Caveman blondes also had more fun

[Celebration]

http://www.physorg.com/news11214.html

Researchers say the tradition of blondes having more fun goes back to the end of the Ice Age.A report from the University of St. Andrews, published this week in Evolution and Human Behavior, says north European women evolved blond hair and blue eyes to make them stand out from their rivals at a time of fierce competition for scarce males, the Sunday Times of London reported.

Researchers say it appears blond hair originated in the region because of food shortages 10,000-11,000 years ago. Many men died in long, arduous hunting trips for food, leading to a high ratio of surviving women to men. Lighter hair colors, which started as rare mutations, became popular for breeding, the study said.

An analysis of north European genes carried out at three Japanese universities has isolated the date of the genetic mutation that resulted in blond hair to about 11,000 years ago.

[MADem]

1. Well, dye her hair and give her a mastedon haunch!!!!!

Who'd a thunk it???

[aquart]

2. How very androcentric.

I love idiotic theories. In a time of scarce males, one male would simply mate with twenty women, not pick one and say "tough luck, brunettes." Unless male behavior has radically altered over time?

Also, the earliest human grouping was probably (based on our surviving mythology) along the lines of lion or macaque units. One or two males controlling a large, related family of females. Young, related males would leave the pack to go elsewhere. New males would come into the area and fight the reigning male for control leading to large genetic variance.

Here's another theory, the first blue-eyed blond was a guy, and the other guys teased him so he built up his muscles and fought them all to a standstill and took over the pride or family or whatever and had lots of handsome blond sons who were prized because of Daddy's reputation. Which they had to keep proving over and over, of course. But the reputation of the blond guys was so good, women might even sneak out to mate with the bachelors (like female chimps are known to do, despite having an alpha male). Since it was impossible to hide the paternity of the blond kid, blonds had to be ready to defend the health and well-being of their offspring and learned to fight however they had to.......or they left to form separate exile groups and so propagated even more swiftly.

The Japanese study ignores decades of work proving that the FEMALE chooses, not the male.

[aquart]

3. Also, the Japanese seem to be clinging to Man the Mighty Hunter

which is also a pretty exploded theory. What we actually have is a lot of women with nets, hunting cute little bunnies. (Gnawed bone piles show lots of bunny bones.) One of the earliest appurtenances of The Goddess is her net. Now we know what it was for.

So the women were staying home and eating pretty well.

[depakid]

5. LOL- bravo

Most of these socio-biology (or- I guess in this case, socio-paloanthropology) theories are entertaining, but beyond fun over a few brews with friends, I don't give them a lot of credence.

[Warpy]

4. What makes you think cave folks were monogamous?

This is just another silly theory by a silly man who wants to explain why he is personally a sucker for bottle blondes.

A surviving male would have been in heaven in a hunter/gatherer society. Any woman who wanted offspring would have had only one choice, and what male would turn that down? Competiton wouldn't have been a problem unless they had formal marriage, and there is no evidence they did. The word "father" is a relatively new invention, derived from the word for owner. Before that, the primary male relative was "mother's brother."

Then again, considering the lack of marital baggage in such nomadic bands, maybe the MALES evolved blonde hair in order to stand out to WOMEN. With the women free to choose any male in the band to sire her offspring, maybe the MEN had to do all the work, for once.

[Odin2005]

6. I call nonsense, humans are serially monogamous.

The father probably staying with the mother until weaning (which in hunter-gatherer groups is usually 4 years). If we were polygamous, us men would be a lot larger than we are. There was a huge reduction in sexual dimorphism during the transition from Australopithicus to Homo that could only be explained by a shift from harems to monogamous pairs. Also, human newborns are much more helpless than ape newborns because they continue a fetal rate of brain growth for a year after birth, which means mom uses more time taking care of baby and less time looking for food. Under that kind of situation there would be strong selection presure which would reward males that helped their offspring and mate, (the male would also have a vested intrest in making sure the offspring were his, and that may be the origin of the sexual double standard). We do cheat, of course, but that doesn't make us any less monogamous than monogamous birds that often cheat.

[benburch]

8. You've obviously never been to a swinger's club... nt

[Coexist]

16. don't forget to throw hidden ovuation into the mix

along with swollen breasts.

[Odin2005]

17. I don't think the "hidden ovilation" idea is on the right track.

The last common ancestor between us and chimps probably didn't have swollen bottoms during estrus. People too easily assume the last common ancestor had a chimp-like social behavior and sexual behavior (the ones that go even farther with pushing a bonobo-like social systems seem to all have an ideological axes to grind) when the large size difference between male and female australopithicines indicate a much more gorrila-like social system, and gorrilas don't have the swollen bottoms that chimps do.

[bananas]

7. "blondes to be extinct within 200 years"

A study by the World Health Organization found that natural blondes are likely to be extinct within 200 years because there are too few people carrying the blond gene, the newspaper said.

[Nikia]

9. I don't believe it

There are still lots of naturual blondes in my area, an area populated by mostly people of Northern European descent. Despite the world becoming more integrated, some people still seem to like marrying people who look like them.

[mainegreen]

13. genes are not cray-pas! ;)

[entanglement]

14. A well known hoax, it's been debunked.

http://johnhawks.net/weblog/topics/urban_legends/blonde_extinction_myth_2006.html

But the more interesting thing was the way so many media outlets picked up on it and circulated it.

[yellowcanine]

15. Blondes will never be extinct as long as we have competent chemists.

"Just sayin'"

[mzteris]

10. it depends on where the marker was found . . .

I can't find any reference to the exact research.

[macllyr]

11. Selection for fair skin is linked to vitamin D synthesis

The set of genes that control the colour of the skin (type and abundance of melanin pigments) also influence the colour of eyes and hair. Light skin colour is an advantage when living in northern latitudes because more UV-A rays reach the deepest layers of the skin, which is where active forms of vitamin D (D2) are synthesized from inactive precursors. Low levels of vitamin D2 impair absorption of calcium and phosphorus and causes rickets (rachitis) in children. Thus, there is an evident selective advantage to have genes causing fair skin/eyes/hair if you live for generations in a low-insolation environment. A vitamin D supplementation is given to children with pigmented skins living in Europe (at least in France, which is where I live...)

There is no need to seek hypothetical explanations based on the hypothetical behaviour of ancestral European populations... Note also that the breeding habits we inherited from our prehuman ancestors was probably somewhere between that of gorilla (harem-like) and pygmy chimpanzee / bonobos (no harem and no stable couples), because the body size of men is only 8% (in average) larger than that of women (indicating of some competition between men), and at the same time, humans can form stable, long-term couples.

Note that genes causing low-levels of melanin are recessive to genes associated to dark skin/hair/eyes...

Mac L'lyr

[Avalux]

12. OK. What about blonde men???

:shrug: