The 10,000-Year-Old Man Found In A British Cave — And The DNA Test That Changed What Scientists Thought Early Europeans Looked Like

The reasoning seemed straightforward.

Dark skin pigmentation is an adaptation to high UV environments — melanin protects against DNA damage and the destruction of folate that excess UV radiation causes.

In the high-UV environments of the tropics and subtropics, where modern humans evolved, dark pigmentation is advantageous.

But in the lower-UV environments of northern Europe, where UV is weaker and sometimes too weak to produce adequate vitamin D through skin synthesis, the need for UV protection diminishes, and the need for vitamin D synthesis becomes more important.

Lighter skin — which allows more UV penetration and thus more vitamin D synthesis — becomes advantageous.