I’m referring to the human race evolving in the African continent and then migrating to the rest of the world.
Evolving in Europe made people light skinned to account for the reduction in sunlight exposure, are there any other traits which other ethnicities developed to adapt to their new environment? Or are the diifferent traits in different ethnicities just stuff that developed by chance and got somehow reinforced because of the isolation between populations?
This question came to my mind first thinking about “Asian eyes”, do they serve any “purpose”?
One more is that some people in the Himalayas (Nepalese, Tibetans, etc.) have some pretty recent adaptations for living at extremely high altitudes where there’s less oxygen. This Wikipedia article has more examples of recent adaptations: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_human_evolution
Another interesting factoid is that Africa has more genetic diversity than the rest of the world. So, don’t sleep on the fact that that Homo sapiens spent more time radiating throughout Africa than radiating out of Africa.
Super cool, thanks!
I’ve read that people in Colorado have far more blood carrying capacity from the high altitude. Seems something one can develop.
Read what turned out to be a fairly racist article back in the day, about the differences in blacks and whites.
One thing that rang true was hair types. When wet, kinky hair sheds heat more easily and flat hair is insulating. Anyone know if this is true?
I learned in a university course that kinky hair holds sweat better and allows for better cooling. Where straight, greasy hair drips it off faster.
Another interesting environmental trait is sickle cell because it can prevent or at least lessen malaria.