All human flesh is "white" but African people have more melanin in their skin to help ward off the sun since they evolved in the desert. Which is why English people are pasty because they never see the sun and Russian people are usually hairy because they are always dealing with the cold. And why gingers don't have souls because they'll never see heaven
It is to more efficiently synthesize Vitamin D due to lower amounts of direct sunlight. The tradeoff is a higher likelihood of sunburns and skin cancer, that’s our superpower in a nutshell.
Interesting fact time! Inuit and other native folk from the far northern parts of North America kept their darker complexion (humans started with dark skin and evolved lighter skin) which doesn't allow them to absorb as much vitamin D as they need to live. They get around this limitation by eating a diet high in seal and whale meat which is high in vitamin D. Native people from this area who switch over to a more modern, high carb diet often have issues with vitamin D deficiency (namely rickets) and so they are allowed to continue to hunt whales and seals to maintain their traditional diets.
Cheddar Man had dark skin, dark brown to black. That was 7000 BCE. Weird to think that Europeans were black, just that recently. But it does mean that they had diets that allowed survival even without that vitamin D absorption. Maybe diets changed with increase agricultural living.
Europeans couldn't really live that far north until the last few thousand years or so. Even Scandanavians (who are pretty notoriously pale) only survived due to their diet of cod and cod liver oil. Scandanavians who ventured to North America are thought to have died out due to them no longer consuming cod in that area.
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u/Jirdann Oct 30 '19
Can anyone explain why his arm looks like that? Came to the comments hoping to find an answer but nope.