Cavegirls were first blondes to have fun--origins of blonde hair

[sainte-marthe]

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.


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

[Felix the Cat]

Interesting article,

The study argues that blond hair originated in the region because of food shortages 10,000-11,000 years ago.

So it's a post-glaciation adaptation, I've wondered about this before

Related thread (http://www.thephora.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2340)

Do we know why this mutation clusters around the Baltic coast?

[Pablo Escobar]

According to the study, north European

Actually, at the time, Northern Europe was an uninhabitable glacier.

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.

So, the article says WOMEN developed blonde hair?
What about the MEN?


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.

This is only partially true.

Even then, it's also true for a lot of other folks
who didn't develop blondism. They too went hunting, and women outnumbered men by a lot up to medieval times.

IIRC the Roman empire had a 4:1 ratio in favour of women.


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.

Well, yes. That's sexual selection. Bravo!



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.

Around 11.000 years ago, modern Northern Europeans' ancestors lived in the Balkans and Central Europe.


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.

This makes sense.


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.

This doesn't really.


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”.


As any other visibly foreign person would.

It has more to do with the fact a Majorcan would get stabbed
if he pinched his neighbour's daughter.


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.”

Totally unrelated to the article.

[Felix the Cat]

'Race FAQ' (http://www.sciforums.com/archive/index.php/t-14458.html) (1997)

"Question: How is it that in some human populations homozygous recessive genes have replaced the homozygous dominant genes of their ancestors for outward physical appearance?

As far back as 1950 geneticist William Boyd listed about 20 gene loci for outward appearance traits that are homozygous recessive for typical Asians and/or Europeans but are homozygous dominant for Africans. These recessive genes include the 6 to 8 gene loci for light skin color, the genes for blue eyes, gray eyes, blond hair, red hair, thin lips, straight hair, sacral spot, lack of facial hair (beards), narrow nose shape, and some others.

Famed academicians J.B.S. Haldane (who published in 1924), R.A. Fisher, and S. Wright all helped to develop the mathematical approaches to population genetics in regard to selection and proved (among many other things) that it would require 1,001,741 generations (i.e. about 25,000,000 years for humans) for a dominant autosomal gene pair to be entirely replaced naturally by a new recessive gene pair in an ideal population (going from a gene frequency of 0.01% to 99.99%) if the improved selective advantage were 1 percent greater per generation (which is a fairly large advantage) for the new recessive genetic trait over the old dominant genetic trait, but the Euro/Asian line of humans split from the African line approximately a mere 100,000 years ago, and we must account for about 20 different recessive gene loci for appearance, not just one.

The mechanisms of genetic drift (including founder effect), migration, and gene flow have all been invoked to explain the rapid genetic change observed in small populations of early humans, but as an explanation for the observed changes in outward human racial appearance such reasoning is strained. The outward appearances of Euro/Asians seem to have very small, if any, actual advantages in regard to natural selection over that specified by the replaced African genes, but clearly some extraordinarily strong selective mechanism has been at work.

A partial solution to the problem of how the various races of man came to appear outwardly as they do now was proposed in 1931 by scientist and writer Sir Arthur Keith who pointed out that tribal isolation and the human predisposition for conflict, competition, and warfare against those who appear to be different from our own tribe (i.e. "instinctive prejudice") was most likely the cause, in that driving away or killing people with certain genes very quickly reduces the frequency of those genes in a population, but by the post-war 1950's such thinking had become politically unacceptable, as shown by Boyd's firm rejection of the idea -although he at least took the time to discuss the hypothesis at length in his famous 1950 book "Genetics and the Races of Man", which in many ways the model for L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza's "History and Geography of Human Genes" (1994). We may dislike Robert Ardrey's famous assertion that we are all "killer apes" at heart (African Genesis, 1961), and the solid support for that thesis supplied by Konrad Lorenz and Raymond Dart, but everything in our horrifying history of continual warfare from the Great Wall of China to the Holocaust attests to our inherently xenophobic nature.

The racial appearance puzzle is avoided in most evolution classes today by invoking Loomis' 1967 hypothesis that light skin color among Europeans and Asians exists because these populations could not get enough sunlight to stimulate sufficient vitamin D production in their skin in those terribly dark Northern continents of Europe and Asia. Although this theory has never been well supported by factual inquiry, it has been repeated so often and it is so politically comfortable that it has become enshrined as an indisputable fact in the minds of many casual students of evolution. In reality numerous valid objections have been raised to the vitamin D theory of light skin color:


