Purgatio wrote:Dogmeat wrote:Light skin seems to have arrived with the popularity of agriculture. A farming diet is less rich than a hunter-gatherer diet. Vitamin D deficiency probably only became frequent problem when the switch was made to more-plentiful, less-nutritious staple crops.
I might be wrong on this, but I vaguely recall reading somewhere that light skin tones is the product of certain human population groups living far away from the equater in areas of low UV radiation, light skin pigmentation became adaptively helpful to prevent Vitamin D deficiency because apparently skin with lower amounts of melanin is better at absorbing UV. I'm not a scientist though, so defi don't take my word for it.
These two statements are both true.
Having light skin is useful in preventing vitamin D deficiency in Northern latitudes, but only if you're not getting enough vitamin D from your diet.
