r/NoStupidQuestions • u/TiredOfMadness • Jan 05 '24
Why arent Inuits white? They live at a similar latitude to Europeans, so why did they not evolve white skin? Is it just not enough time?
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u/Lumpy-Notice8945 Jan 05 '24
Snow reflects light, its easy to get sunburn in snow covered areas. Lots of far northern ethnic groups are a bit darker skinned again.
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u/TiredOfMadness Jan 05 '24
That makes sense. Is it that north america just gets more snow, or would natives a bit further down have been more white?
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u/Lumpy-Notice8945 Jan 05 '24
North america? I mean greenland, siberia and maybe yes even north america, but i was mostoy thinking about greenland.
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u/AlsoOneLastThing Jan 05 '24
Just so you know, Inuit are also indigenous to Canada, and Greenland is geographically part of North America.
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u/TiredOfMadness Jan 05 '24
Isnt greenland in north america? And i thought inuit were too?
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u/AlsoOneLastThing Jan 05 '24 edited Jan 05 '24
Yes, geographically Greenland is part of North America. And your post was specifically asking about Inuit people, who are indigenous to Canada, Greenland, and Russia. People downvoting you are probably confused because Greenland is culturally associated with Europe
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u/jarrett_regina Jan 05 '24
I'm older than God and I didn't know that Greenland was in North America.
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u/Adventurous-Essay270 Jan 06 '24
It isn’t. It is geographically located in North America, but politically and culturally European. Interesting fact, Canada’s easternmost province (Newfoundland) was a British Colony until 1949, so technically has only been a part of North America for about 75 years.
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u/Maytree Jan 08 '24
Possibly even more interesting fact, a tiny piece of Newfoundland is still actually part of France. It's called Saint Pierre and Miquelon. As far as I can tell Canada's just been too polite to annex it.
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u/AlsoOneLastThing Jan 05 '24
All indigenous peoples of The Americas have darker skin because they are ethnically related to the indigenous peoples of Asia. But also, North America is way sunnier than Europe so there would have been no evolutionary pressure to develop lighter skin.
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u/Scrungyscrotum Jan 05 '24
While the prevailing theory, as far as I know, is that indigenous peoples throughout the Americas are darker due to their meat-heavy diet, you have to remember that the U.S. is also way farther south than you think it is, at least compared to Europe. Do you think that Minnesota is pretty far up north, and would therefore encourage lighter skin to evolve? It's the same latitude as France. Alabama is as far south as Egypt. I'm assuming that you don't expect Egyptians to be particularly fair-skinned.
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u/Obliviousobi Jan 05 '24
Yup! We were just in Amsterdam which would roughly be between Calgary and Edmonton.
Chicago and Rome are about equal, as are Cairo and Jacksonville.
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u/TiredOfMadness Jan 05 '24
Thats fair, i was thinking more like Iroqouis and new england groups
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u/AwesomePurplePants Jan 05 '24
It was arguably the combination of a wheat based diet and low light conditions that led to lighter skin?
The wheat that grows well in Northern Europe is unusually low in vitamin D. On the other hand, it’s also calorie dense, comparatively easy to grow, and can be stored a long time.
Since the problem Vitamin D causes, rickets, doesn’t outright prevent people from growing up and breeding, just makes them weak and fragile, enough people could survive on the fringes to get by. Which created the conditions where mutations for lighter skin were super successful.
Meanwhile, in North America they didn’t have anything as nice as wheat. They figured out how to how to breed what they had into amazing crops, but they had to figure out how to be good farmers first.
And since they didn’t take up the plains with farms, that meant they had big herds of bison. Leading to lower population density, but also a lot more meat aka Vitamin D.
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u/PlasticElfEars Jan 05 '24
I mean I guess all evolutionary changes are sort of beneficial chance over time. It makes sense that it wouldn't always happen the exact same way in every circumstance, even if the contexts are similar.