It cannot satisfactorily explain the evolution of the many other appearance genes that are also autosomal recessives (such as for blue eyes, and blond hair, and several others) that seemingly have no significant natural selective advantage,


a small patch of the darkest African skin can produce more than the required amount of vitamin D from only a few minutes of exposure to faint sunlight each day (indeed, the Lapps live in arctic latitudes and are rather dark skinned), and in any event most of the vast land mass of Europe and Asia has been found to be quite sunny,


of the 6 to 8 gene pairs for skin color all of the genes for light skin color are recessive to those for dark skin color; for all the dominant genes for dark skin color to be replaced by recessive genes for light skin color would require an intensely strong selection advantage operating for many millions of years, but man left Africa only 100,000 years ago and the natural selective pressure for light skin over dark would be small at best and therefore too slowly acting to fit the time frame,


light skin color is a probably actually natural selective disadvantage at any latitude because sunlight causes skin cancer and may result in severe debilitating sunburn for those with white skin,


`white skin color has a strong peak only in Northern Europe and not in other parts of the world' (this is a quote by Cavalli-Sforza in his book "History and Geography of Human Genes" mentioned above as he discusses the problem with the vitamin D explanation for skin color invoking world pigmentation intensity maps drawn by Carleton Coon in 1954). Cavalli-Sforza also suggests the very light skin color of Northern Europeans may have appeared as recently as 5,000 years ago, a time so recent that no natural selection process could possibly account for it.


What about "sexual selection"? Often it has been proposed as the reason that racial differences exist, not to mention blue eyed blond women, but such white skinned women are regarded as hideous and repulsive by New Guinea tribesmen. Beauty is a relative concept and it is indeed a racist attitude to assume one type of human is inherently more beautiful than another, rather our individual concepts of human sexual attractiveness appear to be synonymous with people that appear to be similar to our set of internalized norms as imprinted in our childhood years- i.e. we generally find those not of our "tribe" less attractive than those people who more closely resemble us (there are always exceptions of course- some degree outbreeding is surely advantageous at times for a tribe of humans).

Darwin, in his 1871 book "The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex" asserted that racial appearance differentiation in humans was due to what he called "sexual selection", but a close reading of that book shows that for humans he regarded conflict and warfare (including genocide) as part of "sexual selection", a term he actually used for anything other than "natural selection", the other of his two selection mechanisms. Hence Sir Keith's 1931 idea on how the different races came to appear the way they do today really originated with Darwin, and Darwin's intuitive genius has been proven to be correct from what we now know about the genetics controlling human appearance.

Three other interesting factors affecting human appearance must be considered: 1) climate, 2) neoteny, and 3) intelligence. All of these factors must be considered in conjunction with tribal conflict in order to fully understand how we came to appear the way we do, and it must be understood that these factors are overlayed on a tapestry of genetic drift, founder effect, migration, gene flow, and geographic isolation.


Climate surely has played a factor in the initial development of several appearance traits, although it cannot account for strong selective pressure required for such rapid gene frequency change. For example, a narrow nose, epicanthal eye fold, straight hair, and thin lips are surely advantageous in a cold climate to warm the air we breathe, protect eyes form freezing winds, keep heads warm, and to prevent frozen lips, but blue eyes are a disadvantage in a dazzlingly sunny snow covered terrain, the long ears of Europeans are more prone to frostbite than are the short compact ears of most Africans, and lack of facial hair in the people of frigid Northeast Asia is certainly impractical, hence climate fails to explain neither the origin nor the rapid spread of some human appearance features.


Neoteny has been written about by Kollman (inventor of the term), Bolk, Portmann, and Gould. Louis Bolk best stated the case in 1926 with this famous line: "man is a primate fetus that has become sexually mature". The human fetal growth rate period actually lasts about 22 months - at birth we are simply an extrauterine fetus at the 9 month stage with our brain still growing at the rapid fetal rate, thus did nature solve the birth canal bottleneck problem for producing big brained humans. A series of increasingly neotenic mutations probably account for mechanism of the amazing 4 fold increase in hominid brain size over the past 3 million years, and our outward appearance owes much to this phenomenon (i.e. all adult humans look like a huge primate fetus that can walk). It was once acceptable to point out in textbooks that neoteny related traits in the races of man seem to differ, with Negroids (Africans) being the least neotenic, Mongoloids (Asians) being the most neotenic, and Caucasoids (Europeans) being not quite as neotenic as Asians for several traits, including the important brain to body size ratio and in having less body hair, but more neotenic in regard to pigmentation of hair, skin, and eyes. The empirical support for this distinction is quite compelling, but it has become a somewhat sensitive subject.


