This is an archive of past discussions about Human skin color. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
latitude
File:Map of skin hue equi.pngHistorical data for "native populations" collected by R. Biasutti prior to 1940. Darker shades represent darker skin color. Note however, that "darker shades" of skin color correlate, not with latitude, but with a thousand-year cumulation of 1) total annual UV striking the ground through the cloud cover and 2) lack of sources of Vitamin D in the diet such as from fresh fish. Hence, notice the darker shade of skin color at the equator, comparing South America to Africa--because there is much more cloud cover annually over South America. See text.
it seems strange to say that skin colour is not correlated to latitude but rather to the amount of UV radiation, since clearly the latter is correlated to the former. dab(ᛏ) 19:50, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
For example, if you look at the map, natives to Africa have much darker skin than natives to South America at the same latitudes. That is because there is much more cloud cover over South America than over Africa. Good suggestion! :) I will add an explanatory note to the caption to make your point clear. ---Rednblu | Talk 23:04, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
You'll need an entire subsection soon. But I don't agree with your interpretation. Note that the "natives" of South America immigrated some 20k years ago, the Australians some 70k years ago, while the Africans were in Africa "forever". So even if there was as much Sun in South America as in Africa, people may not have been there long enough to adapt. Your explanation is simplistic, as if humans were uniformly distributed on the Earth at one time and then started to adapt. Human migration is at least as important a factor for explaining the patterns. e.g. the pink corner in South Africa is not due to a permanent cloud-cover, but almost certainly to inter-marriage with immigrants. dab(ᛏ) 08:47, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
That's all right. You missed the Jablonski 2000 article. [1] No big deal. 8)) The adaptation takes place in a few thousand years. And the data is only for "Natives" who have been relatively fixed for a thousand years. No intermarriage is in the data. You can compare the raw data in the tables at the back of the Jablonski article to the map. ---Rednblu | Talk 12:16, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
interesting. although I find it hard to believe. this borders on Lamarckism. Do you mean the map on page 77? I'm sorry. I am not an expert, but I suppose unless the data is cross-referenced to genetic analysis (mitochondrial etc.), the matching of skin shade to latitude is rather pointless. You would have to show that adaptation is quicker than migration, eg. for South Africa. Do they say somewhere that South Americans are lighter because there is less UV there than on similar latitudes in Africa? Anyway, I don't have the time to dig into this right now, so I just assume you are right. dab(ᛏ) 14:54, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
also, your caption is suggestive that the map should be taken at face value. While it is of course good enough to give a general idea, I was very careful to state on the Image page that it is outdated, and should not be used as an up-to-date reference. dab(ᛏ) 08:51, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The inuit are probably a poor example, since high latitudes have alternating patterns of extremely high (or at least constant) sunlight followed by almost none. so far the adaptations i'd heard of included the narrow eyes.. though now that i think of it, that's universal mongoloid, so that makes no sense. anyway, i've never seen a 'relatively dark' inuit, so that part doesn't make sense to me.
The Inuits/Eskimos (I'm not racist) were able to survive with their dark skin at northern latitudes because a huge part of their diet, the seal, has a lot of vitamin D.
Inuits have darker skin reason: 1. sunlight reflecting off snow is still sunlight 2. Inuits have smaller body 3. Inuits have more vitamin D intake Nagara37304:07, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
About that map
I've deleted the above image from the article.
"Be bold." Well, I removed the above map.
When I first saw this image, my first reaction was, "This can't possibly be correct!" I Googled it, and the first thing I consulted was this.[2] I don't know where the information about Basutti's "methodology" and the "use with caution" notation came from (somewhere else here?), but it is terribly improper to present this as factual/credible -- and with no notation whatsoever about its shortcomings/limitations. deeceevoice07:19, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
User:FrankWSweet's article The Paleo-Etiology of Human Skin Tone that I added to External Links on 6 Dec has discussion of the Biasutti map, its faults, and a couple of updated maps. I don't know the copyright status of the updated maps. Frank did not change the map in the article when he later showed up on Wikipedia; not sure if he didn't notice it, didn't think it was wrong enough to be significant, or if copyright status wasn't sufficient.
answers.com is a Wikipedia mirror and not citable as a non-Wikipedia source. The Wikipedia link for that image is: File:Map of skin hue equi.png which is exactly the image that was referenced by the article, and in the image page's history (not the file history) you can see User:Dbachmann added those cautions. --JWB13:30, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
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The image that was removed in this edit should be restored. The image is a good one.
An example of the raw data underlying the patterns that the image summarizes can be found in Prof. Jablonski's article, for example.
