I’m referring to the human race evolving in the African continent and then migrating to the rest of the world.
Evolving in Europe made people light skinned to account for the reduction in sunlight exposure, are there any other traits which other ethnicities developed to adapt to their new environment? Or are the diifferent traits in different ethnicities just stuff that developed by chance and got somehow reinforced because of the isolation between populations?
This question came to my mind first thinking about “Asian eyes”, do they serve any “purpose”?
Yeah, depending on what you consider “new”.
- Nose shapes to account for dryer air on Africa and middle east.
- Nose shapes to account for colder weather.
- There are a group of people that have larger spleens to make them able to
drivedive for longer periods (Bajau People). - “Asian” eye-shape, afaik, is an adaptation to protect the eyes from sand.
The list is actually very long.
There’s also sickle cell anemia: IIRC it protects against something like the tse-tse fly or mosquito borne illnesses native to parts of the African continent
I believe that it offers a degree of protection against malaria. Or, enough protection that you live long enough to reproduce before dying a terrible, agonizing death.
Or, enough protection that you live long enough to reproduce before dying a terrible, agonizing death.
I think it’s protective when you have one copy of the gene, and detrimental when you have two copies. Unfortunately, malaria was a strong enough pressure that the sickle cell gene was selected for, up to a certain percentage of the gene pool.
One more is that some people in the Himalayas (Nepalese, Tibetans, etc.) have some pretty recent adaptations for living at extremely high altitudes where there’s less oxygen. This Wikipedia article has more examples of recent adaptations: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_human_evolution
Another interesting factoid is that Africa has more genetic diversity than the rest of the world. So, don’t sleep on the fact that that Homo sapiens spent more time radiating throughout Africa than radiating out of Africa.
Less than 5000 years ago, northern europeans developing a genetic mutation that allowed them to digest cow’s milk.
But then how do other non-European groups like Middle Easterners and Asians drink it normally? Did they independently evolve the same mutation?
Read what turned out to be a fairly racist article back in the day, about the differences in blacks and whites.
One thing that rang true was hair types. When wet, kinky hair sheds heat more easily and flat hair is insulating. Anyone know if this is true?
I don’t think epicanthic folds would be considered evolution. Most human changes are in our immune system and sense of smell.