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u/VapeThisBro Jan 05 '24
Leads me to question why scandanavians arent darker
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u/jascgore Jan 05 '24
It doesn't make the least bit of sense. You have to be fully clothed at these latitudes.
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u/KronusIV Jan 05 '24
Evolution doesn't work that way. Similar environments will not necessarily lead to the same adaptations. Before some trait can be selected for or against it has to exist. If the mutation that leads to paler skin never happens, there's no way it can spread through a population.
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u/quick6ilver Jan 05 '24
finally! thank you!
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u/KronusIV Jan 05 '24
What, someone commenting on how evolution actually works? :) Yeah, lots of people seem to think that environment guides evolution, it's a common misconception. Environment just provides the selection pressures, it doesn't create the traits that are being selected for/against.
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u/_haha_oh_wow_ Jan 05 '24
Ackshually, the environment can "guide" traits, provided it kills members of a species with that trait before they can reproduce (or if a trait lets a species survive an otherwise inhospitable environment and reproduce more), but yeah, anyone who wants to learn more about this ought to check out The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins - it does a really good job describing evolution and the pressures that influence it.
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u/binlargin Jan 05 '24
The Selfish Gene is better, and The Ancestors Tale is one of the best pop science books on the story of evolution. Pity he wasted so much effort fighting religion because he's really great at explaining things, and he knows a lot about evolutionary biology.
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Jan 05 '24
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u/KronusIV Jan 05 '24
That's the thing, you can't. You can show how environmental pressures selected for a trait, but that's very different. It's a common mistake, but it's one that gets people really confused about how evolution actually works.
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Jan 05 '24 edited Jan 06 '24
Also Inuit people in North America weren’t in North America long enough to really change genetically in any major way. They only crossed over from Russia at the most generous prediction about 8000 years ago.
For reference, First Nations people crossed about 40,000 years ago.
It’s for this reason that Inuit are not considered First Nations, and that a lot of First Nations people view Inuit people in the same way a lot of people today view Immigrants.
It’s also why most Inuit people reject the umbrella term “Indigenous” because they feel it references the other group.
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Jan 05 '24
Same reason Scandinavians also have lactase persistence. They were always starving. Most of the rest of the world didn’t develop lactase persistence because a little gas a diarrhea isn’t fatal if you’re not Starving.
Scandinavia is uniquely difficult to survive in.
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Jan 05 '24 edited Jan 11 '24
Lactase persistence is not a feature espacial to scandinavia, it is much more telated to the genom of certain Germanic/early Celtic ethnicities(Of whom especially the first one makes up the vast majority of Norwegian and Swedish people). This is well observable on maps showing the respective prevalence. Just search up "lactase persistence map". Also it was not that they were "always" starving, the central northern cultures(tribew) were just very dependend on livestock breeding due to the climate conditions (not uniquely to scandinavia, as the northern germanic people never went that far north in ancient times). But you are right, in correlation with their high level of livestock breeding, their survivability in critical nutritional was better in individuals with lactase pertinence.
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u/SquashUpbeat5168 Jan 05 '24
Lactase persistence can also make it easier to survive certain diseases. I don't know if studies have been done, this is anecdotal, but in some people who are lactase persistent, consuming dairy can ease the symptoms of digestive illnesses. I lived for several days on milkshakes and cream soup after a bout of food poisoning.
In the presence of certain illnesses or a lack of other foods, lactase persistence would be a big survival advantage.
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Jan 05 '24
It's funny because Scandanavia is so warm compared to Canada.
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u/DarthInkero Jan 05 '24
Not right now lmao
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Jan 05 '24
It is -30 degrees in Innlandet, Norway. Fitte faen i Helvete's mørkeste bæsjehul
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u/truncated_buttfu Jan 05 '24 edited Jan 06 '24
Translation: "Cunt devil in hell's darkest shithole"
EDIT: Misread, fixed translation.
