# Skin color evolution question



## LynnBee (Jun 24, 2014)

I've never been good at time scale when it comes to evolution, so I was wondering if anyone had any ideas...the basic idea is at some point in the history of this civilization I'm working on (fantasy) a group of people were instantly moved from a temperate climate to a very hot, arid, climate, similar to Earth Africa. How many years would it take for that group to naturally have darker skin? I guess sort of the opposite of what happened when humans migrated out. I don't need to be overly technical about it I'm more or less just looking for a time range to reference...like, 20,000 years? 100,000? Way less? I believe I read somewhere it took about 70,000 years for us to spread around Europe, but in this instance it was a gradual change - I would imagine in the situation I present natural selection would be a bit more intense, ie, people extremely fair skinned wouldn't survive as well/die off in the sudden temperature change, so I would think it'd be a shorter amount of time?

Or maybe I'm way off base, haha, never was all that good in biology class.

Edit: Forgot to say, this is a civilization that would not have sunscreen or modern day ways to protect themselves from the sun, so they would be reliant only on clothing/shade/etc.


----------



## Greimour (Jun 24, 2014)

If you want to get scientific, you would first have to prove that it happens at all and that it's Evolution and not genetics of parentage and countless other variables. 

However, it is a fantasy... they don't have to fall within human boundary parameters. Let's say that UV Rays and climate etc do change people physically and it's not a part of Gods intent upon creation or Genetics. (in other words, debate aside and Pseudo-Science theory only) 

You could put any stipulation you wanted on it, but don't go off how many 'years' .... but instead, how many 'generations'.

I have a cousin who was born white as milk. Age 2 he got a suntan that never went away.. age 7 the suntan got stronger... age 12 he appeared to be half-cast all year round. Age 17, after far too much time indoors and lack of nourishing sunshine - he started to pale out again. I couldn't help wonder - if he met someone else who tanned as easily (and seemingly as permanently) as he did... would they potentially have babies that had colour tints in their skin?

The answer of course would be no, genetics doesn't work that way.

I don't know the answer to your question, but anything over seven generations would satisfy me in a fantasy Novel. Depending on life-spans.. that can be 350-760 years - or more for the longevity of some lives, but even so, a person living to 110 doesn't necessarily mean they aren't living to see the 4th generation. (Great Grandchild)

For Grandeur, anything that states x-generations and x-thousand years will be satisfactory for many fantasy readers that don't much care for real science.


~Kev


----------



## Riptide (Jun 24, 2014)

Evolution is genetics, isn't?  But I see what you're getting at how the climate can't change a person that carries to the next generation. Gre's right, just say generation yada yada the ratio of dark skin to light skin ... in the next generation it was nearly ... stuff like that. Just make it up and go on


----------



## Terry D (Jun 24, 2014)

As an alternative to an evolutionary skin pigment change, your fantasy race might use naturally occurring plant or mineral based dyes to color their skin? Perhaps in creative, culturally significant patterns by group, family, or clan?


----------



## Greimour (Jun 24, 2014)

Riptide said:


> Evolution is genetics, isn't?  But I see what you're getting at how the climate can't change a person that carries to the next generation. Gre's right, just say generation yada yada the ratio of dark skin to light skin ... in the next generation it was nearly ... stuff like that. Just make it up and go on



Evolution does amount to genetics - whether your belief allows for Evolution or not, the basis is genetics. What I was getting at with 'not parental genetics' is purely that (the parents) - Evolution includes climate situations such as heat, cold, excessive sunlight, limited sunlight, oxygen levels, food sources (such as do you hunt game with a spear or fish with a rod) ... on some part of the scale, every factor is an attribute to Evolution. 

Example:
If you are the top of the food chain and don't need to run away from anything - nor do you need to chase anything due to trapping abilities - then you may be quite slow at running due to lack of need for said speed.

However, genetics is quite clear in the fact that if both parents are white, you will be born white. There is no factual evidence available to say that a climate _will_ change your genetic code throughout the generations. As long as the same 'type/race/breed/creed/whatever' always 'breed/mate/procreate/whatever...' (so many ways to offend people, geez) ... as long as the same 'people' have babies together, the babies will always be the same kind of people. 

Short version: To darken or lighten the skin of your babies, you must have intercourse with someone of a lighter or darker skin pigment... and then successfully produce offspring as result of said intercourse.

As far as I am aware, that's a genetic fact. White + White = White : Regardless of anything else.

