European Skin Turned Pale Only Recently, Gene Suggests

Science ^ | April 2007 | Ann Gibbons

[SirLinksalot]

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGISTS MEETING:

European Skin Turned Pale Only Recently, Gene Suggests Ann Gibbons

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA--At the American Association of Physical Anthropologists meeting, held here from 28 to 31 March, a new report on the evolution of a gene for skin color suggested that Europeans acquired pale skin quite recently, perhaps only 6000 to 12,000 years ago

[CarrotAndStick]

Well, unless a significant population of Indians have their ancestry from the low-UV radiation areas, this theory seems absurd. Methinks people in rainforests would also need to have pale skin, if the same logic holds.

And there are Hindus who have similar features too. That wouldn't be the case if they were descendents of foreigners. India's social caste norms would have kept them out.

An Indian girl from Kashmir

Another actress from the south of the country

[NavyCanDo]

My Dad’s side is Scots-Irish and my Moms side is German Swede - yet all of the family has dark brown hair and a Mediterranean type of skin. On a trip to Mexico back in the 1960’s, border agents gave my parents a hard time, thinking my little brother was a Mexican boy they were sneaking across. I still kid him about it to this day. On that same trip we had one of those photos on a donkey cart taken, and in the black & white photo, with those sombreos on that they make us where for the picture we did look Mexican

[Charles Henrickson]

Skin Turned Pale Only Recently, Gene Suggests

OK, but how do you explain that thing on your eye?

[Waverunner]

very good ....
And now how am I going to get any work done this afternoon?

[angcat]

I’m a pale Sicilian.

[Elpasser]

Since there is no such thing as simultaneous evolution of many individuals in the same species, to accept this you must believe that ALL fair skinned Europeans descended during the past 6 to 10,000 years from a single individual who had a (recessive) gene mutation, or from two individuals who had simultaneous gene mutations, for light pigmentation.

Then these individuals and their offspring out-competed all of the dark skinned individuals, whose progeny either died out or simply left for sunnier locales. And during all of this, the light skinned people avoided breeding with the dark individuals who had dominant pigmentation genes.

Just so we all understand what we have to swallow to accept this evolutionary hypothesis.

[SF Republican]

So, before that...we were all darkies? Lody not me Ms Scarlet! Well, according to studies our ancestors did migrate from Africa so you may be right.

[JamesP81]

At the American Association of Physical Anthropologists meeting, held here from 28 to 31 March, a new report on the evolution of a gene for skin color suggested that Europeans acquired pale skin quite recently, perhaps only 6000 to 12,000 years ago

And thank God for it because, I'll have to say, I've always been partial the fair skinned ladies out there...

[Toggameid]

...and here I thought Indians all look like those guys from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

[JamesP81]

Or perhaps they are just hotter.....

IMNSHO that they are...

[Brilliant]

Next, Al and Jesse are going to be demanding that the whities get out of Europe, or pay reparations for taking land from their ancestors.

[Sam Cree]

*

[Dreagon]

Which “European” gene? The Scandinavian Europeans? The Gaullic Europeans? The Germanic Europeans? The Slavic Europeans?

[Dudoight]

It is a bit much. The mutation rate of life takes simply ages, not a single generation or just two people can change a whole segment of the population.

[From many - one.]

Except you’ve got it wrong.

[Post Toasties]

Plenty of light skinned Asiatics in Korea, China & Japan, etc. What is suggested wrt them?

[Sherman Logan]

The traditional story of Indian history is that Aryans invaded from Central Asia in the 2000 to 1500 BC period, about the same time as similar groups went into Europe, Asia Minor, Iran and quite possibly China.

They are generally thought to be associated with the original charioteers, who were able to conquer widely due to their superior chariot plus composite bow weapons system.

The Aryans wanted to forever maintain their superiority to the Dravidian natives, so set up the caste (the Indian word means “color”) system.

Some Hindus get amazingly torqued at the very thought that India may have been invaded in the distant past, considering it somehow as trying to say that Hindu civilization is originally “European.” Oddly, IMHO, since we know of a great many invasions during historical times, and the Aryan invasions of Europe and India occurred about the same time.

[Tax-chick]

LOL! I guess it cuts the glare from the hot Scandinavian sun :-).

[Elpasser]

“Except you’ve got it wrong”

Wow, it’s hard to withstand the force of THAT argument. I’d better go back and think some more...

[Alter Kaker]

So at the end of the last ice age, or the beginning of the global warming period, When people could move North, they lost their tans. Frikkin Scientific Geniuses they are.

Well, no, you're not quite getting it. Moving North doesn't make skin whiter (if that were true, there wouldn't be any black people in the US). Rather, mutations in genes, favored by natural selection, make skin whiter.

This study indicates that the mutations of interest occurred later than earlier hypotheses had suggested, but long after the first human beings migrated to Europe.