article_snippet.sent: It has been at the root of division and persecution for centuries, but It seems that the white skin of most modern Europeans did not evolve in Europe at all.
article_snippet.sent: Now genetic research has revealed that ancient European populations were dark skinned for far longer than had originally been thought.
article_snippet.sent: sapiens dark skin colour.
article_snippet.sent: This graphic above shows the influx of genes to Europe that brought lighter skin colour and taller body shapes, according to the new research on ancient human remains conducted by geneticists at Harvard University .
article_snippet.sent: Genetic analysis has shown that hunter gatherers living in Spain up to 8,500 years ago still had dark skin.
article_snippet.sent: It was not until 7,800 years ago, when the first farmers migrated from the Near East through Turkey that two key genes that provide lighter skin appeared.
article_snippet.sent: DNA analysis obtained from ancient human remains has shown that as the first farmers bred with the dark skinned hunter gatherers, one of these genes became prevalent in the European population and European's skin colour began to lighten.
article_snippet.sent: Around 5,800 years ago the second gene, which makes skin colour lighter still, also began to spread though the European population.
article_snippet.sent: The first Europeans looked dramatically different to most of the fair skinned people that live there today.
article_snippet.sent: Europeans had dark skin for far longer than previously though.
article_snippet.sent: Photographed are two participants in the BBC's Trading Races where members of the British public spent several days dressed with a different skin colour .
article_snippet.sent: The research, which was presented at the 84th annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists also shows that a population of hunter gatherers living on the site of Motala, southern Sweden, had already developed both skin-lightening genes around 7,700 years ago together with a third that gave skin-lightening genes blue eyes.
article_snippet.sent: Our findings show progression towards lighter skin pigmentation as hunter and gatherers and non-local farmers intermarried, but surprisingly no presence of increased lactose persistence or tolerance to lactose,' said Professor Ron Pinhasi, from University College Dublin's Earth Institute. '
article_snippet.sent: While the western hunter-gatherers of central and southern Europe largely have the ancestral allele at the two major European skin pigmentation loci, the closely related Scandinavian hunter-gatherers have both the derived alleles contributing to light skin pigmentation at high frequency.'
article_snippet.sent: five genes associated with changes in diet, body size and skin pigmentation that underwent natural selection in the past 8,000 years also carried another gene known to produce blue eyes in Europeans.
article_snippet.sent: Dr Mathieson and Mathieson colleagues also found that when the first farmers from the Near East arrived in Europe, Dr Mathieson and his colleagues carried with Dr Mathieson and his colleagues genes for light skin.
article_snippet.sent: At this time another gene known to produce blue eyes in Europeans quickly became prevalent in southern and central European populations and then around 5,800 years ago.
article_snippet.sent: another gene known to produce blue eyes in Europeans is known to account for between 25-40 per cent of the skin tone lightening in Europeans.
article_snippet.sent: then becomes prevalent, lightening skin colour further.
article_snippet.sent: The results contradict the traditional view that lower sunlight levels in Europe would have favoured lighter skin.
article_snippet.sent: But from ancient DNA it now looks like the first farmers in mainland Europe were still relatively dark-skinned and dark-eyed, and lacked the ability to digest milk properly until only about 4,000 years ago, while contemporary hunter-gatherers in Scandinavia may have been lighter-skinned but with a surprising frequency of a gene found in oriental populations today, suggesting contemporary hunter-gatherers in Scandinavia would have resembled contemporary hunter-gatherers in Scandinavia in hair form and the distinctive morphology of contemporary hunter-gatherers in Scandinavia front teeth. '
article_snippet.sent: Dr Nina Jablonski, a paleoanthropologist at Pennsylvania State University who was not involved in the research, told the journal Science:  'What Dr Nina Jablonski, a paleoanthropologist at Pennsylvania State University who was not involved in the research thought was a fairly simple picture of the emergence of de-pigmented skin in Europe is an exciting patchwork of selection as populations disperse into northern latitudes. '
highlights_snippet.sent: Up until 8,000 years ago, early hunter-gatherers largely had darker skin .
  
highlights_snippet.sent: When Near East farmers arrived, Near East farmers carried with early hunter-gatherers light skin genes .
  