Supposedly, the Inuit evolved their body morphology- they tend to be short and stocky- as a result of selection pressure to withstand very cold temperatures. Their bodies are more round, giving them less surface area for a given volume, making them less likely to become hypothermic when exposed to cold temperatures for prolonged periods of time.
But Northern Europeans have also evolved in a cold climate, yet they tend to be tall and thin, giving their bodies a large surface area per unit volume, and making them more susceptible to hypothermia.
Why aren’t the Inuit and Scandinavians more similar in their physical appearance, if both groups have had similar selection pressures to adapt to cold weather?
Modern Scandinavians are descendants of the Indo-European migration into the area around 4000 BC, from the steppes of Russia and the Caspian Sea area, and a later migration of Germanic peoples around 1000 BC. The Inuit however are related to and indigenous people who have been adapting to the arctic climate for tens of thousands of years. The people we think of as modern Scandinavians haven’t been there long enough for the environment to have much of an impact on them.
also, natural selection takes place through random mutation. there is no law that says that you will evolve certain characteristics in a given environment.
for an example, look at the finches that darwin looked at on the galapagos islands. they are not very well adapted to their environment.
if you always evolved what you needed or wanted, that would be lamarckian evolution.
The latest theories are swinging away from this so-called “Kurgan migration” theory to an advance of farmers from the Anatolian area, starting around 3000 years earlier.
Although the general statement that Indo-Europeans settled the area is still correct, this gives a bit more time for some selection to have taken effect. The extremely pale white skins of the Scandinavians are thought to have been selected to allow the available sunlight to more easily penetrate the skin to form needed vitamin D. And the ability to digest the lactose in milk as adults, which also helps calcium absorption, is a recent selection that is more widely spread in the Scandinavian population than anywhere else.
My WAG would be that while Scandanavia can be chilly, it is not nearly as cold as Alaska or Greenland, and so evolutionary pressure for a stocky body type is probably not enormous.
Just to counter the OP’s blatant generalization about Scandinavians: Travel to the northern parts of Norway and you will find plenty of vaguely Sami-looking Norwegians: various combinations of dark hair, brown eyes, high cheekbones, “Asian” eyelids, stocky build, etc. I can only assume this is due to inter-breeding with the Sami people of northern Norway and Russia. Due to frequent migration, this is a fairly common feature even in the south. We are not all tall, blond, blue-eyed gods.
whaaat??? but but… I thought the vikings and their all night panty raids (with women still attached) guaranteed that all Scandanavian women would be tall buxom blondes!..
Just kidding…
Although anyone know what the hell movie that was from?
on calm day with tempritures in the thirties I can go outside without a coat and not be cold, I’m 1/4 Inuit. My friends complain I should wear a coat when it’s that cold or I stand a large chance of getting sick. While I apriciate their motives, I have to wonder are they correct?
I’ve always wondered how Björk wound up looking so non-Indo-European. In Old Norse times, when they settled Greenland and explored Vinland, who’s to say there wasn’t some intermarriage with Skraelings?
I also suspect that the Scandinavian countries experienced almost continual genetic interchange with the rest of Europe, whereas the Inuit (due to the lower population density of North America) had much less dilution of their bloodlines.
