Blond hair was a way to catch scarce males?


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2058688,00.html


The Sunday Times February 26, 2006



Cavegirls were first blondes to have fun
Roger Dobson and Abul Taher




THE modern gentleman may prefer blondes. But new research has found
that it was cavemen who were the first to be lured by flaxen locks.
According to the study, north European women evolved blonde hair and
blue eyes at the end of the Ice Age to make them stand out from their
rivals at a time of fierce competition for scarce males.





The study argues that blond hair originated in the region because of
food shortages 10,000-11,000 years ago. Until then, humans had the dark
brown hair and dark eyes that still dominate in the rest of the world.
Almost the only sustenance in northern Europe came from roaming herds
of mammoths, reindeer, bison and horses. Finding them required long,
arduous hunting trips in which numerous males died, leading to a high
ratio of surviving women to men.

Lighter hair colours, which started as rare mutations, became popular
for breeding and numbers increased dramatically, according to the
research, published under the aegis of the University of St Andrews.

"Human hair and eye colour are unusually diverse in northern and
eastern Europe (and their) origin over a short span of evolutionary
time indicates some kind of selection," says the study by Peter
Frost, a Canadian anthropologist. Frost adds that the high death rate
among male hunters "increased the pressures of sexual selection on
early European women, one possible outcome being an unusual complex of
colour traits."

Frost's theory, to be published this week in Evolution and Human
Behavior, the academic journal, was supported by Professor John
Manning, a specialist in evolutionary psychology at the University of
Central Lancashire. "Hair and eye colour tend to be uniform in many
parts of the world, but in Europe there is a welter of variants," he
said. "The mate choice explanation now being put forward is, in my
mind, close to being correct."

Frost's theory is also backed up by a separate scientific analysis of
north European genes carried out at three Japanese universities, which
has isolated the date of the genetic mutation that resulted in blond
hair to about 11,000 years ago.

The hair colour gene MC1R has at least seven variants in Europe and the
continent has an unusually wide range of hair and eye shades. In the
rest of the world, dark hair and eyes are overwhelmingly dominant.

Just how such variety emerged over such a short period of time in one
part of the world has long been a mystery. According to the new
research, if the changes had occurred by the usual processes of
evolution, they would have taken about 850,000 years. But modern
humans, emigrating from Africa, reached Europe only 35,000-40,000 years
ago.

Instead, Frost attributes the rapid evolution to how they gathered
food. In Africa there was less dependence on animals and women were
able to collect fruit for themselves. In Europe, by contrast, food
gathering was almost exclusively a male hunter's preserve. The
retreating ice sheets left behind a landscape of fertile soil with
plenty of grass and moss for herbivorous animals to eat, but few plants
edible for humans. Women therefore took on jobs such as building
shelters and making clothes while the men went on hunting trips, where
the death rate was high.

The increase in competition for males led to rapid change as women
struggled to evolve the most alluring qualities. Frost believes his
theory is supported by studies which show blonde hair is an indicator
for high oestrogen levels in women.

Jilly Cooper, 69, the author, described how in her blonde youth she had
"certainly got more glances. I remember when I went to Majorca when I
was 20, my bum was sore from getting pinched".

However, Jodie Kidd, 27, the blonde model, disagrees with the theory:
"I don't think being blonde makes you more ripe for sexual
activity. It's much more to do with personality than what you look
like. Beauty is much deeper than the colour of your hair."

Film star blondes such as Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, Sharon Stone
and Scarlett Johansson are held up as ideals of feminine allure.
However, the future of the blonde is uncertain.

A study by the World Health Organisation found that natural blonds are
likely to be extinct within 200 years because there are too few people
carrying the blond gene. According to the WHO study, the last natural
blond is likely to be born in Finland during 2202.

.

Quantcast