Cheddar Man reveals that white skin is a recent development.

[Nikki Nyx]

A DNA sample from a 10,000-year-old skeleton discovered in Gough Cave near Cheddar Gorge, England, offers a remarkable revelation: the first modern British people had “dark brown to black skin.” According to recent analysis, they also had dark curly hair and blue eyes. In other words, whiteness in Europe is a much newer thing than we thought.

The so-called Cheddar Man was a hunter-gatherer during the Mesolithic period, which ended just before the appearance of agriculture. While Britain was populated and abandoned by humans during earlier periods, archaeologists think that humans lived on the island continuously from Cheddar Man’s time through to present day. This is part of what makes the details about his appearance so meaningful. Cheddar Man’s genome shows that Europeans didn’t develop pale skin until a few thousand years ago, rather than tens of thousands of years ago when humans first migrated west onto the European continent.

Full article here.

[Gord]

Oh yeah? Then explain this!

http://www.mozzarellaman.com/images/headertop.jpg

[Matthew Ellard]

Now for some 1970's anthropological theory, that I was taught at uni.

People in Africa evolved Sickle Cell anaemia. The red blood cell is sickle shaped and much harder for Malaria to reproduce from. There is no Malaria in North Europe and dark skinned people suffer vitamin D deficiency as their skin produces less vitamin D from sunlight.

That suggests to me there is an evolutionary mechanism concerning North Europe.

Perhaps that did only take 8,000 years as indicated by the article. It's seems very plausible.

[Major Malfunction]

There are a lot of factors at play. I'm just talking off the top of my head from things I've read over the years that kind of make sense, trying to build a general model I can grasp, so by no means consider this gospel...

Black skin is protection against UV-induced cancer. But in a high sun zone, hot, not wearing much clothes, plenty enough gets through to manufacture Vitamin D. Also, you can get vitamin D from meat.

So when hunter-gatherers lived in Europe it wasn't a big deal. They wore lots of clothes against the cold, but they were still getting enough vitamin D through their diet. Then about that time they start turning more agrarian. So less vitamin D.

That's when things started to change. Vitamin D deficiency doesn't only cause weak bones in adults, it means babies don't develop bones properly and aren't born. That alone is a strong selection pressure for fairer skin. The fairer-skinned females had more and stronger babies.

Skin cancer isn't a strong selection pressure, as it usually only manifests in later years, after the reproductive phase, and Mother Nature doesn't give a {!#%@} about you after you've reproduced. And Europeans were mostly covered up with clothes, so that wasn't really an issue. Dark skin worked for millions of years, so why would it need to change?

Then I read a paper that suggests folic acid, which is found in fruits and dark leafy vegetables, and essential for nervous system development, is degraded by too much UV.

So now you have a hypothetical European agrarian tribe, not getting much sunlight, wearing clothes, subsisting on mostly grain.

Not much vitamin D or folate. You need UV to make vitamin D, but UV denatures folate and you don't have much to spare. What do you do?

Well, with light skin, you can get enough vitamin D with only 15 minutes of exposure to sunlight on your face and forearms. And since the rest of you is covered up most of the time, you can conserve the little folate resources you have.

And the same applies to dark skin. You want enough UV to produce vitamin D, but not so much to denature the folate!

So it's a balance between the two. Mostly driven by agriculture.

[Poodle]

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg ... publicity/

Well - that didn't last very long, did it?

[Gord]

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg ... publicity/

Well - that didn't last very long, did it?

Told ya! (Or probably not.)

The problem, as usual, is that they made specific claims that "the young man would have had a darker complexion than previously thought" rather than may have had. The people working in the field know (or ought to know) that new evidence is constantly turning up, and that especially in the field of genetics the conclusions of today may not hold tomorrow.

[Major Malfunction]

OK, let me summarise...

When a pregnant woman doesn't get enough vitamin D, which can either be synthesised by exposure to UV, or eating meat, the baby won't be born.

Also, if the pregnant woman doesn't eat enough folate from fruits, or if she is exposed to too much UV, the baby won't be born.

It's a balancing act.

And with the advent of agriculture, a mainly grain subsistence diet and wearing clothes against the cold in the higher latitudes, with little vitamin D or folate, the next easiest variable is melanin.

Like I said... That's what happens when you stop eating meat and fruit, and start covering your entire body, and there's hardly any sun.

We turn a paler shade and want to paint doors.

