DNA researchers estimate theat the mutations for blue and grey eyes, blond and red hair, and pale skin..?

Question

All seem to have occured about 10k ago (all same age anyway), in roughly the same area of Northern Europe.

Why? Were these people sitting on a Uranium mine? Was it aliens? Hybridisation with Neanderthals, although the date would be too late. Refugees from Atlantis?

Am I the only one who thinks this is a bit suspicious?

Answer 1

It was a MUTATION, in "error" in copying.

These happen all the time, though most don't result in any change to the organism (not all DNA is "expressed").

If it was once, it wasn't a "they" but a "he" or "she" -- well, actually in a sperm or an egg. And they needn't have been sitting or a uranium mine. The copying isn't always perfect.

But, each had an advantage in a northern climate, so the person with each (or all of them together, it's not clear to me which) more successfully reproduced than other people; their off-spring who inherited that gene also tended to reproduce more successfully than their peers.

That's how it works.

Suspicious?

No.

Answer 2

Something to do with an Ice Age at the time?

Answer 3

I'm not sure why you think its suspicious, but here's my attempt at an answer.  As people migrated north into colder temperatures, they didn't need as much protection from the sun - such as dark skin and dark hair.  Therefore, people who had the mutations for lighter skin, hair, etc were more likely to thrive and pass on their genes.  It makes sense to me.  Mutations happen naturally, as someone said, errors in cell replication, but they don't necessarily survive in the gene pool for long periods of time - they sometimes have to be beneficial or at least not harmful...especially in the days before sunscreen, in this case.

Answer 4

People just adapt and evolve!

Answer 5

dont be fooled by looks. phenotype is not equivalent to genotype. it probabbly came from environmental differents and sexual selection

Answer 6

You would be surprised at how fast some mutation, even multiple mutation, can fix itself in a population.

You may be the only one finding this " suspicious. "

Answer 7

Blond

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Quote:

"Canadian anthropologist Peter Frost, under the aegis of University of St Andrews, published a study in March 2006 in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior that says blond hair evolved very quickly at the end of the last Ice Age by means of sexual selection.[4] According to the study, the appearance of blond hair and blue eyes in some northern European women made them stand out from their rivals at a time of fierce competition for scarce males. The study argues that blond hair was produced higher in the Cro-Magnon descended population of the European region because of food shortages 10,000-11,000 years ago following the last glacial period when the most of it was covered by steppe-tundra. Almost the only sustenance in northern Europe came from roaming herds of mammoths, reindeer, bison and horses and finding them required long, arduous hunting trips in which numerous males died, leading to a high ratio of surviving women to men. This hypothesis argues that women with blond hair posed an alternative that helped them mate and thus increased the number of blonds."

Just a theory, but it hadn't been mentioned yet and is much more likely than aliens or Atlantis.

Answer 8

I think it's suspicious that you believe it.  It's all just a guess honey - people talking like they know what they're talking about - and they don't.

Answer 9

All these arguments take on a defense Atty Vs the prosecution of the case... where almost any evidence to the contrary of the opposition's hypothesis is nit picked to death.  Of course finding a man standing over a body with a smoking gun doesn't prove he committed the murder. The defense will argue that he was defending the victim & unless the bullet is found & matches his gun the evidence becomes inconclusive.  When the bullet is found, then the defense will argue that he simply picked up the gun to examine it.  The Afrocentric group will continue to make their claims & obscure data until actual video is taken of the s*x act between some sapien & a more ancient line of human... then a video documentation of the birth will be required, complete with DNA validation of parentage.  However, the same can be said for both sides of the arguement.

The politically correct are not above modifying history to suit their needs either.  If one more idiot tells me Cleopatra was Black & African, I'm gonna throw up. They can even ignore absolute records on the Ptolemy family.