[SirLinksalot]

This site requires registration but in essence, an article in Science April 20 says maybe just 6,000 to 12,000 years.

“This contradicts a long-standing hypothesis that modern humans in Europe grew paler about 40,000 years ago, as soon as they migrated into northern latitudes,” the article states, reporting on a March meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. Pale skin is said to have an adaptive value at high latitudes: “Under darker skies, pale skin absorbs more sunlight than dark skin, allowing ultraviolet rays to produce more vitamin D for bone growth and calcium absorption.” The new date was based on genetic studies that suggested a “selective sweep occurred 5300 to 6000 years ago” or up to 12,000 years ago, “given the imprecision of method”.

[dirtboy]

Pale skin is nothing more than an adaptation to less sunlight at higher latitudes. That vitamin D thingy, IMO.

[The_Republican]

I experienced the same effect today when I logged on to my Etrade acccount.

[CarrotAndStick]

European?

Some dude from India...

[Waverunner]

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.

[Tax-chick]

Gene who?

[Always Right]

Pale-skinned women must be easier.

[Toggameid]

So that means us white people are more evolved!

I knew it! =D

[colorado tanker]

Actually, the reoccupation of the northern latitudes after the last glacial max was around 8-10,000 years ago. It would be interesting to know, if there’s any way to do it, if this gene came and went as homo sapiens went north and was driven south by the ice and cold.

[baclava]

So, before that...we were all darkies?

[2banana]

Mohamed is described as a white man in the Hadith...

[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

[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.

[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...

[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?

[Post Toasties]

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

[Publius6961]

suggested that Europeans acquired pale skin quite recently, perhaps only 6000 to 12,000 years ago

Damned creationists!

< /sarc >

[ChiefJayStrongbow]

Ping for later

[Hemingway's Ghost]

"You mean I'm going to stay this color?"