Change of skin color through generations

Both anthropologists and biologists believe that Africa, namely Tropical Africa through which the Equator passes and is known to be extremely hot and humid, was the home of the first man. They believe that, by time, people’s naturally red skin turned into black to resist the negative impact of ultraviolet rays and protect the folic acid needed for fetuses’ growth inside wombs. However, following the first human migrations to cold areas, their complexion changed to white to produce vitamin D because dark complexions provide natural protection against sunrays.

A research done by a group of scientists at Californian Academy of Science says that ancient immigrants from Central Africa to South Africa, known as the Khoisan, have lighter complexions than that of Central Africans. This change in color took place to cope with less ultraviolet rays in the new habitat. The research also shows that the Zulu Group are darker than the Khoisan because Zulus’ migration to the south was more recent (1,000 years ago) and they have not spent enough time to have their skin color change like those who arrived earlier.

Racial groups that inhabited the western banks of the Red Sea (near Sudan and Ethiopia) have very dark skin to help them resist the heat and limit the effect of ultraviolet rays, which is unlike the Arabs who inhabited the Eastern bank of the sea and managed to resist the same climate conditions by more civilized ways such as wearing clothes without which they would have had darker complexions.

The most amazing finding of the research is talking about the dark complexion of the Inuit people in Alaska (where the cold requires a white complexion that produces vitamin D from the sun). Scientists explain this by the fact that they have vitamin D-rich fish, which spared them from the need to change color and adapt because their bodies do not need it.

—Translated by Kuwait Times