If you have European ancestry and you’re fairly light-skinned with light hair and light-colored eyes, there is now new scientific data to help explain why you are the way you are.
A recent DNA study supports the suggestion that strong selection factors for those phenotypes (physical characteristics) acted upon pigmentation genes over the last 5,000 years. Sandra Wilde of Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, along with her colleagues, developed estimates of selection acting on functional alleles of three pigmentation-related genes from Eneolithic, Bronze Age, and modern eastern European humans by using computer simulation techniques.
Reports Wilde, et. al: “Our results provide direct evidence that strong selection favoring lighter skin, hair, and eye pigmentation has been operating in European populations over the last 5,000 years……….In sum, a combination of selective pressures associated with living in northern latitudes, the adoption of an agriculturalist diet, and assortative mating may sufficiently explain the observed change from a darker phenotype during the Eneolithic/Early Bronze Age to a generally lighter one in modern Eastern Europeans…….” However, Wilde, et. al, caution that while this may be true, “other selective factors cannot be discounted.”*
The article detailing the study has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
_______________________________________
*Article #13-16513: “Direct evidence for positive selection of skin, hair, and eye pigmentation in Europeans during the last 5,000 y,” by Sandra Wilde et al. at www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1316513111
_______________________________________
Read about the most fascinating discoveries with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine. Find out what Popular Archaeology Magazine is all about. AND MORE:
On the go? Purchase the mobile version of the current issue of Popular Archaeology Magazine here for only $2.99.
And, Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery edition is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition. We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.
Subscription Price: A very affordable $5.75 for those who are not already premium subscribers of Popular Archaeology Magazine (It is FREE for premium subscribers to Popular Archaeology). Premium subscribers should email [email protected] and request the special coupon code. Or, for the e-Book version, it can be purchased for only $3.99 at Amazon.com.
