Skin color is not a unique attribute that can be used to define races. Pennsylvania State University Distinguished professor of Anthropology Nina Jablonski has said. Speaking at a regular meeting hosted for members and the public by the Kenya Museum Society at the Nairobi National Museum, Prof. Jablonski gave a compelling account of the evolution of human skin right from the times of our ancestors to the Neanderthals and to the present.

Borrowed heavily from research that she, her husband George Chaplin and others have conducted over the years, Jablonski attributed the evolution of skin color to adaptation that has occurred numerous times over the years and that it is the most visible of evolution by natural selection on the human body.

With the attendants visibly transfixed on their chairs, Prof. Jablonski declared that races have historical and social but not biological and evolutionary meaning.

" Races named on the basis of skin color are biologically nonsensical", offered Jablonski.

Prof. Jablonski is an author of numerous scholarly papers and other books on Primatology and Skin color evolution including an up coming book on skin color




Also attending were Kenya Museum Society Chair Patricia Jentz, Prehistory Club of Kenya Chair Dr. Fredrick Manthi and whose pioneering work in the club is responsible for teaching the public on prehistory and conservation, students of Peponi School in Nairobi and Prehistory enthusiasts from around the country.