Most of us think of Europe as the ancestral home of white men. But new research shows that "pale skin," and other features, such as the length and the ability to digest milk, have achieved in most of the continent, recently.
Work study, presented at the 84th anniversary meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, provides dramatic evidence of recent evolution in Europe and shows that modern Europeans do not look much like those of 8000 years ago.
Origin of Europeans is put into focus last year after researchers have ranked genomes of ancient populations, rather than just a few individuals, reports Telegraph.
By comparing the key parts of DNA in genomes of 83 individuals from ancient archaeological sites across Europe, the international team of researchers reported earlier this year that Europeans today are a mixture of at least three ancient populations of "hunters" and "farmers" who had migrated to Europe in the last 8,000 years.
The study found that a mass migration of herdsmen from the steppes north of the Black Sea may have brought Indo-European languages in Europe, about 4,500 years ago.
Now, a new study, they found five genes related to changes in diet and skin pigmentation.
They have noted an interesting twist: first farmers also can not dissolve milk.
Farmers who have come from the Near East about 7800 years ago and pastoralists from Yamnaya that came from the steppes 4,800 years ago, lacked version LCT gene that allows adults was third sugars in milk.
When it comes to color, the team found a patchwork of evolution of different countries, and three specific genes that produce skin "easy", showing a complex story about how the skin of Europeans has evolved over 8000 recent years.
Modern people who came from Africa to Europe, about 40 thousand years ago, is presumed to have had a skin of "dark" that is characteristic of "sun".
And the new data show that about 8500 years ago, "hunters" arrived in Spain, Luxembourg and Hungary, also had a skin of "dark": They lacked versions of two genes, SLC24A5 and SLC45A2-that lead to depigmentimin skin, and this, "dilute" its what Europeans have today.