Scientists have found out when blondes appeared and why they are needed

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

There is an opinion that modern men prefer blondes. It was only recently that scientists discovered that cavemen had exactly the same preferences. A report from researchers at the University of St Andrews says that blonde hair and blue eyes began to appear in women in Northern Europe at the end of the Ice Age, and for a very specific reason. The results of their research were published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.

Three universities in Japan have carried out detailed studies of the genes of people in northern Europe. It was found that the genetic mutation that led to the appearance of blonde hair occurred about 11,000 years ago.

According to the Japanese report, due to food shortages some 11,000 years ago, men were increasingly forced to go on risky and long hunting expeditions. At that time, they usually hunted mammoths, bison and reindeer. Quite a few male hunters never returned from these expeditions, which led to a banal lack of partners for procreation.

It is easy to guess that the men who returned were in great demand among the women in their settlements. And when a person is faced with the fact that he needs to choose from several potential partners of "equal value", he will tend to choose the one "that stands out from the crowd." Therefore, due to the sudden change in the ratio of the number of women to men, blonde hair emerged as a genetic necessity.

Men were attracted to women with golden curls and blue eyes, so blue-eyed blondes appeared in this area, and then exactly the same children. Before that, all people had brown hair and brown eyes.

Northern Europeans today have the largest variety of hair and eye colors found on the planet. And this, according to the study's lead author, Canadian anthropologist Peter Frost, is due to the sex appeal of these traits.

So, the popularity of blondes who stood out from the crowd grew. And from a scientific point of view, this meant a high probability of reproduction. Therefore, it is not surprising that their population began to increase over several generations.

There are more than seven different shades of blonde hair found in Europe today. But how did such a big difference arise in a relatively short period of time in this geographic region. Scientists speculate that different shades of blonde hair evolved in response to food shortages in northern European regions where women could not gather food for themselves and were therefore completely dependent on male hunters.

There is a very wide variety of human hair and eye colors in northern and eastern Europe, and their appearance over a relatively short period of evolution indicates a kind of selection. Of course, we are talking about gender selection.

Therefore, the debate as to who is "better", blondes or brunettes, is clearly not new and has been going on since prehistoric times.

In 2006, researchers at City University London found that men now prefer photos of brunettes and redheads over photos of blondes.

Peter Ayton, a psychology professor at City University of London, who led the study, said dark hair may be considered a sexier symbol than blonde hair in these times. According to the study, as heterosexual relationships did not stand still and developed, men may have begun to be attracted more by intelligence (which they began to associate more with brunettes) than their primary physical attraction to fair-haired ones.

“As human society has evolved, what men expect from women has changed,” explains Professor Ayton. “They are now looking for more intense, equal partnerships, and looks play a big role. It is even possible that certain hair colors may indicate a person's experience."

This debate will soon be a thing of the past. A study by the World Health Organization predicted that natural blondes are likely to disappear over the next two centuries, as too few people carry the gene for blonde hair.