Why Did Native Americans Develop a Very Dark Skin?

[Mopi Licinius Crassus]

they are a super divergent, and isolated population that can trace their roots to extremely ancient populations. It isn't like europeans that can trace our lineages to more recent mixing from indo-europeans, anatolian farmers which had alleles for lighter pigment. Hell, even mesolithic hg's are less ancient than most of the migrants into america and they were quite dark too. Often the further ancient you are, the darker the skin... so we can predict that's a large reason as to why. But pigmentation varies quite a bit on more individual level.

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WHG probably had similar skin colour to native Americans imo

[Oliver109]

Having partial ancestry of ANE doesn't mean much when individual genes of light skin, blue eyes, blonde hair, etc...was not formed until well after the Native Americans split from Western Europeans.

What was their primary diet? Light skin was accelerated in the fact that most Europeans consumed dairy products. Most Northern Asians in the same latitude are darker looking in comparison.

The reddish skin in Native Americans is probably because they were outside and did not wear much upper body clothing.

Isn't it possible that the ANE ancestors of Native Ams were lighter? people automatically think that light skin evolved recently but i think there is good reason for believing that it has been around for a very long time, it could be the case that Native Ams actually developed darker skin because of climate.

[vader]

Isn't it possible that the ANE ancestors of Native Ams were lighter? people automatically think that light skin evolved recently but i think there is good reason for believing that it has been around for a very long time, it could be the case that Native Ams actually developed darker skin because of climate.

Nah. ANE weren’t themselves light people. They are far too ancient to have had light skin alleles. People associated with higher ANE admixture are more than likely closer to the steppe and so more recent mixing of subtypes of ANE with more recent groups who developed the lighter skin. Most likely with some sort of mutation from dairy reliance.

[Oliver109]

Nah. ANE weren’t themselves light people. They are far too ancient to have had light skin alleles. People associated with higher ANE admixture are more than likely closer to the steppe and so more recent mixing of subtypes of ANE with more recent groups who developed the lighter skin.

There is no real evidence about what colour the first Eurasians were but it is likely that some groups became darker as they ventured into Asia i.e the Andaman Islanders and some Australian Aboriginal groups so it can work both ways. Just because the Native Americans are dark doesn't mean their ancestors were.

[vader]

There is no real evidence about what colour the first Eurasians were but it is likely that some groups became darker as they ventured into Asia i.e the Andaman Islanders and some Australian Aboriginal groups so it can work both ways. Just because the Native Americans are dark doesn't mean their ancestors were.

We have ANE remains and you can easily detect pigment alleles, there is no evidence they had light skin. Dark skin is more dominant than light skin (recessive trait; more recent presence).

Some examples - According to genetic studies, the nearly extinct Ket people, a Yeniseian ethnic group, have rather high amount of ANE proxy ancestry today:





Indigenous Americans -- particularly in the south have rather high amounts of ANE as well:

"Native Americans trace 42% of their ancestry to ANE and 58% to a common ancestor of Eastern Siberians and East Asians." (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art...0East%20Asians.)


On the topic of the very popular steppe y-dna R... it also has a old connection to Q which was popular among ANE:
-33 kya represents the split between Y-Chromosome Q and R clades and mtDNA N2 and W clades

[Oliver109]

We have ANE remains and you can easily detect pigment alleles there is no evidence they had light skin. Dark skin is more dominant than light skin (recessive trait; more recent).

Some examples - According to genetic studies, the nearly extinct Ket people, a Yeniseian ethnic group, have rather high amount of ANE proxy ancestry today:





Indigenous Americans -- particularly in the south have rather high amounts of ANE as well:

"Native Americans trace 42% of their ancestry to ANE and 58% to a common ancestor of Eastern Siberians and East Asians." (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art...0East%20Asians.)


On the topic of the very popular steppe y-dna R... it also has a old connection to Q which was popular among ANE:
-33 kya represents the split between Y-Chromosome Q and R clades and mtDNA N2 and W clades

Ket people are mixed with Mongoloids, I'm not saying that ANE people were very pale because that would be unlikely but they could have resembled more Iranians or Egyptians in terms of pigmentation so they could have had people with lighter eyes and brown or dark blonde hair, remember even Aus Aborigines have hair blondism occuring to an extent.

[Aryan Aries]

Actually most human races tend to be darker or at least olive-skinned, and tan easily during summer. The only exceptions are Germanic/Slavic peoples with Nordid, Faelid, Baltid influence, and maybe some East Asians with Sinid and Ainu DNA.