Was early Homo sapiens dark-skinned?

Although we've no direct evidence of their skin colour, it's almost certain that very first humans who came out of the forests to live in the plains of Africa a million or so years ago were in fact pale skinned. read more

Depicting early humans as identical to some modern dark-skinned people could cause offense too. [after question altered from early humans (last 2 million years) to Homo sapiens (~100,000 years)] Anatomically modern humans evolved in Africa then spread and interbred. read more

This is several million years after after the time estimated for the last common human-chimpanzee ancestor, but at least 1 million years before the emergence of Homo Sapiens. This suggests that the earliest species in Homo may have had lighter skin, but that the advantageous genes for dark skin were universal by the time of the first true humans. read more