The people who built Stonehenge five thousand years ago probably had the same pale complexion as many in the UK today.
New research suggests that today's British and mainland Europeans lost the darker skin tone of their African ancestors only six thousand years earlier, when the Neanderthals were gone. This refutes the hypothesis that modern Europeans got their pale skin from Neanderthals. Apart from rare episodes, the relationship of our ancestors with the Neanderthals in Europe was purely platonic.
There is a clear correlation between latitude and skin pigmentation: people who have spent a long time in high latitudes have adapted to the conditions there, losing skin pigmentation, which is common in lower latitudes, explains Sandra Beleza from the University of Porto (Portugal). Light skin allows more vitamin D to be generated when exposed to sunlight.
The road brought people of the modern anatomical type to Europe about 45 thousand years ago. When did their skin turn white?
Ms Beleza and her colleagues studied three genes associated with mild skin pigmentation. They are found in all human populations, but in Europe they are more common than in Africa.
An analysis of the genomes of 50 people of European origin and 70 from sub-Saharan Africa showed that this trio conquered the population of Europe only 11-19 thousand years ago, that is, a significant time after the arrival of the first migrants.
This finding is consistent with earlier research, which suggested that modern humans did not lose dark skin immediately upon reaching Europe, notes Katherine Harvati of the University of Tübingen (FRG).
One of the DNA analyzes from the bones of Neanderthals who lived 40 and 50 thousand years ago in Spain and Italy, respectively, made it clear that our extinct cousins, who lived in the center of Europe, had fair skin and red hair. But the Neanderthals sank about 28 thousand years ago, not having time to transfer this useful acquisition to us, despite the fact that some of our ancestors sinned with them.
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This may seem unusual, given that the two species have lived side by side in Europe for several thousand years. But perhaps all of our current Neanderthal genes came from a cross that took place in the Middle East, where modern humans and Neanderthals first met, explains Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London (UK).
Neanderthals lived there, most likely with darker skin. Indeed, one study of ancient DNA showed that Neanderthals living in what is now Croatia had dark skin and dark hair.
The research results are published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.