Anthropological question: How did people get to be different colors

Question

Anthropological question: How did people get to be different colors

Answer 1

I believe the people who say things like melanin and vitamin A influence skin pigment,as evolution selects those with the fittest genes in a particular environment tend to survive. But remember, there's a whole lot more than just skin color when trying to define race, such as height,body weight,hair coloring,etc. I believe the human races should be better seen as human sub-species. If we can do that for animals,why not humans as well?  The whole idea of 'races are a social construct' is got to be among the biggest scientific frauds out there.Icabod,U have got to be a real d**n fool to actually believe such Zionists non-sense. Maybe these links may help U understand what I'm trying to state here.

http://variomics.net/index.php/Main_Page

http://vdare.com/

http://www.charlesdarwinresearch.org/

Answer 2

A race is simply one of the partially isolated gene pools into which the human species came to be divided during and following its early geographical spread. Roughly one race has developed on each of the five major continental areas of the earth. . . . Man did indeed diverge genetically during this phase of history and we can measure and study the results of this divergence in what remains today of the old geographical races. As we would expect, divergence appears to be correlated with the degree of isolation. . . . When race formation took place on the continents, with the bottlenecking of thousands of populations in isolated gene pools all over the world, the gene-frequency differences we now see were established. . . . The paradox which faces us is that each group of humans appears to be externally different yet underneath these differences there is fundamental similarity.The fact that the races are capable of intermarriage and reproduction shows that they are actually of one “kind,” all being members of the human family. So the various races are merely facets of the total variation possible in humankind

Answer 3

The current theory is that the closer to the equator, the more melanin the people developed in their skin, making them darker.

Answer 4

God creates all people, therefore I conclude the reason is He willed it.

Answer 5

When we humans started out in Africa, and we were all black.

The out of Africa migration was done during the first half of the Pleistocene period. It was a time of ice ages, when sea levels dropped significantly and there was increased rainfall in many regions. At the same time Homo erectus was making stone tools and was able to use fire. The question of his being able to create fire has not yet been answered. Given the favorable climate and the increased skills to control his environment, Homo erectus spread out of Africa.

As for skin color:

"In their analysis of human evolutionary history, Jablonski and Chaplin concluded that modern humans most likely evolved in the tropics, where they were exposed to high UV levels. But as they moved into regions away from the equator, where UV levels are lower, humans became fairer so as to allow enough UV radiation to penetrate their skin and produce vitamin D, the "sunshine vitamin," also obtained from eating fish and marine mammals. Vitamin D is essential for maintaining healthy blood levels of calcium and phosphorous, and thus promoting bone growth.

Skin color, according to Jablonski and Chaplin, basically becomes a balancing act between the evolutionary demands of photo-protection and the need to create vitamin D in the skin.

One of the important implications of Jablonski and Chaplin's work is that it underlines the concept of race as purely a social construct, with no scientific grounds. DNA research has shown that genetically all humans, regardless of skin color and other surface distinctions, are basically the same. In an April 2001 article titled, "The Genetic Archaeology of Race," published in the Atlantic Monthly, Steve Olson writes "the genetic variants affecting skin color and facial features are essentially meaningless —they probably involve a few hundred of the billions of nucleotides in a person's DNA. Yet societies have built elaborate systems of privilege and control on these insignificant genetic differences."

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/02...

"Before the mass global migrations of people during the last 500 years, dark skin color was mostly concentrated in the southern hemisphere near the equator and light color progressively increased further away, as illustrated in the map below. In fact, the majority of dark pigmented people lived within 20° of the equator. Most of the lighter pigmented people lived in the northern hemisphere north of 20° latitude."

http://anthro.palomar.edu/adapt/adapt_4....

In short, the closer to the tropics the darker the skin. This provides protection from the sun. Skin color lightens as you approach the poles as it's better at absorbing vitamin D in the weaker rays of the sun.

Answer 6

our differences are trite and mean nothing in the scientific realm

Answer 7

It has to do with the foods they eat & if they drink white or chocolate milk.

Answer 8

God painted us that way...

Answer 9

I would think time in the sun and diet plays a huge roll, as well as what God has planned for that culture.

Answer 10

We all started out in Africa. Since the sun is so powerful there, our skin needed extra melanin which caused the skin to be darker. Once we started moving to Europe etc. we didn't need so much melanin and lost a lot of that coloring. Melanin is a natural sunscreen. Evolution and mating partners have given us all shades through the ages.

Answer 11

Its the way God has made us. For one we get different colors by the mixing of races. Like how Hispanics are Black, White, and Indian. Which gave us tan or a lighter shade with a slight tan in it. Africans have naturally dark skin, they didn't GET darker by going in the sun. The darker the skin the less chance of getting skin cancer, and Africa is a very hot place.

Answer 12

Evolution!!!

In a nutshell, as people migrated out of Africa and became isolated into groups certain genotypes became more prevalent within their group due to environmental forces.

The person above gave a long thorough explanation.

Answer 13

There are several theories, the most well-known is that people in hot, sunny, climates developed darker skin as natural skin protection.