https://ecoevorxiv.org/repository/view/3699/
Neolithic Europeans may have struggled with a decrease of bone formation rate
and a reduction of the bone mineral density (BMD) associated with the new
sedentary lifestyle. Here I suggest that light skin evolved to increase the vitamin D
synthesis (a stimulator of the BMD), balancing out the negative effects on the BMD
during the Neolithic. According to the idea, I found that SNPs related to BMD may
have changed after the European Agricultural Revolution, and possibly in
correlation with skin pigmentation associated SNPs
However, genomic analyses on ancient European human samples showed that alleles responsible for light skin in Europeans appeared and raised to fixation
only after the development of agriculture in the Neolithic period that started around 10,000 years ago (Olalde, I. et al. 2014; Mathieson, I. et al. 2015; Ju, D. & Mathieson, I. 2021).
that depigmentation of
present-day Europeans is mainly associated with alleles in the SLC24A5 and
SLC45A2 genes that almost reach fixation in European populations (with
frequencies up to 99 and 97%, respectively), but also more than 100 loci has also
been associated to light skin pigmentation (Ju, D. & Mathieson , I. 2021). In recent
years, paleogenetic studies have shown that Mesolithic foragers carried the
ancestral alleles in those genes, whereas the derived alleles started to increase in
frequency during the Neolithic (Olalde, I. et al. 2014; Mathieson, I. et al. 2015; Ju,
D. & Mathieson , I. 2021).
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