The Evolution of Human Skin Colour | BBC Earth Science

Human skin tone is one of the clearest examples of evolution in action. As our ancestors migrated to different parts of the world, varying levels of sunlight shaped the amount of melanin their skin produced. In regions with intense UV radiation, darker skin evolved to protect against sun damage and preserve essential nutrients like folate, while in areas with weaker sunlight, lighter skin helped the body produce enough vitamin D. This remarkable adaptation highlights how human diversity reflects our species' ability to thrive in different environments, reminding us that skin color is a natural response to geography and climate rather than a marker of biological difference.

Atleast the majority of people in this comment section are actual educated people with working brains, better than 99% of the comment sections on YouTube 😂

I wish I hadn’t grown up when tanning was cool. My skin would probably be in much better shape if I’d ignored people telling me I was too pale

No way this comment section is this civilised 😅

I believe our hair texture on our head also follows similar if not same process. The afro/kinky hair text helps sheild from the sun and regulate the UV intake, and the straight/thin hair helps absorb enough sun. There is something magical about all of us walking this beautiful planet.

And then humans, being the silly creatures we are, used our brains to decide that these different pigmentations determine which human is more valuable

There's also temperature to consider. In the region where humans originated, it was generally warm enough year-round to be outside naked for most of the day. Outside of the tropics, we needed clothing and shelter to stay warm. So in addition to less UV radiation at those latitudes, we were also limiting our access to what little UV was available in the first place.

I wish the people in this comment section could run all global debates. I have never felt so calm hearing people's accurate & scientific values while embracing the beauty of our species!

Inuits are quite dark and live in the far north, which is not shown in the map. There is a piece missing to this explanation: agriculture. If you hunt and therefor eat a lot of d-vitamin rich fish and meats, you don't need the uv-light for d-vitamin production.

I'm part Filipino and Italian. Sometimes, I am very white and other times very brown.

Every person is beautiful with any skin color

Also nose and eye shape have evolved to adapt to hot and cold.... people in southern locations in hotter places have flatter and wider noses to act as a cooling system and people in northern colder locations have narrow and longer noses to adapt to cold air acting as a heating system as there is more area the cold air pases to heat before reaching the lungs 👍 THIS IS why we also look different to eachother in different locations 🥳 100% Fact scientific biological fact of evolution 🧬 AND this is why there is NO difference between us all....we have the same DNA ...The only 3% Difference is colour and structural differences and this is to adapt to different hot and cold locations... WE ARE ALL THE SAME!! 🎉

Nose also adapted to climate as well right? In hot area human developed wide, and narrow shape in cold area. Body hair as well

Crazy how racist people can't comprehend this extremely basic and easy-to-understand fact.

1:11 love how there's just a random dot of light skin on the Nigeria-Cameroon border

It's not only the skin colour though. Divergent evolution, separation by by thousands of miles, different climate, different food over many many generations can create differences that are not limited to skin colour. That's why different races/ethnicities can be prone to different genetic disorders for example.

It is so obvious that human skin colour is the same colour that exists on a spectrum from light to dark.

the map is extremely wrong. it shows north america to be light skin, when we all know that true native americans are brown or closer to latin and southeast asian skin color. the white dominated north america is due to the genocide of native americans and white europeans invading a new continent. almost same thing in australia and new zealand

Basically, Natural selection led to different skin colours. Our ancestors started migrating to the North from Africa. As we went north, UV rays became less intense. But humans needed UV to create vitamin D. So dark-skinned humans who travelled north didn't get much UV inside the skin, and without Vitamin D, they died in the North. But over thousands of years, those with lighter skin (less melanin) started to survive in the north. And they started moving further north. And only those with lighter and lighter skin survived as they moved farther and farther north. This also created a reverse effect. Those with lighter skin tones can't live near the equator as they got sunburned easily. This is what created high melanin (dark) and low melanin (white) humans. Over time, our food made vitamin D intake possible without sun. That means darker-skinned individuals can now move to the North, and lighter clothing made white-skinned individuals survive near the equator. And they mixed together and created the world today. Basically, skin colour doesn't mean people are different. We are all the same. It's just the amount of melanin. I don't know why people are still fighting over this.

in the map they put US and Canada white, but historically they forgot the natives (indigenous people), who are brown