Skin cancer was not a potent selective force in the evolution of protective pigmentation in early hominins.

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

Who cites it

11 citing papers in PubMed.

1. Dark Skin Evolution in Early Humans: Revisiting the Skin Cancer Hypothesis Through Migration-Related Mismatch.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026
   Review
2. Multi-trait analysis of pigmentation traits in relation to skin and ocular cancers: Relevance for evolutionary medicine.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2026
   Article
3. The genetic architecture of human skin pigmentation: evolution and adaptation across global populations.Frontiers in genetics · 2026
   Review
4. Our ancestry dictates clonal architecture and skin cancer susceptibility.Nature genetics · 2023
   Article
5. The evolution of human skin pigmentation involved the interactions of genetic, environmental, and cultural variables.Pigment cell & melanoma research · 2021
   Review
6. Dissecting dynamics and differences of selective pressures in the evolution of human pigmentation.Biology open · 2021
   Article
7. From humans to hydra: patterns of cancer across the tree of life.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2018
   Review
8. The Vitamin D⁻Folate Hypothesis as an Evolutionary Model for Skin Pigmentation: An Update and Integration of Current Ideas.Nutrients · 2018
   Review
9. The colours of humanity: the evolution of pigmentation in the human lineage.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2017
   Review
10. MC1R diversity in Northern Island Melanesia has not been constrained by strong purifying selection and cannot explain pigmentation phenotype variation in the region.BMC genetics · 2015
    Article
11. Solar activity at birth predicted infant survival and women's fertility in historical Norway.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2015
    Article

Corrections and comments

• Commented on by
  Response to Jablonski and Chaplin.2014
• Comment on
  Was skin cancer a selective force for black pigmentation in early hominin evolution?2014

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

Abstract

PubMed holds no abstract for this paper.

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