentioned, chimps and other primates are often quite light of skin underneath their fur as are other mammals. So, dark brown may not the the defualt skin tone of modern humans....

It's times like this that I really wish I had a time machine. :)

[Loki]

Such findings need to be treated with caution. The history of the colonisation of Europe is highly complex because its climate has been dominated by a series of ice ages, punctuated by warm periods.


Indeed. This is just another hypothesis without a shred of evidence to back it up. It goes into pre-history, and all we have of that are old bones and art drawings. Anyone's guess, really, although I find this to be extremely unlikely. Sweden's prehistory is traced back to at least 12,000 BC, and fish & meat were a primary food source then, as it is even today in many areas of Scandinavia.

[Jimbo Gomez]

I wonder if our ancestors in Europe had negrolips at one point in history.

[Atlas]

Most likely, we just migrated to Europe and chain by chain, little by little, we have become white aryans. ;)

[Liffrea]

Originally Posted by Psychonaut
When we look at our closest relatives, chimps, they're white as snow when shaved

Home Ergaster (the first furless hominid) some 2 million years ago is believed to have been light skinned with darker skin evolving later on.

Personally I find the idea of a Negroid populous moving into Europe to be erroneous, I think it more likely that proto-Caucasoids developed in the Near East from around 100-150,000 years ago, 40,000 years ago this population moved west and east (which may explain the Western Eurasian genetic input found in modern Mongoloid populations of some regions of China). Around 10,000 years ago specifically northern European traits, light skin, hair and eyes developed towards the end of the LGM, roughly the same time that the Mongoloid population developed in north-east Asia.

[Goidelic]

Generally, when we speak of any time between the Upper Palaeolithic this is before ethnogenetic isolates (races) really existed. One could argue that a little after the Neolithic is probably the time when population genetics/ethnogenetic isolates (races) played a role and ultimately ethnogenesis took place, which resulted in different ethnic groups forming and biodiversity emerging around the world. Haplogroups still need more research conducted, as they are much older than ethnic groups themselves. I agree with Allenson in that modern racial types such as Negroids (Sub-Saharans) are probably no older than Caucasoids (West Eurasians). The politically correct view is that we all descend from modern day looking Saharan Negroids which didn't even exist the same 80-150,000 years ago.

Australopithecus afarensis seems to have even been light skinned based on archaeological study and reconstruction. I'm of the opinion that are earliest ape ancestors were probably all light skinned and that black pigmentation is a relatively recent evolutionary adapted trait. One thing interesting to note is that apes are born furless much like humans and can be pale, then they start developing fur.

Australopithecus:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2048/2164321316_65635e76e8_o.jpg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/prehistoric_life/tv_radio/wwcavemen/images/wwc_article_pop1.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Australopithecus_afarensis.JPG

Chimpanzee (Homo sapiens sapiens looking):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Bodybuilderchimp.jpg

http://www.federalpost.ru/issue.img/3/20376_Untitled1.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_xgr9IqyR4Xw/SmdQN4t6fNI/AAAAAAAAAIk/eHIrMWDvinI/s400/11.JPG

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_Gpn16nXEj30/SlQix8N9mOI/AAAAAAAABp0/znNXjEDF6ng/s288/DSCN1457.JPG

[Johnny Bravo]

It would not be consistent with this information (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article735078.ece), if already there was blond hair in Europe to 11,000 years ago.

Information from the same Times.

True. Molecular-clock techniques used to time such genetic mutations are rather inaccurate at present, so most of this is guesswork and still up for grabs.

[Grumpy Cat]

Well, the Nation of Islam was off by 500 years. :lol:

[Allenson]

True. Molecular-clock techniques used to time such genetic mutations are rather inaccurate at present, so most of this is guesswork and still up for grabs.


Right--one minute, R1bs were painting caves in southern France 25,000 years ago and before you know it, they were living in Anatolia only 5000 years ago or so. :cool: