Skin colour in southern Brazilian populations.

Abstract

Reflectance spectrophotometry is being increasingly used in studies of human skin colour since, in contrast with all previous methods, it provides an objective measure of colour differences on a continuous scale of reflection. A number of populations have now been characterized for skin reflectance (Lasker, 1954; Barnicot, 1958; Tobias, 1961; Walsh, 1963; Weiner et al ., 1964; Huizinga, 1965; Ungria, 1965; Harrison and Saizano, 1966) and it has recently been shown that scales can be constructed from EEL reflectance spectrophotometer measurements on which the genes for at least the differences between Africans and Europeans are additive and on which there is little or no interaction between the