Yeah fair skin is an adaptation to an environment with less sun. It’s not only europeans, people who come from more northern latitudes will generally have fairer skin than people closer to the equator (since closer to the equator sun protection is more important than vitamin d absorption). The Inuit however often have darker skin than would be expected that far north, since their diet consists of mostly seafood, a high source of vitamin d. So they don’t need to get it from the sun.
Ohhhh, I thought the Inuit had more melanin because they live in a place where they might have to deal with 6 months of constant sunlight with little cloud cover. But that makes more sense now
I thought it was because you're basically getting a double dose of sunlight when you're hanging out in the snow all the time, since the sun reflects back off the snow.
Which is definitely a real issue, but I guess it might not be why they're darker skinned.
It's more that darker skin was never selected against, so if the people settling the area had dark skin to begin with then if there was no pressure to lose it, they would not. If their diet supplied vitamin D, then there's no reason people with darker skin would be selected against.
Yeah fair skin is an adaptation to an environment with less sun. It’s not only europeans, people who come from more northern latitudes will generally have fairer skin than people closer to the equator (since closer to the equator sun protection is more important than vitamin d absorption). The Inuit however often have darker skin than would be expected that far north, since their diet consists of mostly seafood, a high source of vitamin d. So they don’t need to get it from the sun.
That’s my understanding at least
Ohhhh, I thought the Inuit had more melanin because they live in a place where they might have to deal with 6 months of constant sunlight with little cloud cover. But that makes more sense now
I thought it was because you're basically getting a double dose of sunlight when you're hanging out in the snow all the time, since the sun reflects back off the snow.
Which is definitely a real issue, but I guess it might not be why they're darker skinned.
It's more that darker skin was never selected against, so if the people settling the area had dark skin to begin with then if there was no pressure to lose it, they would not. If their diet supplied vitamin D, then there's no reason people with darker skin would be selected against.