[landrew]

Polar bears are an example of how albinism kicks in when it's an advantage. For humans to get more vitamin D from sunlight, it makes sense that a degree of pigment loss would have given them a survival advantage in northern regions.
Polar bears are white for a different reason; it helps them to hunt seals. Their skin is black, because they get abundant vitamin D from their prey, and they don't need to make it from sunlight.

[landrew]

Cheddar man probably had a reddish-orange hue I'm guessing...

[TJrandom]

Cheddar man probably had a reddish-orange hue I'm guessing...

That would make sense if you saw him in silhouette against the raising or setting sun. Or if he had just consumed a shitload of oranges.

[Gord]

Cheddar man probably had a reddish-orange hue I'm guessing...

That would make sense if you saw him in silhouette against the raising or setting sun. Or if he had just consumed a shitload of oranges.

Cheetos!



Cheddar Man.

[TJrandom]

I heard that Soat-man - found on the Isle of Goat had really white skin.

[Gord]

I heard that Soat-man - found on the Isle of Goat had really white skin.

Mozzarella Man.

[Major Malfunction]

It's interesting to note the Ainu, original indigenous people of Hokkaido island for something like 10,000 years, and who supposedly originated from Southeast Asia, bore a striking resemblance to Europeans in both appearance and culture. So much so, people thought they were descended from Europeans until DNA testing showed that not to be the case.

It's interesting because I think it's a clear example of convergent evolution in cold climates.

[Tom Palven]

It's interesting to note the Ainu, original indigenous people of Hokkaido island for something like 10,000 years, and who supposedly originated from Southeast Asia, bore a striking resemblance to Europeans in both appearance and culture. So much so, people thought they were descended from Europeans until DNA testing showed that not to be the case.

It's interesting because I think it's a clear example of convergent evolution in cold climates.

Please explain further.

One might think that Asian-type eyes are adapted to bright sun, which might be due to desert sun glare or sort of converesly, snow glare.

Too lazy to search this further, but will be happy to read opinions here.

[Major Malfunction]

Why don't Africans and Middle Easterns have slitted eyes?

There's obviously a number of factors involved. And more than one evolutionary solution. But some are similar. Dolphins and ichthyosaurs, for example.

The Ainu were stockier, had more body hair, thick wavy hair, thick beards, pale skin, narrow hooked noses, wide eyes. Some even blue eyes.

They were left alone on the island for nearly 10,000 years.

[landrew]

Why don't Africans and Middle Easterns have slitted eyes?

There's obviously a number of factors involved. And more than one evolutionary solution. But some are similar. Dolphins and ichthyosaurs, for example.

The Ainu were stockier, had more body hair, thick wavy hair, thick beards, pale skin, narrow hooked noses, wide eyes. Some even blue eyes.

They were left alone on the island for nearly 10,000 years.

A number of archaeological finds have discovered evidence of Caucasoids in Asia. Where populations live nowadays was not always where they lived thousands of years ago.
Also, Kennewick Man was Caucasoid, despite being 9000 years old and found in North America. We know very little about where our distant ancestors lived.

[Major Malfunction]

The DNA says, "No."

[landrew]

We can track human populations within recorded history. We know that various tribes migrated from Europe to the British Isles. Celts moved quite extensively since Roman times.
We know that the Navaho Native Americans of the American southwest, have a strong linquistic similarity to Athapaskan tribes in Northern Canada and Alaska. This indicates a fairly recent migration in historical terms.

I would be much more remarkable if every ethnic group remained settled in one geographic area for tens of millennia. It just makes sense that populations move.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I would be much more remarkable if every ethnic group remained settled in one geographic area for tens of millennia. It just makes sense that populations move.

Yes, you would.

[Gord]

It's interesting to note the Ainu, original indigenous people of Hokkaido island for something like 10,000 years, and who supposedly originated from Southeast Asia, bore a striking resemblance to Europeans in both appearance and culture. So much so, people thought they were descended from Europeans until DNA testing showed that not to be the case.

It's interesting because I think it's a clear example of convergent evolution in cold climates.

Please explain further.

One might think that Asian-type eyes are adapted to bright sun, which might be due to desert sun glare or sort of converesly, snow glare.

Too lazy to search this further, but will be happy to read opinions here.

