My understanding is that, the more the melanin = the better the protection from sun.
If that’s the case, why do most Arab people have less melanins than Indian people, when there is more sunlight in the Middle East than there is in India? Shouldn’t it be opposite? And by the virtue of that, shouldn’t Indian people have a lighter skin tones than the Arabs?
(P.S. My question stems from my personal observation having lived both in India and the Middle East and I know that darker toned Arabs & lighter toned Indians do exist in plenty)
In: Biology
I imagine it might be something to do with the population sizes of when the people settled there. A lot of features we have evolved in smaller populations a long time ago. More recently we have so many more people it would take longer to evolve new traits as they would just get diluted into the larger population.
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