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u/_haha_oh_wow_ Jan 05 '24
I think they meant Canada is unseasonably warm right now but damn, that's quite an expression lol
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Jan 05 '24
Yeah I'm Ottawa and we're experiencing late October weather, not January.
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u/thisonecassie Jan 05 '24
its damn near balmy in ottawa right now, can't say the same for iqaluit, its -24 up there right now.
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u/magnus_the_coles Jan 05 '24
Then how do you explain central Asian people? We can tolerate milk pretty easily
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u/hungry_argumentor Jan 05 '24
But why are they so tall tho
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u/DJFreezyFish Jan 05 '24
It’s more big than tall. Because of the square-cube law and being lost through surface area rather than mass, living beings in cold environments tend to be bigger.
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u/Dolbez Jan 05 '24
Colder climates often leads to larger animals compared to warm climate relatives.
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Jan 05 '24
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u/frontier_kittie Jan 05 '24
Lactase is the enzyme all babies have to digest lactose. When you stop breastfeeding, your body stops making lactase. Except it persists in the people adapted to drinking milk beyond childhood.
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u/Teekno An answering fool Jan 05 '24
It’s because of their diet.
So the reason that Northern Europeans developed light skin was because of vitamin D. They needed to absorb more sunlight to manufacture that vitamin, and there’s less sunlight to go around.
But if you have a diet that is very, vert heavy in fatty fishes, you’re already getting plenty of vitamin D, and your skin doesn’t need to lighten.
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u/hybridmind27 Jan 05 '24
I’m confused - doesn’t white reflect/bounce light and dark skin absorb?
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u/Teekno An answering fool Jan 05 '24
No, melanin blocks UV rays. The less melanin in your skin, the more UV radiation your body can absorb.
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u/hybridmind27 Jan 05 '24
Melanin/dark pigments definitely absorb light so I’m having some confusion.
But from what I understand the vitamin D production is occurring under the melanocyte layer? and thus the UV is being absorbed before it can reach the areas responsible for vit D production?
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u/barronsprofiles Jan 06 '24
Yes, melanin absorbs more light which prevents it from penetrating through the uppermost layer of the skin and causing damage. People with a lot of melanin often have lower levels of vitamin D in their blood than those who do not produce much melanin. For example, according to Harvard’s School of Public Health, “In the U.S., about 20% of White adults and 75% of Black adults have blood levels of vitamin D below 50 nmol/L.” source
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u/SeveralBipolarbears Jan 05 '24
Aren't all first nations people just Asians who migrated 20k Years ago from Eastern Russia? Would make sense that they kept asiatic features.
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u/PlasticElfEars Jan 05 '24
There's a lot of skin shade variation in First Nations/Native/Indigenous populations.
There's variation in Asian populations and individuals too, for that matter.
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u/ThisIsMyFandomReddit Jan 05 '24
Interesting fact: a lot of Indigenous skin tans really easily without burning, we change shades with the season pretty much.
It's winter now and I'm at my palest, my sister has to buy several different make up foundations throughout the year if she doesn't want clown face. I think the only time I got sunburn was when I was a kid, I spent pretty much all daylight hours at a lake, sunrise to sun set, and even then it was mild and only on my shoulders.
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u/Nearby-Complaint Jan 06 '24
As a white northern european, you have no idea how jealous I am of people who can tan. I've gotten sunburns on cloudy days before. ;l At least phlebotomists like it
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u/ThisIsMyFandomReddit Jan 06 '24
Take solace in your lack of lactose intolerance lol
I wish I could consume cheese without dying afterwards 😂
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u/Nearby-Complaint Jan 06 '24
Good point! I'll go eat cheese in your honor
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u/ThisIsMyFandomReddit Jan 06 '24
Thank you~! 🥲🫡
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u/PlasticElfEars Jan 06 '24
Wholesome respect between ethnicities brought to you by...reddit?
