According to the article Dark skin and blue eyes: How Europeans once looked:
It is widely accepted that Man's oldest common forefather was dark skinned, and that people became more pale as they moved further north out of Africa into colder climates with less sunlight.
I thought that humans' oldest common ancestor was light-skinned, because
- Dark-skinned people have white palms and soles, but light-skinned people have more consistent skin tones. This suggests that light skin is more ancestral and dark skin evolved to protect skin from the sun.
- Bonobo chimpanzees, our closest primate cousins, look like they have light skin under black hair.
I understand we all originate in Africa, but I thought that the environmental conditions in Africa were different from today. How do we know that the first humans were dark-skinned?