REVEALED¡Adam and Eve lived in East Africa¡Scientists say Europeans evolved from Africans .

By Tagawah

Europeans were dark-skinned until
much more recently, researchers say in new findings that might hold the secret of man’s genetic evolution. The findings say Europeans were still losing their skin pigmentation as late as 7,000 years ago, and not much earlier as previously believed.
Scientists made the conclusions after analysing genetic material from a tooth of a 7,000-year-old human skeleton excavated in Spain in 2006.
The skeleton was retrieved about
5,000 feet above sea level in a cold cave that provided refrigerator-like environment that preserved the man's DNA.
The findings, published in the
scientific journal, Nature, might
provide some missing links on man's journey from East Africa to the rest of the world.
Kenya has the world's oldest human remains dating back to seven million years from Turgen Hills in Baringo county. “The dark skin is a very interesting finding as light skin is nearly universal across Europe today.
These results suggest that the light
skin seen across Europe today is a
development of the last at least 7,000 years,” David Reich, from Harvard Medical School, told the BBC. Scientists have always theorised that the first Europeans became fair soon after they left Africa some 45,000 years
ago. Scientists who carried out the genetic analysis on the remains said the European's eyes were most probably blue. They said his hair was black or brown and his skin was dark. The findings also imply that changes in eye
colour came before alterations in skin tone.
It is widely accepted that man's oldest common forefather was dark skinned, and that people became more pale as they moved from Africa further north
into colder climates with less sunlight. The latest discovery suggests that this adaptation instead occurred just
7,000 years ago. "The significance of this paper is that it reports the oldest European genome sequence reported to date - the first European genome
sequence that predates the
appearance of agriculture,” said the paper's lead author, Dr Carles
Lalueza-Fox. He said the skin may
have been lightened by a change in diet and lower vitamin D intake as farming became more commonplace.
In the absence of natural vitamin D, the human skin can produce its own in contact with the sun - but dark skins absorb much less than fair ones– giving Europeans an evolutionary incentive to adopt lighter complexions, which allows them to absorb more vitamin D.
According to the National Museums of Kenya (NMK), Kenya has the largest collection of human related fossils
anywhere in the world. “This collection is well documented and can be found in one central place- NMK Headquarters,” says NMK.