I know this sounds like a provocation, but it's a genuine question. What was their actual color and appearance? I saw some reconstructions in a museum at my university, and some of them were very, very dark. Does that make sense, considering their habitat? I always assumed they looked more like modern global populations individuals who lived further north tended to have lighter skin. Unfortunately, I remember the controversy involving the Western Hunter-gatherers Group (WHG), with those strange reconstructions that now many say portrayed Mesolithic Europeans as "blue-eyed black people" or something similar. But their skin was tan or olive.
>>18732249Northern latitudes and altitudes / areas with low sun exposure. Essentially. But also an evolutionary response to a diet lacking in vitamin D. In tandem, these two forces can create very light skin tones.
>>18732249I don't believe in any absurd reconstructions until we have Neanderthal genomes. Otherwise, 100% skepticism. But since you mentioned the Mesolithic, we should remember that HIrisPlex-S is garbage and idiots interpret the results with their butts. The main light-skinned variant in the Mesolithic period was located in the IFR4 gene. Today, it is very rare and has been largely replaced by variants of the SLC gene. But modern people who have the IFR4 variant (in addition to variants of the SLC gene) have very light skin.
>>18732271From what I understand, the entire population has a high frequency of at least one of these genes for light skin, right? Which suggests that they all had relatively light or "intermediate" skin.
>>18732256Neolithic west Siberians were very similar to native Americans but they would have had lighter skin. They share two light skin variants with Europeans SLC45A2 rs1426654>A IFR4 rs12203592>T
>>18732249If you shave a chimpanzee, homo-sapiens closest natural relative, it has whitish pink skin underneath. It is therefore reasonable to infer from this that primitive archaic humans were also white skinned . Dark skinned modern humans are actually far less like chimps than white people are.
>>18732319What a dumb post
>>18732357why do chimps look more like white people then?
>>18732319Genes related to very dark skin are older than Homo Sapiens. The reason chimps are light is because their fur protects them from the sun. Homo Erectus was quite likely to have been a darkie.>>18732249Iirc it varied, with Neanderthals having their own races. Entirely possible that those in the peripheral African area actually had that skin tone, given both the sun + homo sapiens admixture.
>>18732389>Genes related to very dark skin are older than Homo Sapiens. The reason chimps are light is because their fur protects them from the sun. Homo Erectus was quite likely to have been a darkie. No, he was more likely to be a primitive evil mayo monkey. It's why whites are so evil and destructive and warlike.
>>18732249It varied by region, but I suspect even Neanderthals in more Northern altitudes had somewhat darker skins than modern Europeans. Simply because light skin evolved to help humans synthetize vitamin D, but you can a fair amount of vitamin D if you eat a lot of meat, which we now Neanderthals did. Really light skin evolved with agriculture, when people's diets begun to include less meat.We also know from genetics that some Neanderthals had red hair, so imagine tan, short redheads with weird faces.
>>18732249Neanderthals would have been covered with hair, it's the only way they could have survived in an ice age climate without needles and thus the ability to make clothes, beyond draping an animal skin over their shoulders, which wouldn't be anywhere close to enough insulation/protection.
>>18732418Now you're just making stuff up.
>>18732249We don't know their skin color.Dna doesn't survive for that long so its impossible to know what they actually looked like so we just guess what they looked liked based on their enviroment.
>>18732271>>18732722we have dozens of neanderthal genomes and have had for over a decade, one of the first ancient genomes was a neanderthal. how the fuck do you not know that while you try to lecture people on this shit>>18732249as far as i know they didnt have any of the major genes known to cause light skin in modern people. some of them were reported to have MC1R gene causing red hair and pale skin, also there was this but dont know if its reliablehttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5630192/
>>18732801>we have dozens of neanderthal genomesAnd none of them dont tell us their skin color