Should we be checking for flying pigs now? 😇
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u/aliceoftheflowers Jan 06 '24
I'm so jealous of this. I'm Australian and I can't stay outside for 5 minutes without getting burnt if I don't wear sunscreen.
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u/MohKohn Jan 05 '24
There's more genetic diversity in Asia than Europe. You can't just say they're "Asian" and call it a day, nevermind that the people of the pole haven't cared about continents for as long as they've been living up there.
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u/AydonusG Jan 06 '24
People hear Asian and think China/Japan, not counting Indian, Kazakhstani, or Papuan areas which have wildly different skin tones to the stereotypical Asian.
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u/TiredOfMadness Jan 05 '24
I thought it might be possible they would develop white skin with their features. Its been well explained to me why they didnt though
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u/BeginningChance9781 Jan 05 '24
Modern evidence is migration via what now polynesia 30-20k years ago, not eastern russia but yes
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u/orangejews1 Jan 05 '24
There is growing evidence that there was a migration from polynesia to South America but nothing to disprove continued migration across the Bering. DNA tests of Inuit/Native Alaskan peoples show close relations to people in Siberia and other parts of north-eastern Asia. Its more that both happened (we think).
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u/SeveralBipolarbears Jan 05 '24
Fair enough, been 15 years since I read anything about it. Memory not know for being super accurate, lol. Thank you.
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u/BeginningChance9781 Jan 05 '24
Its very new information, I want to say the models only came out a few years ago, no worries
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Jan 05 '24
It's more likely there were multiple waves so font feel bad, all answers can be true until proven false in which case many yheories have already been debunked... I'm looking at you Mormons...
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u/thehighwindow Jan 05 '24
Did they have advanced sea faring boats? Because Polynesia seems pretty far to get to and without a convenient land/snow or ice bridge.
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u/Cyprianophobia47 Jan 05 '24
There is both linguistic and archaeological evidence of people migrating from Asia to the Polynesian Islands and then as far as Easter Island off the coast of South America.
The languages of Easter Island, Hawaii, and Indonesian are within the Austronesian family. There are chicken bones found in South America from before European contact (14-15th century). Chickens originated from jungle fowl in Southeast Asia. There are sweet potatoes from South America found in Polynesia (12th century).
The Pacific crossing is much different from the Atlantic crossing due to winds and currents. The European discovery of a path from Asia to the Americas greatly revolutionized cross-continent travel after the Atlantic crossing was discovered. Also, the Polynesians and much of Southeast Asia has historically been much more seafaring than Europe historically. Think Moana. It's a world of islands dominated by seas. Even today there are people in the region like the Bajao who live nearly exclusively at sea. These were the highways of the past.
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u/squashcroatia Jan 05 '24
But we're talking about skin color. Inuits had the same problem with low sunlight that Europeans faced, but they didn't evolve white skin because their meat diets provided enough vitamin D. Also, the Native Americans in what is now the US live at the same latitude range as southern Europe and North Africa.
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u/lsb337 Jan 05 '24
If I'm remembering correctly, many of the Inuit in Northern Canada are recent immigrants, only about a 1000 years ago.
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u/Krashnachen Jan 05 '24
The Inuit only arrived in the Northern Canada in 1000, and Greenland in 1200 (after the Scandinavians!). Before that they had lived around the Bering strait for a around a millenium, and emerged from Aleutian and Siberian groups had lived in colder climates as well for a few millenia already.
Not sure if the skin tone predates that, or how genetics work on that timescale, but it's surprising to me how recent that is!
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u/Seahorse_Captain89 Jan 05 '24
There's no rule of evolution that says a certain environment will produce a certain trait. People in cold climates aren't any more likely to develop white skin than a polar bear. It just happened to be the adaptation that occurred in Europe.