So yeah, you can go with 'Evolution throughout the climatic generations' - just don't try to be 'factual' about it. There are few 'facts' in religion or evolution. There is belief, faith, truth and proof... but anything that is 'Fact' can *almost always* be counter-argued by an equally dismissable 'Fact' of opposing beliefs, truths and proofs. 

"Evolution is only a theory"
"So is Gravity, so why don't you float away..."

"God doesn't answer my prayers..."
"Your dad doesn't answer mine, is he not real either?"

*** 

Not here to debate that crap. As far as fiction goes, you are as free as one can be. More than a bird in the sky, a fish in the sea or Superman... you can be anything, do anything and have anything done. Go wild... but try to at least keep things in the realms of believability <3


----------



## LynnBee (Jun 24, 2014)

Haha thank you all, you've given me some good ideas to work with


----------



## Greimour (Jun 24, 2014)

Good, have fun. Hope it works out well.

As a point of history for you - it has been over 300 years since slavers from England were in Africa setting up homes and taking slaves (from before but primary point in time - the latter half of the 1400's, making it 450ish years to be working with estimates.) If you average one generation at 30 years which isn't entirely wrong to do so but works as a fair number for both 'older parents', 'average age' and 'young' ... then you have 15+ generations of white people in Africa still producing entirely white offspring. Nothing about their children's genetic make-up has shown as a result of climates. White + White = White.

Equally, Africans in slaving has been going on far longer than that. No matter whether it was Spain, Italy, France, England, Persia, Rome or any other - the offspring of their youth is equally unchanging. 

'Nature does not jump.' _Darwin._
In other words, his own theory of Evolution is wrong but that did nothing to prevent his belief that he was still on the right track. That Evolution exists. I think Evolution is in the realms of believability - but if you can, I would consider 'breeding' over _many_ generations to be the cause of a new 'race'. Neither what was there originally, nor what went there to start with - but a middle one that is perhaps accepted by neither - or else maybe accepted by both as the bridge between the two.


~Kev.


----------



## Morkonan (Jun 25, 2014)

LynnBee said:


> I've never been good at time scale when it comes to evolution, so I was wondering if anyone had any ideas...the basic idea is at some point in the history of this civilization I'm working on (fantasy) a group of people were instantly moved from a temperate climate to a very hot, arid, climate, similar to Earth Africa. How many years would it take for that group to naturally have darker skin? I guess sort of the opposite of what happened when humans migrated out. I don't need to be overly technical about it I'm more or less just looking for a time range to reference...like, 20,000 years? 100,000? Way less? I believe I read somewhere it took about 70,000 years for us to spread around Europe, but in this instance it was a gradual change - I would imagine in the situation I present natural selection would be a bit more intense, ie, people extremely fair skinned wouldn't survive as well/die off in the sudden temperature change, so I would think it'd be a shorter amount of time?
> 
> Or maybe I'm way off base, haha, never was all that good in biology class.
> 
> Edit: Forgot to say, this is a civilization that would not have sunscreen or modern day ways to protect themselves from the sun, so they would be reliant only on clothing/shade/etc.



Actually, the Great Diaspora of what is termed "Behaviorally Modern Man" took place around ten-thousand years ago, give or take. What that means that those human beings that were "behaviorally modern" in that they would have formed societies that were recognizable as having modern antecedents left continental Africa around ten-thousand years ago. This led to an explosion of cultures across Europe, Asia and the Far East.

Now, keep in mind that from these populations you end up with aborigines in Borneo and Australia and Vikings in Europe. What you must determine is which environmental variables are critical enough to act as forcers for evolutionary change. For instance, hair color might be artificially selected for according to cultural preferences, but it's not near as critical as the fact that dragons like to eat white people.... See? No matter how desirable blonde hair is, there are few surviving lineages that carry those alleles.

Is skin cancer enough of an environmental forcer in your world? If they have magical healing abilities, maybe not. So, it would take a very long time, if ever, for natural mutations to become selected for. Loosely speaking, depending upon your starting populations and reproduction rates, it might only take a thousand years for certain mutations to become selected for to such an extent that they overshadow naturally occurring aberrations in the population. Just be sure you're not killing off population faster than they can reproduce and transmit their genes to future generations...

Then again, it's "magic", so what are you worried about? "Evolution" doesn't occur in your world. Instead, the "World" and its "magical" nature simply "changes" people so that they can live within its confines. In this instance, the World Spirit forged the peoples into a new shape, with new characteristics. It doesn't matter how much time it took.


----------

