why african skin is black colour?

Answer 1

The color of skin is determined by pigment in the skin. The pigment melanin is produced by melanocytes in the skin which are the same in number but more active in darker races. It protects the live skin cells in the lower layers from sun damage. Although skin cancer is caused by sun damage this could not be the reason the skin is black because it would not often kill the person before he or she would have had most of their children. So this would not be a factor. However, vitamin D is activated by sun exposure and would be produced in excess in the areas where there is a great deal of sun. More importantly it would be deficient in people with dark skin living in areas of little sun exposure such as northern Europe. So this would be an incentive for less melanin in the north and more in the equatorial regions. Moreover, healthy skin has a part in attracting and keeping a mate. Perhaps darker skin may look better and maintain its healthy look further into the reproductive years with large amounts of sun exposure. This might lead to selective pressure with preference for darker skin and this would have the effect of promoting darker skin in the population over a long period of time.

Answer 2

It's a delicate balance between protection from the sun and vitamin D production.

The Southern Hemisphere is no closer to the sun than the rest of Earth.

The Northern Hemisphere has less DIRECT sunlight, particularly in winter where a lack of sun can cause brittle bones due to vitamin D deficiency. This is STILL true, and people living in Nordic Countries many times have to undergo artificial sunlight treatments to ensure proper bone development.

Melanin protects the skin from cancer, and other diseases, but blocks Vitamin D production. As populations migrated to Northern Climes, random mutation and selection chose a different balance between the two competing needs of the populations.

Kids with too much melanin over the course of thousands of years suffered bone deficiencies and died earlier from hunting, accidents, and predators, before they could reproduce.

Survivors had lighter skin. The reverse was true in Tropical and Savannah environments, where sunburn and sores would be attacked and infected by insects and bacteria.

Answer 3

The human body is the most highly advanced system that we know of. It has a perforated shell (skin) to protect itself and excrete waste, an immune system to fight disease/infection, hair etc. It is so advanced that it is adaptive to its surrounding. Melanin is one way of protecting the body by creating a dark pigmentation in the skins surface to reflects light. Why do some people have more melanin than others? Genetic evolution is the short answer to that question.

Answer 4

Africans were the first homo sapiens and they adapted to have dark skin due to the intensity of the sun in that part of the world. As they traveled out of Africa they further adapted and from them came everyone on the planet.

Answer 5

It's due to a high percentage of skin pigment (melanin).

EVERYONE has melanin (unless they have some skin disorders), just in different concentrations. The more of it you have, the darker you are. It also tints your hair.

It protects against the effects of the sun, so people from areas that get more sun tend to be darker.

Answer 6

Dark pigmentation helps protect against skin cancer, but that is probably not the main reason why equatorial and sub-Saharan Africans have dark black skin. Remember, not all Africans had dark black skin. The Egyptians of Cleopatra's time did not, but were more olive skinned, like today's Arabs. The Bushmen of the Kalihari are golden brown, not dark black. That is, they are about the same color as the dusty desert in which they live. That's a hint.

Skin or pelt color is very responsive to predation in all species. It can change in a given species quite fast, depending upon how skin color affects vulnerability to predation or success as a predator. Dark brown or nearly black skin color is a great advantage to a hunter who sneaks up on prey animals...or who waits in ambush...when the background environment is also dark. But very white skin is an advantage to a hunter who hunts in snowy conditions. So, it is very likely that skin color in man is affected by the very same variables that affect it, (or pelt color), in every other species.

There is also a good liklihood that sexual selection plays some role in determining skin color. Females may prefer darker or lighter-skinned males and prefer them for mating purposes over the others, or vice versa. Over time, (thousands of years), this will also have a pronounced effect upon skin color in the entire tribe or area, since it can become a cultural thing over wide regions including many different tribes and language groups. This effect can be observed in the history of American Blacks, who developed a preference for lighter-skinned mates when it became apparent that lighter-skinned Negroes had better financial opportunities in racist America. This was a prejudice based on color, not on race. But it can easily be predicted that this would work just like sexual selection in the wild and would, in time, tend to change dark-skinned people into lighter-skinned people without actually changing their "race"; a rather questionable concept to begin with, since we are all one species.

Also consider this: Man is man's greatest predator. In staging suprise attacks, it would be best to have dark skin in dark background environments. Or, if trying to hide from an attacker, it would also be advantageous to have dark skin in dark environments. Army Rangers camoflage their white skin, (if they are white), with dark pigments that are designed to match background environments. But the 10th Mountain Division wears white clothing and wraps their rifles with white cloth to fight in white snowy environments. Nature, via evolutionary processes, has done the same with skin color.

Answer 7

Because Africa is on the equator and the sun is closer. Dark color skin helps protect from skin cancer.

Answer 8

I think because they originated in a jungle area where the sun was always darkening them and there were mosquitos so they evolved to help protect themselves!

Answer 9

melanin darkens the skin to help protect against sun burns and to prevent skin cancer. how great is that.

Answer 10

Are u even black