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
>there is more sunlight in the Middle East than there is in India
Is there really?
The tradeoff for skin color is that dark skin protects against sunburn while light skin protects against vitamin D deficiency. For both of these what matters most is the *directness* of the sunlight, not temperature or humidity. And if I look at a map, it looks to me like the Middle East–especially the densely-populated part–is somewhat to the north of South Asia on average.
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