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Races as we know them today didn't exist until fewer than 20,000 years ago, when genes involved in skin pigmentation emerged, Hawks said. 1) This blows my mi
by dkarl 17y ago
Races as we know them today didn't exist until fewer than 20,000 years ago, when genes involved in skin pigmentation emerged, Hawks said.
1) This blows my mind -- am I reading it right that there was virtually no variation in skin color 20,000 years ago? I assumed there was always variation in skin pigmentation, with darker skin colors predominating until we expanded into northern latitudes where lighter colors made sense.
2) What about Neandertals? I always imagined them being light-skinned, since they were adapted to northern climates. I wonder if they evolved genes for light skin tens of thousands of years before modern humans did. If so, that must have made them look even more freakish to modern human eyes, and vice-versa.
- tokenadult 17y agoam I reading it right that there was virtually no variation in skin color 20,000 years ago? I think the correct statement is as you say in another part of your post: there has always been variation in skin color in the human population. It was geographically segregated (forming "races" in the biological sense) only very recently. And even today there is a lot of variation among individuals in skin color within each continental subpopulation of human beings. The usual view of evolution of skin color is that the ancestral condition was white skin under dark hair (as we still see in chimpanzees). Then at some unknown time, human ancestors became less hairy, and darker skin pigmentation became necessary. Then as human beings (Homo sapiens) migrated to latitudes with less sunlight (VERY recently) gene frequencies changed again in favor of lighter skin in some areas. (Inuit people are quite dark skinned for people who live near the North Pole and usually wear heavy clothing.)