• ElHexo [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    The genes for white skin emerged in East Africa

    Not that any of it matters because the climate has radically changed over evolutionarily significant timescales, and people have been migrating and mixing since the start

    • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      The genes for white skin emerged in East Africa

      are you talking about Yakub or something in mainstream anthropology

      bc the verdict rn is that the first light skin mutations came from the Middle East and East Asia. Probably also North India and the Americas but that’s less well known

      there’s a difference between light and white skin btw. The latter only started existing 3500 years ago in northern europe

      • ElHexo [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        11 months ago

        Genetics

        There’s a phenotypic difference but most of the underlying mutations arose in Africa, with the genes producing darker skin phenotypes being selected out over time

        • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          11 months ago

          This might be technically true but there’s no reason to think it was East Africa. It could have just as easily been South Africa or Central

          Going by archaeological samples though, these mutations first became widespread in the Middle East. It’s also possible they may have even originated outside of Africa.

          Also I’m talking about a select few light skin mutations that lighten the skin tone by large margins and became widespread in the neolithic, when people got less vitamin D from their diets,

          There were other ones which were more minor and present in the paleolithic which probably came from Africa, and were held by European hunter gatherers who were pretty dark skinned (but still almost definitely lighter than Africans)