Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities: Difference between revisions
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:::In fact, sun exposure ''can'' change the skin tone of a population over the course of a couple of thousands of years.[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100057939] Jewish people first entered northern Europe during the Roman empire, about 2,000 years ago. That would be long enough for their skin to have become lighter than that of their Middle Eastern forebears. The [[Romani people]] have not been in northern Europe for as long. They first reached the Balkan countries around the 9th century, but their skin tone is not very different from that of Mediterranean Europeans. They did not reach northern Europe until the 15th century, or just over 500 years ago. That leaves far fewer generations for adaptation to a less sunny climate or for intermarriage than Jewish people in northern Europe have had, so it is not surprising if the average skin tone of Romani is darker. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] ([[User talk:Marco polo|talk]]) 14:36, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
::::In fact, wouldn't Romani potentially be a similar example? As you mentioned, their skin tone isn't that different from those in the areas they've been living for many generations. While we don't know the skin tone of their ancestors, if it's true that the [[Jat people]] have the same recent common ancenstors, their skin tones do seem to be at variance (how much and in which directions from their ancestors we don't know). [[User:Nil Einne|Nil Einne]] ([[User talk:Nil Einne|talk]]) 16:53, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
::::Except you're making assumptions that aren't true. They are primarily endogamous, in fact the main thrust behind genetic studies on jews is that genetic admixture from non-jewish Europeans was minimal, and they have more in common with other jewish ethnicities than they do with their non-jewish counterparts from the country they inhabit. A few thousands years is not sufficient time for natural selection to select for lighter skinned people, nor is their immigration to Europe that much earlier than the Romani people. It was only a thousand years at best, that's not long enough to produce such drastic changes in the phenotype of all jewish populations. [[Special:Contributions/108.170.113.22|108.170.113.22]] ([[User talk:108.170.113.22|talk]]) 16:59, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
== What is the biggest current country with just no state (or just one state) and the smallest current country with more than one state? ==
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