For centuries, researchers have been studying how humans acquired different skin tones and eye colors in order to obtain a better understanding of our ancient human history. Now, a new discovery from anthropologists suggests that light skin color and height associated with European genetics are actually relatively recent traits to the continent.

Based on 83 human samples from the Holocene Europe as analyzed under the 1000 Genomes Project, a team of international researcher headed by Harvard University revealed that for the majority of the time that humans have lived in Europe, people had darker skin tones. In fact, it wasn’t until the about 8,000 years ago that light skin likely appeared into the mix. It appears the traits associated with the skin color were rapidly advantageous within the environment, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) concludes.

The samples were derived from a wide range of ancient populations, supplying researchers with five specific genes associated with skin color and diet. AAAS reports that “modern humans who came out of Africa to originally settle Europe about 40,000 years ago are presumed to have had dark skin, which is advantageous in sunny latitudes. And the new data confirms that about 8,500 years ago, early hunter-gatherers in Spain, Luxembourg, and Hungary also had darker skin.”

Early European ancestors lacked versions of the two genes leading to depigmentation—SLC24A5 and SLC45A2. When the first farmers from the Near East arrived in Europe, they carried both of these genes.

“As they interbred with the indigenous hunter-gatherers, one of their light skin genes swept through Europe, so that central and southern Europeans also began to have lighter skin,” AAAS notes.

This story is slightly different from the situation farther north. Ancient remains from southern Sweden 7,700 years ago were found to have the gene variants indicating light skin and blond hair, as well as HERC2/OCA2—which causes blue eyes. That means ancient hunter-gatherers of northern Europe were already pale and blue-eyed. This light skin was advantageous in the regions with less sunlight.

Though the team of researchers did not specify why the genes were favored, it suggested that Vitamin D absorption likely played a role. Paleoanthropologist Nina Jablonski of Pennsylvania State University added that people in less sunny climates require different skin pigmentations in order to synthesize Vitamin D.

The new research is supported by related studies on pre-agricultural European genomes and modern humans in Europe before the rise of farming. In 2006, DNA taken from the wisdom tooth of a 7,000-year-old human found in Spain changed the way we thought of light-skinned hunter-gatherers. Scientists were shocked to discover the individual had dark hair and the dark-skinned genes of an African, as well as blue eyes. The wisdom tooth belonged to the oldest known individual in Europe found to have blue eyes.