Okay, here’s something I’ve been wondering about for a while.
I understand that a person who lives near the Equator will likely have dark skin, probably as a form of natural sunscreen. It also makes sense that Northern Europeans have pale skin. They don’t get as much sun exposure.
Now, could someone explain why Inuit and Native people have dark skin? Shouldn’t they be palest of all? I’ve heard the theory that most of the Native people in Canada and the US came across the landbridge from Asia. Is that the explanation?
Inuit ate seafood naturally high in vitamin D, which meant they got the D they needed from diet instead of sunlight. So retaining a dark skin in the arctic was not detrimental.
Also, you can get a pretty nasty sunburn in the artic circle in summer - the atmosphere is thinner at the poles, providing less protection, there is less cloud cover much of the time, and for part of the year the daylight is 24/7.
Another factor is time - skin doesn’t bleach in just a few generations. It takes a long time. Which is one reason the dark skin near the equator/pale skin near the poles thing doesn’t hold up to well. Sudanese are as dark as people get, but Bedouin and Wodaabe living in the same broad region are both significantly less dark
You also have to consider that people aren’t purebreds. Last century there was at least one artic explorer of African descent who left a number of very dark-skinned Inuit children in his wake. In those cases, the dark skin is a very recent addition to the gene pool.