Those making the measurements of skin color tried to select only subjects whose ancestors had lived in the same general area for thousands of years--thus, minimizing the effects of moving to a different geographical area.
What is measured is underarm skin color where there is minimum tanning.
Underarm skin color is measured by an optical instrument that measures the percentage of light of a standard color that the subject's underarm skin reflects to the standardized photocell. The underarm skin of the whitest person in the sample reflected less than 70% of the incident light.
Underarm skin color correlates, not with latitude, but with the annual intensity of UV radiation striking the ground where people live.
Hence, for example, looking along the equator, one sees that skin color is lighter around the Amazon basin where most sunlight is blocked from striking the ground where people live--by both high vegetation and cloud cover.
Furthermore, as JWB notes above, the "use with caution" at [3] means nothing to us on Wikipedia because that site merely copied the "use with caution" that has been on Wikipedia for a long time.
As with any image, it would be good to develop a fifth approximation that fits all the recent data better. But let's not throw out the very good first approximation that the deleted image is!
That any reader has the response "That can't possible be right" is appropriate. Many people do not know that the image is basically right. --Rednblu16:48, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, Rednblu, because I know I don't know everything, I googled the map before deleting it. What caused me immediately to be skeptical of the map are two things: the 1) the shading for Lower Egypt is the same as for Saudi Arabia and portions of the Maghreb, 2) and it is also the same for the area occupied by South Africa and Namibia. This calls into question the population samples utilized in the map's preparation (if not Biasutti's fundamental powers of reasoning). Did Biasutti leave Egypt's major cities (where the majority of Arabs are concentrated) and examine the true Egyptians? The peasants? Highly doubtful. The Fellahin as a group are quite swarthy and downright obviously Negroid-looking the farther south one travels. (To Biasutt's credit, the area occupied by Egypt does appear to be darker to the south.) The map refers to "native" populations, and the methodology stated above maintains the subject populations had lived in the areas for "thousands of years." Um, 'scuse me. Stretching that "thousands" to hyyperbolic proportions, that might work for someone with an "I'm doin' the the elitist tourist route 'cuz I don't wanna get my hands dirty" approach for the Arab and Arabized populations in Lower Egypt's major cities, since the Arabs overran the area in the 7th century A.D. But how on earth can one say that with a straight face about South Africa? The Boers didn't get there until 400 years before Biasutti did, and I haven't gone around sniffin' up under people's armpits, but I've never met an indigene from South Africa who was as fair-skinned as an Italian. Anyone? (How 'bout you Rednblu?) Even if you want to quibble about Lower Egypt, the South Africa/Namibia representation is glaringly inaccurate, not to mention mind-blowingly counterintuitive. I can't even begin to rationalize how he came up with a Maghreb/Arab skin tone for, say, the Xhosa, Zulu or Ndebele of the region.
Even if Biasutti lazily decided not to examine the native populations and simply fudge the data there as he did with the northern Maghreb, it still makes no earthly sense. It seems to me that not only did Biasutti take the tourist route, not bothering to get outside the Cairo city limits, but he also failed to venture beyond the Boer and European-controlled areas in South Africa/Namibia. Cutting him some slack, this is somewhat understandable. After all, many are reluctant to sacrifice creature comforts for the sake of knowledge. Sill, I'm puzzled. It seems to me not even a staunch supporter of the racist Boer regime would dare claim with a straight face that Europeans had been there since ancient times. Such a bald-faced absurdity then would call into question the integrity of the entire effort. Yet Biasutti has done so. And even more mind-blowing, his b.s. seems to have gone right over people's heads.
I mean am I missing something here? Have I lost my mind? What are you white folks thinking? Someone (anyone? how 'bout you, Rednblu?) wanna try explaining to me how I'm wrong -- because I "do not know that the image is basically right"? deeceevoice17:46, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
you seem sure this map is incorrect, but did you take quantitative measurements of light reflectivity under fellahin armpits? the renderings we have of fellah don't seem to be all that dark-skinned Justforasecond18:44, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
"Fille Fellahin" of Egypt.
