What natural blonds tell us about the power of pigment

Sex started at once. Many of the Europeans who colonised the Caribbean married
local women. Cortez impregnated a princess and, no doubt, many of his
soldiers entered into informal engagements. From the first days of the
European and African incursion, the imperatives of biology broke through
social, religious and racial obstacles.

Now, that history is being disentangled. In the five short centuries since the
Europeans arrived, the New World has moved from being the most remote and
most biologically diminished branch on the human family tree to its most
diverse. The healing power of lust has brewed up a soup which has breached
barriers of culture.

Modern Colombia is the best microcosm of the great sexual interchange and of
the overlap of biology with social identity. Nine tenths of its 50 million
inhabitants identify themselves as of mixed ancestry, while most of the rest
see themselves as displaced Africans and a tiny proportion claim to be
Native American.

Their genes reveal a mixture of DNA from three continents. As evidence of the
power of pigment, the real proportion of genes of European origin in any
dark-skinned individual is notably higher than the figure that emerges from
asking them. People with dark skins over-estimate the extent of their
African ancestry, which means that Colombians, like most others, place more
importance on the small set of genes that determine the way they look than
such minor players deserve.

I ended my Trinidad talk on human difference by showing a picture of the mayor
of London himself which, even 3,000 miles away, got a giggle of recognition.
Why, I asked, had he and his fellows lost even more melanin than other
Europeans? We can thank the warm waters around my audience’s native island
for that. The Gulf Stream brings their heat to our shores, which meant,
thousands of years ago, that the first British farmers could grow primitive
grains in the sunless climate.

As a result, they could make even less vitamin D than their southern
neighbours, and any new genes that further lightened their skin – and hair –
were favoured. We owe Boris, with his boast of mixed English, German and
Turkish ancestry, to the Caribbean; which may become a debating point when
he stands again for Mayor of London – or for something else.

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