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White Europeans evolved only ‘5,500 years ago’
The Sunday Times ^ | August 30, 2009 | Jonathan Leake

Posted on 08/30/2009 10:40:35 AM PDT by decimon

White Europeans could have evolved as recently as 5,500 years ago, according to research which suggests that the early humans who populated Britain and Scandinavia had dark skins for millenniums.

It was only when early humans gave up hunter-gathering and switched to farming about 5,500 years ago that white skin began to be favoured, say the researchers.

This is because farmed food was deficient in vitamin D, a vital nutrient. Humans can make this in their skin when exposed to sunlight, but dark skin is much less efficient at it.

In places such as northern Europe, where sunlight levels are low, the ability to make vitamin D more efficiently could have been crucial to survival.

(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Agriculture; Food; Health/Medicine; History; Science
KEYWORDS: agriculture; animalhusbandry; aryaninvasion; aryans; europe; godsgravesglyphs; helixmakemineadouble; huntergatherers; indusvalley; indusvalleyscript; savedthebestforlast; vitamind; worldhistory
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To: decimon
I am unaware of any dialect or variant of the English language, possibly excepting 'ebonics', that uses anything other than 'millennia' as the plural of 'millennium'.

Certainly not 'British' English.

61 posted on 08/30/2009 11:48:13 AM PDT by SAJ (q)
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To: chuck_the_tv_out
It is interesting that evolution takes millions and millions of years, except in those cases where it doesn't. And some notable examples of Big Changes in human evolution occurred ... ohh ... about 6000 years ago.

Evolutionary scientists are saying this now. I see tremendous irony there, but I suspect the evos are blind to it.

62 posted on 08/30/2009 11:50:55 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Play the Race Card -- lose the game.)
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To: decimon

And what about Native Americans who have been in NorthAmerica for about 10,000 years and have farmed for significant portions of that time?Afterall we did get crops like,potatoes,corn,beans,squash,tomatoes,and (my favorite)peppers(just to cite a few), from them.


63 posted on 08/30/2009 11:51:22 AM PDT by nomad
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To: SAJ
I am unaware of any dialect or variant of the English language, possibly excepting 'ebonics', that uses anything other than 'millennia' as the plural of 'millennium'.

Certainly not 'British' English.

Try some dictionaries and argue with the publishers.

64 posted on 08/30/2009 11:52:13 AM PDT by decimon
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To: SAJ

Author prolly has more of that melonominum than us.


65 posted on 08/30/2009 11:52:48 AM PDT by norraad ("What light!">Blues Brothers)
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To: decimon

It’s a latin word. The rules of its usage haven’t change in, um, almost two millennia.


66 posted on 08/30/2009 11:53:26 AM PDT by EDINVA (A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul -- G. B. Shaw)
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To: RegulatorCountry
Some dictionaries now list the nonsense word “millenniums” to reflect its usage by the less educated. It is akin to dictionaries now listing “loan” as a verb. “Friends, Romans , countryman LOAN me your ears”
67 posted on 08/30/2009 11:53:29 AM PDT by hecht
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To: squarebarb
The development of blue eyes and light hair/skin is indeed mysterious.

...Mongolians and northern Chinese all have darker skins than Europeans and have been in the north for many thousands of years.

Perhaps you were not aware of the blue eyed Mongolians? Genghis Khan's Blue Eyes

68 posted on 08/30/2009 11:53:50 AM PDT by SeeSharp
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To: nomad
And what about Native Americans who have been in NorthAmerica for about 10,000 years and have farmed for significant portions of that time?Afterall we did get crops like,potatoes,corn,beans,squash,tomatoes,and (my favorite)peppers(just to cite a few), from them.

I think they remained hunters despite some agriculture. And how far north in the Americas they lived would be a factor.

69 posted on 08/30/2009 11:55:05 AM PDT by decimon
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To: decimon

70 posted on 08/30/2009 11:56:51 AM PDT by Dallas59
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To: EDINVA
It’s a latin word. The rules of its usage haven’t change in, um, almost two millennia.

That's so of all words derived from Latin?