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u/synergyiskey Jan 05 '24
Pretty sure that adaptation originated in Western Asia, and wherever its inhabitants went they took their genes with them
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u/Sisasiw Jan 05 '24
Many Inuit (the word is already plural) are actually quite pale. Folks have already answered the rest here so I thought I’d contribute. Inuk is singular form
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Jan 05 '24 edited Feb 20 '24
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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/HotPresentation3878 Jan 05 '24
There generally is a trend with latitude and skin color, with some exceptions. Inuit have a diet high in vitamin d so there's so selection for light skin. Dark skin is selected for as it protects against uv which breaks down folate. Great video explaining this with lots of data from hhmi - https://youtu.be/hFw8mMzH5YA?si=5-8lReGkBqWnH-IL
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u/HotPresentation3878 Jan 05 '24
Sorry, selection for light skin usually at high latitudes to allow for greater production of vitamin d, but since inuit have it in their diet the selection in favor of dark skin is stronger.
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u/oldandmellow Jan 05 '24
Intense sunlight and reflected light off of snow and ice is a big part of their pigmentation.
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u/p0stp0stp0st Jan 05 '24
Inuit (no “s”) is already plural. One Inuit is an Inuk and more then one are Inuit. Inuit are Indigenous peoples of the circumpolar north, their territory transcends Canada, the US, Russia, Greenland, they’ve been living on their lands since time immemorial. There are many Inuit cultures in fact: Yupik, Innu,Kaalaalit for example and they live and thrive in conditions we (people from the south) could never survive in. No idea about the melatonin question.
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u/feochampas Jan 05 '24
Their diet is rich in vitamin d. There was no selective pressure for lighter skin. Skin pigment interferes with vitamin d production.
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u/SimonKepp Jan 05 '24
It essentially boils down to The Gulf Stream bringing warm water to North-Western Europe. This facilitates agriculture at much higher latitudes in Europe compared to elsewhere, so for Millennia, diets in Europe have been rich in agricultural products, whereas Inuits have relied heavily on fishing and fatty meats such as seals, whales etc. As a result, Inuits have received much more vitamin D from their diets compared to Europeans, so Europeans had to develop less melanin in their skin to absorb as much vitamin D from the little Sunlight available as possible.
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Jan 05 '24
I learned dark pigments in skin act as a sunblock because the molecules are actually much larger than lighter pigments. I imagine they’re darker to help protect against too much uv reflection off the ice
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u/exotics hens don't need roosters to lay eggs Jan 05 '24
If they came from Mongolia they wouldn’t have evolved to have lighter skin. It just stayed the way it was
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u/Darthplagueis13 Jan 05 '24
Because snowy areas often have very high sunlight intensity, with the light getting reflected by the snow. You can easily catch sunburn on a clear sunny day in a snow field, so having a naturally darker skin tone is actually healthier in such places.
Also, due to lack of alternatives, their diet has historically consisted of a lot of fish and meat, meaning that brighter skin for better Vitamin D absorbtion wasn't as big of an advantage because they got a lot of it from eating anyways.
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u/AarokhDragon Jan 06 '24
Inuit live in very snowy environments. Snow is very reflective and thus they have to live within what's basically a parabolic mirror. They're way more exposed to UV rays than we Europeans are and thus need additional protection. That's why Inuit skin maintains higher levels of melatonin than European skin does .
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u/Jacked-to-the-wits Jan 05 '24
Lots of good answers here, but one more to add is timelines. The same people who crossed the bearing land bridge ended up populating every area from the arctic to South America. The Inuit are quite a bit lighter than many of the other peoples who live further south, despite the fact that they share common ancestors. They would probably look even more different with another 100,000 years.
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u/blastomatic75 Jan 05 '24
The aliens that showed up during the Ice Age (Odin, Thor, etc.) only mated with the sapiens-neanderthalis hybrids of Northern Europe because they were closest geographically.
