Europeans have pale skin, not from Neanderthals

The people who built Stonehenge five thousand years ago, probably had the same pale complexion that many people today the UK.According to the new study, the current inhabitants of the British and continental Europe have lost a darker skin tone of their African ancestors only six thousand years before, when the Neanderthals vanished. Thus, the hypothesis on the fact that modern Europeans got their pale skin from the Neanderthals. Except for rare episodes, the relationship of our ancestors with Neanderthals in Europe were purely platonic.There is a clear correlation between latitude and skin pigmentation: people who have spent a long time at high latitudes, have adapted to the conditions in, losing skin pigmentation, which is common in the lower latitudes, explains Sandra Beleza from the University of Porto (Portugal). Fair skin can generate more vitamin D from sunlight.The road led anatomically modern humans in Europe with about 45 thousand years ago. When their skin whiter?Ms. Beleza and her colleagues studied three genes associated with light skin pigmentation. They are found in all human populations, but common in Europe more than in Africa. Genome analysis 50 people of European descent, and 70 - from Africa south of the Sahara shows that the trio conquered the European population only 11-19 thousand years ago, there is a considerable time after the arrival of the first migrants. This finding is consistent with earlier studies that suggested that modern people do not lose dark skin immediately on reaching Europe, said Katherine Charvát University of Tübingen (Germany). A DNA analysis of 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 Neanderthals vanished about 28 thousand years ago, before he could give us this useful acquisition, despite the fact that some of our ancestors have sinned with them. This may seem unusual, given that the two species lived in Europe alongside a few thousand years. But perhaps all our present Neanderthal genes inherited from the crossing, which occurred in the Middle East, where modern humans and Neanderthals met for the first time, says Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London (UK).Neanderthals lived there, has, most likely, darker skin. In fact, one study of ancient DNA has shown that Neanderthals, who lived in what is now Croatia, had dark skin and dark hair.The study is published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.