Series
The History of Our Skin
Human skin evolved for thousands of years in close relationship with sunlight. In this series, we explore the history of tanning, the biology of the skin, and how our understanding of ultraviolet radiation has changed over time — from natural human adaptation to sunlight to modern scientific discoveries.
Human skin colour is not just a matter of aesthetics – it is a record of thousands of years of evolution, in which sunlight and nutrients such as folate shaped our health and survival.
Pigmentation genes are now one of the fastest-growing areas of research. Just three decades ago, our knowledge of skin colour was very limited – it was believed that only a few single genes were responsible for it.
Skin color is the result of a brilliant survival strategy – for thousands of years, pigmentation adapted to the amount of sunlight in the environment.
Today, however, our lives look very different from the past – we spend most of our time indoors, with very little contact with natural sunlight…
Skin colour is the result of a brilliant survival strategy, encoded in our bodies over thousands of years. Skin pigmentation is no accident – it is nature’s precise response to the amount of light in our environment.