Oi Martin, so if we lived back then, we'd have our pick of the leftovers?
Posted on 02/26/2006 11:56:29 AM PST by wagglebee
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.
Such giddy assumptions as this "blonde" thing are at least fun on the surface. It would open the door to blonde jokes.
When a theory/opinion of what was is debunked--where does it go to die? Does it get filed somewhere, archived in the File of Abandoned Notions? In the past few weeks we've seen several "evidence would indicate that things were not as they were assumed to be" stories concerning prehistory.
What one wonders about are those who did the previous "assuming." Are they chagrined? Have they lost currency? Do they get a "attaboy"?
No, it's called "sexual selection", and in some cases is as important as natural selection for evolution to happen. It was discussed at length by Darwin.
Think of peafoul. The peahen is attracted to the showiest peacock. It can be a proxy for good health.
It always does seem to me, that the brown eggs are always tastier, just seem to have a fuller, richer flavor...
My cousin raises some sort of chickens on her farm...their eggs are a pretty blue-green, kind of like Easter eggs...she says, those eggs are tastier than both the white and brown eggs...
Having been raised as a city girl and moved out into the country, I've learned a lot about what real variety there is in the foods we can get and how wonderful that can be. But I was still shocked when I realised just how many colors eggs can come in cause all I was used to was white. I tried goose eggs once, too, and they were spectacular; they had chicken eggs all beat out.
LOL!
Like I said, you're just anti-science. You just can't help but to show it with statements like this.
(ps. And what exactly is it that I do that is so unscientific?)
The blond children among Australian aborigines have nothing to do with European settlement. The aborigines have always had blond children.
I have not always chased blondes ...there have been a few though.
Both my wives are Med looking.
The latest SI swimsuit was stellar though admittedly.
Nemcova looked nice with more meat on her bones.
Any anthropological syudy today exists to prove an already held belief.
with rare exceptions
Yeah the girls were great looking. I still wouldn't want to see my guy looking at that magazine though hehehehehe :D
Annette bought it for me...no kidding...i've gotten too old for her to fret over
i just cruised a count on the current models....about 50/50 tween auburns and monas
anyhow...i do agree that men may prefer blondes but castenas age better and have better definition
You're not old! LOL Maybe she trusts you :D
We provide warmth ;)
Why blonds were preferred>
It always amazes me how scientists can be so unaware of knowledge that is well known in other disciplines. In nutritional science (a field where woman are much more common) it is well known that fair skin more readily absorbs vitamin D. Vitamin D is formed in oils on the skin and then absorbed where it aids the growth of strong bones, teeth and a well formed pelvic girdle. Women with good pelvises bear more live young, so it stands to reason that they would multiply and men, noticing this would tend to prefer them as the potential mothers of their children. Once poeple moved into cold climates where they had to wear clothing of some sort, this ability to absorb vitamin D more easily became critically important.
Dark caucasians are found in India and dark negros are found in Africa, where the melanin in the skin prevents excessive vitamin D absorption.
Oi Martin, so if we lived back then, we'd have our pick of the leftovers?
That might suggest that fair skin is a better adaptation in those climates than dark.
Then how come there are no blonde Siberians, Eskimos, Aleuts or Inuits?
Why just in Europe?
Do you wish to advance the point that the abstraction of Science is holy and wonderful? Well, do so. "You're anti-science" goes nowhere.
Science is not finding some evidence and conjuring some plausible storyline to explain it-- until a different evidence calls for a new story. That is not science--just conjecture. You know what science is by the results it brings, by the fruits.
Cosmologists write a good tale, but it is the engineer who tests the physics and math of sending up a craft going 40Kmph over 100Mmiles into space, to flick some dust off a comet going 100Kmph. His rear is on the line. Everything he does can be tested, examined, challenged and demonstrated.
Science is reproducible. Science has to have measures which are reliable--if you are testing a chemical substance in a spectrophotometer, it must be calibrated to give a standard response from a standard sample. Science should have double blind studies to filter out wishful thinking and placebo effects.
Archeologists do things like dig up gravesites of neandertals, find some pollen and engage in playful fancy about how this was a ritualistic funeral with flowers, etc. And why not? No one can say them nay. They can say anything they want. No one can prove otherwise, only create an opposing fancy.
Good stories. Bad science.
I'd hit that like a mastodon.
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