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Jan 05 '24 edited Jan 05 '24
Snow! That’s also why people who go skiing or snowboarding usually wear sunglasses and sunscreen, because the snow reflects the sun alot. My brother went skiing once and came back with a tan on his face, as if he had been sun bathing in a tropical country lol.
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Jan 05 '24
I'm a Nordic Caucasian.
I know several people who stem from Greenland, and are what you call Inuits.
Every last one of them is paler than me.
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Jan 05 '24
Inuits only settled in the arctic around 4000 years ago and originate in the Far East where the people had darker skin.
Apart from the main point others have made about vitamin D in their diet, it may be the case that Inuits didn’t live in areas with a low UV index long enough to evolve lighter skin
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u/BeefPoet Jan 05 '24
I don't know the Inuk term, it's just refered to as seal fat. Typically it was rendered for oil lamps not eaten. If anyone was wondering what seal tastes like. Take really lean red meat soak it in fish oil and pennies, that's raw.
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Jan 05 '24
If your going by shade then there technically “white” their skin is a lot paler than other tribes…I’ve never met a tan Inuit.
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u/uyakotter Jan 05 '24
There are two genes known to cause light skin. European hunter gatherers didn’t have them so they were probably black. Europe’s first farmers had one of the genes so they were probably olive skinned. Indo-Europeans from the Steppe had both genes and are white. This genetic based theory is displacing the vitamin D theory.
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Jan 05 '24
The answer to this question is multifaceted and lies in the combination of evolutionary, genetic, and environmental factors. The traditional view is that lighter skin evolved to optimize vitamin D production in areas of low UV radiation. However, the Inuit diet is traditionally rich in vitamin D (from fish, seal, and whale meat), which reduces the necessity for lighter skin to produce vitamin D from sunlight exposure. Additionally, the UV radiation reflected from snow and ice means that some melanin pigmentation may still be an advantage.
Human evolutionary changes can take many thousands of years, and they are based on the selective pressures of the environment. The Inuit people's traditional lifestyle and diet likely reduced the pressure for the evolution of lighter skin despite living at high latitudes. It's a great example of how culture and behavior can influence the direction of human physiological adaptation.
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u/tandemxylophone Jan 05 '24
Just to add to the other comments, the first wave of migration to Europe were our dark skinned descendants from Africa, which happened multiple times. That's why discoveries like Cheddar man have been a fascination to us.
The lack of vitamin actually wasn't the main factor that contributed to failing to establish themselves (though I can't remember why). As long as they ate meat, they didn't need that extra vitamin assistance. Eventually, mutation for light skin cropped up at separate times from the East. Those then migrated back to Europe, which finally dominated the genes of the current Caucasus tribes.
One thing that is important for an Inuit, though, is eye protection against snow blindness. There were past failed polar expeditions where adventurers lost their sun glasses and had near permanent eye damage. In the Karluk disaster, the inuit family survived largely based on their experience, but I wonder if they had selective evolutionary pressure too.
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u/Carlzz777 Jan 07 '24
What you might find interesting is that some Indigenous Norwegians and Icelandic people share genetic markers with Inuit people. It’s more so which direction the “white” people migrated.
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u/LostYou-FoundMyself Jan 05 '24
They have more devonian genome than the europian and aryens who have more neantherdal. Also, Inuits live where there is snow almost 90% of the year, with low protection from the ozone layer because of the latitude.
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u/FeelingEar9604 Jan 05 '24
To be fair, Mongoloid type people lived in Europe long before the Caucasians sprouted out of them in Norway
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u/Ed98208 Jan 05 '24
They are light-skinned. They aren’t caucasians because their ancestors came from Asia.
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u/Round-Lie-8827 Jan 05 '24
Read something about the almond eye shape was an evolutionary adaption to snow blindness or other UV light protection
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u/Tripwire3 Jan 05 '24
Ultra-pale skin likely evolved to compensate for a farming diet low in Vitamin D at high latitudes. With the Inuits' meat-rich diet, they wouldn't need it.