“Cheddar Man”
Only 8% of European individuals analyzed in a new study – the largest of the genre to date – were white.
A new study on ancient DNA reveals that most early Europeans had dark skin, even much more recently than thought.
Researchers at the University of Ferrara analyzed the DNA of 348 individuals from all over Europe, who lived between 1,700 and 45,000 years ago, and noticed that light skin evolved much later: approximately 63% of these individuals had dark skinOnly 8% had light skin and the rest had an intermediate skin, a mixture of both shades. This means that the change to a majority of people with light skin has not occurred until about 3,000 years ago.
Historically, it was believed that the early modern humans, who migrated to Europe about 45,000 years ago, rapidly developed lighter skin to better absorb the limited sunlight vitamin D during the winter months. It was also thought that the darker skin blocked the ultraviolet light (UV), necessary for the skin to produce vitamin D. But according to the new study, this theory needs to be reevaluated.
But this notion is not exactly new. Already in 2018, when the famous “Cheddar Man”who lived in Britain about 10,000 years ago, was studied by geneticists, his dark skin and blue-green eyes already showed that, after all, the truth about the skin color of the early Europeans was not that clear.
The new analysis is the most exhaustive of the pigmentation traits of the old Europeans to date, the authors say: “This work is extremely important due to the amplitude of the sampling and the care and attention dedicated to the analysis of old DNA data,” says Nina Jablonski from the state university of Pennsylvania to the study led by the study led by Guido Barbujani.
Barbujani and his team rebuilt the color of the skin, eyes and hair of individuals of various periods of European prehistory, and although not all characteristics could be determined for each individual, the results strongly indicate that most early Europeans had darker skin tones.
Jablonski also suggested that the food changesnamely with the emergence of great villages, they may have contributed to the gradual whitening of the skin over time.
“Most of the paleolithic hunters and the most of the peoples of the Bronze Age They probably obtained enough vitamin D from food sources, including wild animal meat“, He states:” This situation only begins to change significantly when the villages become greater. “
The study also revisits the skin color issue of Neanderthals. Although they have crossed modern humans, it is unlikely that the lighter skin was a characteristic inherited from the Neanderthals, as studies have shown that such characteristics developed later.
