If climate determines skin color, how are Andalusian Spanish people white?

[Anonymous]

I dont get this, its 40 celsius (something like 103-110 in fahrenheit) for 4-5 months but the people are white, and there's lots of sunshine too...

South Spain is sunnier and hotter then Nigeria so why are Southern Spanish people white but nigerians dark?

Can someone explain?

[Soteris]

There are people who is going to argue with you over the question if Spanish people are white or not. Pointless though, the climate does not determine skin colour as such. Natural selection does. There is nothing magical that turns a white person living in Africa into a pitch black skin. Of course, they will get a tan but their children is still going to inherit their white skin.

For there to be a meaningful shift in the population over a very long time you need natural selection. Natural selection is a nice way of saying people dying from a hostile environment for the most part. Its a bit more complicated than that, but it gets the point across.

If people are not literally at a decently higher chance of dying because of it, or alternatively survives much easier, then evolution will not do anything about it. As you might realize, this has not been very relevant to humanity for a very long time. Our ability to support each other through our civilization means that even those with severe issues can very easily be provided for.

Of course, we still evolve at times. For example, covid 19 or the black death will make sure that future generations have a particular immune system that is better at resisting those types of diseases. Things can also happen randomly. But what you will not find is cases where the environment, such as the sun, will make us develop darker or lighter skin over time.

After that realization its just a question of where light skin originally developed and its natural spread over the population that gives us the distribution we have today. It has become a sign of ancestry rather than an evolutionary adaptation to help you survive.

[Astarlessnightsky]

Mediteranian people (italy/spain/portugal/greece/marocco/turkey/...) are less pale than eg swedish people, but less dark than eg nigerian people, as southeurope and north africa has winters with less sunshine.

Skin colour is a gradiant, not binary.

[Anonymous]

Spain had a lot of migrations between ancient Greek times who set up the first towns and cities there along with the phoenicians and then the celts, Romans, vandals, goths, arabs, Moore etc. The vandals in the North eventually pushed the Moores out.

[Avicenna]

There was a genetic mutation among people in Europe that gave them white skin. Note that the latitude of Andalusia is much higher than that of Nigeria, meaning there is less sunshine in the winter. That said, people native to Andalusia are darker-skinned than those native to places like Norway and Scotland which are at much higher latitudes. Furthermore, there was some genetic admixture in Andalusia from Arabs, Berbers, and Northern Europeans who invaded and settled in the Iberian Peninsula.

[Meropatrick]

They didn't originally live in spain. People have moved all over the earth. Ur ancestors probably moved to to were u r now from another place far away. Originally people lived far in north Europe then moved back to the south.

[Asker]

They did tho, Spanish people are descendants of ancient iberians

[Meropatrick]

Iberians lived there 2000 years ago. Humans evolution and immigrant is older than that

[Asker]

Iberians still live in Spain, Spanish people are mostly iberian with some southern celtic genetics

[Meropatrick]

U said it. They have celtic genes. So they moved from northern Europe at Some point to spain right?

[Huscarl]

Because genetics, and the theory of evolution is a lie.

[Asker]

Seriously, why aren't greeks black?

If the weather determines our skin color