If you're referring to the epicanthic fold, it's not a purely "Asian" characteristic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicanthic_fold

Epicanthic folds appear in East Asians, Southeast Asians, Central Asians, North Asians, some South Asians, Polynesians, Micronesians, Indigenous Americans (as well as Mestizos), the Khoisan, Malagasy, occasionally Europeans (e.g., Scandinavians, Hungarians, Estonians, Russians, Lithuanians, Finns, Samis, Irish, and Poles), and among Nilotes and Amazigh people.

The Khoisans are all the so-called "non-Bantu" peoples of Southern Africa. The Nilotes are the indigenous people of the Nile Valley. The Amazigh (or Berbers) are the indigenous peoples of North Africa from western Egypt to the Atlantic shore.

[Tom Palven]

It's interesting to note the Ainu, original indigenous people of Hokkaido island for something like 10,000 years, and who supposedly originated from Southeast Asia, bore a striking resemblance to Europeans in both appearance and culture. So much so, people thought they were descended from Europeans until DNA testing showed that not to be the case.

It's interesting because I think it's a clear example of convergent evolution in cold climates.

Please explain further.

One might think that Asian-type eyes are adapted to bright sun, which might be due to desert sun glare or sort of converesly, snow glare.

Too lazy to search this further, but will be happy to read opinions here.

If you're referring to the epicanthic fold, it's not a purely "Asian" characteristic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicanthic_fold

Epicanthic folds appear in East Asians, Southeast Asians, Central Asians, North Asians, some South Asians, Polynesians, Micronesians, Indigenous Americans (as well as Mestizos), the Khoisan, Malagasy, occasionally Europeans (e.g., Scandinavians, Hungarians, Estonians, Russians, Lithuanians, Finns, Samis, Irish, and Poles), and among Nilotes and Amazigh people.

The Khoisans are all the so-called "non-Bantu" peoples of Southern Africa. The Nilotes are the indigenous people of the Nile Valley. The Amazigh (or Berbers) are the indigenous peoples of North Africa from western Egypt to the Atlantic shore.

Thanks. I guess I kinda dig those epicanthic folds or what seem to be them among Asian girls, some Jewish girls, and others.

Melania Trump seems to have them, and she's a knockout. (YMMV)

[TJrandom]

Girls in Asia go under the knife - Ococuloplasty is a common surgery.

[psychiatry is a scam]

blue eyes ? why ignore the eye color ?
sounds like skin color is about climate and diet .
what about eye color

[TJrandom]

blue eyes ? why ignore the eye color ?
sounds like skin color is about climate and diet .
what about eye color

Eye color simply piggybacks on skin color...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I loved the way the supposed expert in "Black Panther" referred to one group as the "Bobo Ashanti" people.

To be fair she was walking dead and didn't know it at that point, but I'd not be surprised if they replaced her in that position.

[landrew]

blue eyes ? why ignore the eye color ?
sounds like skin color is about climate and diet .
what about eye color

Eye color simply piggybacks on skin color...

I think there's a chance that blue pigments help the eyes filter certain wavelengths, and help us see better in snow and fog conditions. Siberian Huskies can also have blue eyes. I have no evidence for this; it's pure speculation.

[landrew]

People indigenous to the Arctic, such as the Inuit, don't really have white skin. Their diet includes mostly meat, therefore they get their vitamin D from their food. It follows that indigenous Africans, also eating meat would have an over-abundance of vitamin D, therefore the very dark skin.

Incidentally, polar bears have black skin under their white coats. This is likely because they consume an abundance of vitamin D in their prey, and being exposed to the sun for long periods of time may have led to toxic levels of vitamin D.

[landrew]

Scandinavians probably had a lower intake of meat than the Inuit. Theirs was a more agricultural society, and vitamin D was probably in shorter supply, therefore their skin was lighter.

[Gord]

I loved the way the supposed expert in "Black Panther" referred to one group as the "Bobo Ashanti" people.

To be fair she was walking dead and didn't know it at that point, but I'd not be surprised if they replaced her in that position.

Who did what to whom now?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I loved the way the supposed expert in "Black Panther" referred to one group as the "Bobo Ashanti" people.

To be fair she was walking dead and didn't know it at that point, but I'd not be surprised if they replaced her in that position.

Who did what to whom now?

Erik Killmonger (N'Jadaka): "They tell me you're the expert on these artifacts."

Museum Director: "I guess you could say that."

Then a minute or so later...

Museum Director: "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

Erik Killmonger (N'Jadaka): "...but you ain't watchin' what you put in your body."

Museum person falls dead, creating diversion.