Characteristically, JFAS, yours is an utterly unhelpful comment that sheds absolutely no light on the situation, imparts no information, reflects no knowledge. deeceevoice12:45, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I can't believe I am winding up defending the damn map, but after reading your specific points, I think you actually are missing a couple of things. The pink shading (18-21) for Egypt and Western Cape / Southern Namibia corresponds to a pretty dark color, even if far from the darkest. People of the Arabian peninsula can also be fairly dark, so I don't find this correspondence too far-fetched, but if data was missing for any of these, it's probably for Sa`udi Arabia, as there was not much travel in or out of there in Biasutti's time, while Egypt and South Africa were both accessible destinations. I do notice that all of Sau`di Arabia except the south is the same pink, whereas my understanding is that people of the Gulf are darker than those of the center and northwest, unless Biasutti is trying to project back to before the Abbasid-area slave trade (see Zanj Rebellion). The revised Figure 11-3 on Frank's page does push its 'medium light' slightly farther south into Sa`udi Arabia. [4]
The pink at the Cape is for the Khoisan, not the Boers, who would be white (below 12) as Northern Europe is. The pink (18-21) is also two steps darker than Italy, which is the lightest green (12-15), and darker than the Maghreb, which is 12-15 north of the Atlas, and 15-18 (miscolored on map as below 12) until well into the Sahara. And the map shows central and eastern South Africa and the Xhosa, Zulu or Ndebele as dark brown (27-30). --JWB18:48, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the information. The map is still noticeably off. The Khoikhoi are nowhere near the same color as Arabs. And if the map represented the Arab slave trade, then all of the Arabian peninsula would be the darker colors represented in the two lower segments. Besides, according to the methodology, the shades represent indigenous peoples. Further, there is ample evidence to suggest that the people of Egypt have changed considerably over the centuries as a result of miscegenation -- since dynastic times forward. So, how are the indigenous Africans of Egypt supposed to be as pale as all of the Saudi peninsula, Malaysia and Southeast Asia? The map is seriously flawed and shouldn't be presented as fact. deeceevoice12:45, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
The map doesn't reflect recent work at all. Anything on race pre-1950s should be viewed with strong suspicion, especially if based on something as suspicious as the von Luschan scale. The map could be used for historical representations of work on race but shouldn't be used for modern conceptions at all. If we really want something about skin color distributions, there are modern works on the subject which are far more reliable. --Fastfission21:29, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Yah, sure. Which one of those maps is out of copyright? Do you know of one that is better than the current image? --Rednblu22:06, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Fastfission, what maps are those? If you have access to them, are they eligible for reproduction here? If there's something better/more recent, then, by all means, they should be used. deeceevoice12:45, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Inuits and Saami have darker skin than Scandinavians because they have smaller body (than Scandinavians).
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Surely you are right that the deleted image should be updated to include more detailed recent data. But would you agree that the deleted image represents the data in Jablonski's article fairly well? --Rednblu18:38, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
No, not really. There are only broad and irrelevant similarities (Africa is dark, Europe is light, Asia in in between), but if you look at any individual region (such as Europe) there are major differences. In any case, the Jablonski article does not contain any full-scale maps which are meant to be actual representations of skin color distributions, that I can see, but only different predictions and simulations. --Fastfission21:29, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
"Note that the "natives" of South America immigrated some 20k years ago, the Australians some 70k years ago, while the Africans were in Africa "forever"." While perhaps strictly true this statement is highly misleading in the context it is being stated. Most of sub-Saharan Africa was peopled by Khoisan prior to the Bantu expansions which were even more recent than the crossing of the Bering Strait or the peopling of Australia. This is highly relevant since, while bones are not proof of pigmentation, there is a significant difference in skin tone between Bantu and Khoisan people today. This suggests that if the (more recent than the two events you cite) Bantu pastoralist expansion had not occurred most of sub-Saharan Africa would probably be lighter skinned, perhaps not dissimilar to the natives of the Americas, or at least closer to them than it is 80.229.27.11 (talk) 17:54, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
"Yellow" skin
I read a first year Biology textbook a few months ago which said that the reason why far Easterners have yellowish skin tone is due to a second factor determining their skin colour, namely carotene. However, this article does not mention this at all.
I was wondering this too, as I've seen carotene cited as a human skin pigment in past readings, and Asian skin tone attributed to it. This article[5] citing a recent study by Anatomist Edward Allen Edwards of Harvard and Physicist Seibert Quimby Duntley of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, confirms that carotene is indeed a component of human skin pigmentation, though it says "carotene is not what makes Orientals yellow. Normal persons of all races have roughly the same amounts of carotene."--Ericjs (talk) 17:52, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Graphical representation of skin tones
This article needs more information about the individual skin tone categories as well as a graphical representation of skin tones either through the use of just colored blocks, or actual images of human skin.
I came here looking for information about my skin tone, being slightly olive. And while there is an article for olive skin tones on wikipedia (which is in dire need of more information btw), the different tones are not mentioned or linked here in the main article. The article mentions the range (from near black to pink), but what if I want to know if I'm pink, yellow, olive, beige, brown, dark brown, black or some other tone?
![[4]](http://www.backintyme.com/essay021215_files/image004.jpg){kind=link}