[quote=@Raineh Daze]
The abstract for that paper clearly identifies the primary correlation with skin pigmentation as UV levels; furthermore the conclusion continues the same premise. Pages 72 and 73 identify the alternative reason for how both native Greenlanders and the Inuit maintain a darker skin tone in such northern climates (maintain, not develop) in the high degree of Vitamin D available in their diet. Therefore, if a fair-skinned population were to move north, there would be no overriding pressure to increase pigmentation, and thus they would [i]retain[/i] a pale skin-tone. i.e. a darker skintone moving north is the baseline taken when assessing changes in relative melanin content in humans; increased Vitamin D in the diet would not have the same effect.

Otherwise, the mass domestication of chickens would have had a really strange effect by now.
[/quote]

If I'm not mistaken does snow not often cause an increase in exposure to UV radiation due to its high reflectivity? Might that act as a selection pressure for developing a darker skin tone. Also while chickens have been domesticated for thousands of years, how long have we been able to consume their products consistently?

EDIT: [@Myrna Minkoff] My concerns weren't with the similarities between elves and humans in a fantasy setting but rather the validity of evolution as a whole within one.