71 posted on 08/30/2009 11:57:00 AM PDT by decimon
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To: dog breath

“Unless of course everybody just wanted to do it with the white chick.”

Still, you’d need a bunch of white chicks.


72 posted on 08/30/2009 11:57:40 AM PDT by jocon307 ( We're dealing with COMMUNISTS here, folks!)
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To: decimon

Cite some.

I have my old Union Standard Dictionary (London, 1955) right in front of me.


73 posted on 08/30/2009 11:57:48 AM PDT by SAJ
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To: hecht
Some dictionaries now list the nonsense word “millenniums”...

Now list? That wasn't true, say, in the 1800s? You know that?

74 posted on 08/30/2009 11:58:50 AM PDT by decimon
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To: decimon

Well a fight IS what you should get. This is total utter BS. Even if you subscribe to genetic inheritances ascribed to “WHITE” people you cannot lump them all into the melanin/sunlight argument. And it would take far longer than 5500 years to evolve all the “white” traits including skin pigment.
Some Facts:
Vitamin D is made naturally in the first layers of skin (epidermis). The melanin in skin functions as a filter for light and therefore the amount of melanin in the skin is related to the ability of Ultraviolet B light to penetrate the epidermis and reach the readily available 7-dehydrocholesterol, which is manufactured in normally ample quantities by our bodies. The 7-dehydrocholesterol is converted into Vitamin D3 by this ultraviolet light. Melanin content does NOT alter the amount of Vitamin D that can be produced. Individuals with higher skin melanin content will simply require more time in sunlight to produce the same amount of vitamin D as individuals with lower melanin content. The amount of time an individual requires to produce a given amount of Vitamin D may depend upon the person’s distance from the equator and on the season of the year, because of variations in the amount of absorbably ultraviolet B light. With this “white” argument you could just as easily say tropical Africans developed more pigment because they needed to defend against making too much Vit D because of intense all the time sunlight at the Equator.
In view of what we know about natural Vit D production, one might ask why does MILK today continue to have Vit. D added to it— when we don’t need it. Answer: it was originally done to “help” bone development in the low sunlight peoples of the “northern” areas of the US- that and miners, maybe. Want to get a real overdose headache? Drink a half gallon of Vit D milk and spend all day in the sun at the beach- you’ll get a banger!
This sunlight/D Vitamin theory of race falls apart when you consider outliers, like Asians sub tropical and tropical, Indonesians, Indians etc. It simply doesn’t follow. But it does eat up a lot of research money and annoys people.

Try making the argument of preferential genetic selection for sickle celled red blood cells in tropical Africans— which provided survival in ancient times against malaria which could not destroy the sickled red blood cells. So successful in helping survival the genes were passed on, and now sickle cell anemia is a disease. You can really irritate knee jerk “racist” yellers with that one- even though it is quite proveable.


75 posted on 08/30/2009 11:59:22 AM PDT by John S Mosby (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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To: decimon

Interesting. The American Merriam-Webster’s 2nd International (aka, ‘the unabridged’), Springfield, MA, 1961 does offer ‘millenniums’ as a secondary plural.


76 posted on 08/30/2009 12:01:37 PM PDT by SAJ
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To: Red Boots

So if my family starts eating seal eyeballs now, in 5,500 years my descendants will have nice tans? LOL!


77 posted on 08/30/2009 12:02:22 PM PDT by keats5 (Not all of us are hypnotized.)
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To: hecht

Well, it actually can be used correctly, for entirely separate eras. A past millennium and a millennium to come, are collectively and correctly millenniums. Otherwise, it’s wrong.


78 posted on 08/30/2009 12:06:45 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: norraad
Geez, and here I'd always thought that melonominum was element #110 in the Periodic Table...

Just shows ta go ya...

79 posted on 08/30/2009 12:07:05 PM PDT by SAJ
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To: SAJ
Cite some.

I have my old Union Standard Dictionary (London, 1955) right in front of me.

That is but a web search away. See with thine own eyes.

80 posted on 08/30/2009 12:07:09 PM PDT by decimon
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