NationStates Jolt Archive

Got into an interesting debate recently. The question was in humans which phenotype was predominant or in existence first: pale skin or dark skin?

Since there are two ways to look at it. We originate from Africa where the native populations have dark skin. Yet we evolved from primates which under their fur have pale skin. So were all humans at the beginning pale-skinned? But due to losing the hair those that stayed in the African continent started getting higher melanin counts to counter the loss of protective hair vs strong sun. Whilst the tribes of humans that emigrated into Europe/Asia retained their pale skin?

Or did all humans develop dark skin. Then those peoples who emigrated into Europe and Asia each developed pale skin due to the higher need of Vitamin D intake where it was sparser?

So I'm pretty much asking the knowledgeable, anthropologists or biologists here if they know which trait came into existence first. Since we all know blue eyes are only a few thousand years old, blond hair also not too much longer. But pale skin a trait which is shared by our common ancestor the ape, but who lives surrounded by dark skinned humans.

Got into an interesting debate recently. The question was in humans which phenotype was predominant or in existence first: pale skin or dark skin?

Since there are two ways to look at it. We originate from Africa where the native populations have dark skin. Yet we evolved from primates which under their fur have pale skin. So were all humans at the beginning pale-skinned? But due to losing the hair those that stayed in the African continent started getting higher melanin counts to counter the loss of protective hair vs strong sun. Whilst the tribes of humans that emigrated into Europe/Asia retained their pale skin?

Or did all humans develop dark skin. Then those peoples who emigrated into Europe and Asia each developed pale skin due to the higher need of Vitamin D intake where it was sparser?

So I'm pretty much asking the knowledgeable, anthropologists or biologists here if they know which trait came into existence first. Since we all know blue eyes are only a few thousand years old, blond hair also not too much longer. But pale skin a trait which is shared by our common ancestor the ape, but who lives surrounded by dark skinned humans.

I'm gonna say dark skinned.

man hung around in Africa for quite some time before he left in search of England (like before we where human-ish and stuff) so yeah we started out bald pink monkeys and then created rap

i couldn't say for definite but humans spent a long long time hairless in africa before migrating out. i should imagine that dark skin had become the norm long before that migration.

http://www.explore-qatar.com/imglib/spencer_4.jpg

anatomically modern humans are at least 200,000 years old, the first migrations out of africa began c.100,000 years ago.

the dark skin was predominant because it was nessecary for our survival in, as you say, the harsh sun of Africa. I suppose there must have been some lighter skinned humans as well, or proto-humans, but natural selection would probably have dealt with them pretty quickly.

It was when humans began to migrate from Africa that white skin began to develop, first in patches amongst the dark skin and finally to cover the entire body.

Hope that's of some use!

There has been some research along these lines based on tracking the evolution of lice:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/science/08louse.html

It suggests humans lost body hair sometime between 3.3 and 1.7 million years ago. This would be when our skin darkened. Lighter skin in some humans is a later adaption to northern environments.

Got into an interesting debate recently. The question was in humans which phenotype was predominant or in existence first: pale skin or dark skin?

Since there are two ways to look at it. We originate from Africa where the native populations have dark skin. Yet we evolved from primates which under their fur have pale skin. So were all humans at the beginning pale-skinned? But due to losing the hair those that stayed in the African continent started getting higher melanin counts to counter the loss of protective hair vs strong sun. Whilst the tribes of humans that emigrated into Europe/Asia retained their pale skin?

Or did all humans develop dark skin. Then those peoples who emigrated into Europe and Asia each developed pale skin due to the higher need of Vitamin D intake where it was sparser?

So I'm pretty much asking the knowledgeable, anthropologists or biologists here if they know which trait came into existence first. Since we all know blue eyes are only a few thousand years old, blond hair also not too much longer. But pale skin a trait which is shared by our common ancestor the ape, but who lives surrounded by dark skinned humans.We are primates. And the primates we evolved from aren't around today, so claiming to know what skin color they had is kind of silly. Almost as silly as the claim that apes like gorillas have pale skin.