DNA tests demonstrated that Neanderthals possessed fair skin, and at least some subspecies had reddish hair too. Neanderthals are believed to have had blue or green eyes, as well as fair skin and light hair. Having spent 300,000 years in northern latitudes, five times longer than Homo sapiens, it is only natural that Neanderthals should have developed these adaptive traits first. https://www.eupedia.com/europe/neanderthal_facts_and_myths.shtml Homo sapiens apparently did not inherit the whole light skin, light eyes and light hair package at once, but through continuous interbreeding with various Neanderthal subspecies in Europe, the Middle East and Central over tens of thousands of years. It has been confirmed that Mesolithic (Western) Europeans had blue eyes, but dark skin and dark hair.