Vor 5000 Jahren: Blondinen bevorzugt?

[Blattspitze]

In der späten Kupferzeit hatten die Menschen in Europa noch dunklere Haut, Haare und Augen

Das gilt zumindest für die damaligen Bewohner der Steppenzone zwischen Ural und Karpaten, wie Anthropologen aus Mainz und London in einer kürzlich veröffentlichten Studie feststellen. Bei DNA-Analysen an Skeletten der dortigen Jamnaja-Kultur fanden sie deutliche Marker für eine dunklere Pigmentierung von Haut, Haaren und Augen. Da Umweltbedingungen allein keine ausreichende Erklärung für die Entwicklung hin zu einer helleren Pigmentierung bietet, vermuten die Forscher eine andere Ursache für die festgestellte genetische Selektion: hellhäutigere Menschen waren anscheinend attraktivere Partner.
http://www.archaeologie-online.de/magaz ... aus-29563/

Anthropologists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), geneticists at University College London (UCL), and archaeologists from Berlin and Kiev all collaborated in a study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences revealing that ancient DNA from these European skeletons shows the impact of natural selection on the human genome as “recently” as the past 5,000 years, resulting in a rapid, dramatic change of appearance in people on a continent that is now dominated by a heterogenous mixture of different physical traits in an otherwise small geographical area.
...
“Most people of the world make most of their vitamin D in their skin as a result UV exposure. But at northern latitudes and with dark skin, this would have been less efficient. If people weren’t getting much vitamin D in their diet, then having lighter skin may have been the best option.”

However, Dr. Wilde is less convinced of this explanation, noting that for her, the “. . . vitamin D explanation seems less convincing when it comes to hair and eye color,” which is not nearly as predicated on exposure to sunlight and Vitamin D. “Instead, it may be that lighter hair and eye color functioned as a signal indicating group affiliation, which in turn played a role in the selection of a partner,” a theory that is more akin to the process of natural selection evidenced in animal evolution, wherein plumage and other external features of animals play a major role in sexual selection. While multi-ethnic and multi-cultural social exchange is a commonality in today’s world, it is indeed a species of modernity: humans from 5,000 to 50,000 years ago may not have been nearly as globalized in their behaviors, and as a result, outward physical features played a key role in segregating groups across the European continent.
Quelle
http://bionews-tx.com/news/2014/03/13/n ... searchers/

[LS]

Hört sich schräg an, könnte aber wohl tatsächlich stimmen... Hier der Original-Aufsatz:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/03/05/1316513111