3 ms·

I'd be very interested in hearing about that. My guess would have been that it was more a matter of the previously suppressed genes for dark skin coming back to

• nivertech 4y ago
  I agree. Humans reached South (and even North) America only relatively recently in the evolutionary terms - 14-16 thousand years before present. It's not enough time for evolutionary processes to start kicking-in. Another possible explanation (speculation) is that they met and mixed with yet undiscovered hominid species. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlement_of_the_Americas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlement_of_the_Americas
  • Retric 4y ago
    The current view is skin color is simple evolutionary response which can easily occur on those timescales. https://www.psu.edu/impact/story/the-evolution-of-skin-color/ https://www.psu.edu/impact/story/the-evolution-of-skin-color... Several things have changed as recently as 11,000 years. “Examples for adaptations related to agriculture and animal domestication include East Asian types of ADH1B associated with rice domestication,[71] and lactase persistence.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_human_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_human_evolution
    • andrewflnr 4y ago
      Very neat. I didn't know about the folate angle selecting for dark skin in the first place.