Skin Color Diversity a Million Years Ago in Ancient Humans, According to Scientists
In a new study published in the journal Current Biology, scientists have discovered that light skin evolved one million years ago in the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees
The study was conducted by a team of researchers from the States of Queensland and South Africa, and it provides new insights into the evolution of human skin color.
The study found that light skin evolved in the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees because it conferred an advantage in terms of thermoregulation.
So, if you’re looking for some new and interesting research to read, be sure to check out the latest study published in Current Biology.
It’s sure to fascinate and intrigues you! According to a peer-reviewed study in the prestigious journal ‘Science’, Skin color variation appears to have existed long before modern humans emerged, because some of the genetic variants the researchers discovered, coding for both light and dark skin pigmentation, were quite ancient, between 300,000 and a million years ago.
The color of our skin is one of the few human characteristics that is more variable, and historically polarizing. One of humanity’s most distinctive, and stunningly variable features, is skin color.
The study of various African ethnic groups reveals that our skin’s genetic history is more nuanced than previously believed.
Indeed, Skin tone has varied greatly among humans for at least the last 1,000,000 years. So concludes an analysis of the genetic variants associated with skin pigmentation in people from several regions of Africa.
Surprisingly, The latest findings suggest that some particularly dark skin tones evolved relatively recently from paler genetic variants.
In fact, of the darker-skin gene variants, three appear to have evolved from less pigmented variants.
This means that very dark skin actually evolved from brown skin, according to the scientists.
SOURCES: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti…
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti…
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.11…
Header image: Netnature
Editor’s note: one million years ago equates to Homo Antecessor (header picture), which is most definately not the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees. Chimpanzees diverged from the lineage around six million years ago, the time of Orrorin Tugenensis, of which we have 20 fossils. Interestingly, apes diverged from the lineage first, some 10 – 11 million years ago, from which we have three fossils known as Chororapithecus Abyssinicus.
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Howdy
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“it conferred an advantage in terms of thermoregulation. ”
Then why are there still dark skinned people if there’s been a million years to take advantage of the claimed ‘benefit’? Indeed, why are dark skinned people, just like light skinned people, different shades?
Answer that, and I might start to believe a word you say.
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Kevin Doyle
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One doesn’t need a PhD in genetics to observe the basic fact that ALL humans develop darker skin when exposed to sunlight.
Yes, even black skinned Africans get darker in tropical sunlight, as opposed to those that live in Scandinavia or pasty-Scotland…
This was the ingenious invention of our Creator to protect our inner skin and organs.
The only problem with ‘common sense’, is that it is not very common!
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