Intelligence is surely the most controversial factor that has influenced the different appearance of the human races, but any discussion of the reasons why it has had such an influence is a another very sensitive undertaking. As isolated tribes of humans over the past 200,000 years naturally attempted to expand they inevitably came into conflict with neighboring tribes. For humans and other hominids the most valuable genetic selective trait in such conflicts was probably a higher level of intelligence, for that is what generally determined the winner, although many other factors (such as disease resistance) played a role as well. An advantage in intelligence often allowed an ancient tribe to achieve a higher level of population density, better strategy and tactics for warfare and hunting, and greater levels of altruism and social adhesion within their group. Although, as mentioned above, neoteny related mutations were the genetic mechanism for the amazing 4 fold increase in hominid brain size over the past 3 million years, the value of intelligence for survival and tribal success was the driving evolutionary selection force and continued to be so until the recent advent of civilization.


Preserving the intellectual advantage of a successfully expanding tribe is a difficult problem however, because interbreeding with a tribe a lesser intelligence dilutes and decreases the genetic advantage of the advantged expanding tribe, thus eventually ending the expansion. The solutions for this problem have always ranged from genocide to ethnic cleansing, but being able to visually identify the genetic heritage of offspring to exclude offspring resulting from intertribal matings was always of great value to a genetically advantaged expanding tribe, allowing for continued expansion until the tribe were to encounter a more genetically advantaged tribe (i.e., generally meaning more intelligent) or some substantial geographical barrier. That is why autosomal recessive genes for outward physical appearance have an advantage over dominant genes in a genetically advantaged tribe: the introduction of a non-tribal dominant gene can be easily visually detected in offspring thus enabling exclusion methods to operate and therefore keeping the tribes' genetic lineage from being diluted.

Example: for a child to have blue eyes, the recessive genes for blue eyes must be inherited from both parents. A child with darker eyes would immediately be recognized as non-tribal in a blue eyed tribe. The child could possibly be exiled (and in some cases could be killed) by an ancient blue eyed expanding tribe, thus preserving the genetic integrity of the tribe. This example may seem totally absurd in today's civilized world, but human racial evolution goes back at least 200,000 years, long before civilized human behavior developed. If eye color discrimination seem too far fetched however, consider skin color. As recently as 100 years ago the birth of a dark skinned child to a white woman typically resulted in ostracism by her displeased family, and sometimes infanticide was committed. The other recessive appearance traits of present day Europeans and Asians were most likely at one time also used in a similar manner for tribal identification in order to account for their modern day geographic gene frequency distributions.

Eventually multiple traits (i.e. white skin blue eyed blondes for one example, although there are many others) were used for tribal identification in ever increasing rounds of conflict among tribes. Perhaps the most efficient trait for tribal identification is skin color, in that a polygenic system (6 to 8 gene pairs are involved) of recessive genes for light skin enables the visual identification of mixed tribe offspring having only a small amount of dark skinned dominant genetic racial ancestry - octoroons are thus revealed by the skin color system whereas they would not be detected very often in a single gene system such as eye color. The uniform of skin color was no doubt used by the warriors of conflicting tribes in much the same way as modern day military uniforms are used to distinguish opposing armies - then as now individuals wearing the uniform of the defeated group could be identified and dealt with accordingly by the victors.

As an overall consequence, tribes or races that have successfully expanded and displaced other tribes or races are likely to be characterized both by 1) genes for appearance that are homozygous recessive to the corresponding genes of the displaced tribe or race and 2) by the trait that gave the successful tribe the winning advantage over the displaced tribe. In the past 200,000 years of tribal conflict among humans (the past 3,000,000 years for all hominids) the trait conferring the winning advantage has most often been a higher level of intelligence, but at times it has also been disease resistance, aggressiveness, numerical advantage, technological superiority, and a variety of other differences. Nevertheless the role of intelligence in this matter should not be underestimated; the fossil record of dramatic hominid cranial capacity increase supports the point quite convincingly, as do differences in the average IQs of present day racial groups.

Geographical limits eventually stopped the expansions of the Europeans and the Asians (along with overall stalemate at their points of mutual contact), and the Sahara Desert protected the remaining Africans from further encroachment by the Euro/Asians, thus resulting in the distribution of the three major races as found in modern times.

Lastly, the coming of civilization and the reduction of the significance of geographical barriers have made the world a vast breeding pool into which the entire genetic variance of humanity is supposedly slowly blending - for all 100,000 gene loci, not just those coding for our appearance. All of us are genetic blends to some extent, and our varied appearances demonstrate the point well.

And that, very briefly and admittedly incompletely, is why the human races look the way they do today."

So in other words, our ancestors will and love shines out though our skin and eyes.

[sainte-marthe]

Maybe Frost will join the phora and clarify the particulars. Otherwise, someone will have to join the Evolution and Human Behavior Society and find the full article.

Should we send them some money?

[ironweed]

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.

This article seems to imply that blonde hair and blue eyes are somehow wrapped up in one nice genetic package. Is there any truth to this? I'm under the impression that there is not, but I know next to nothing about this sort of thing. I certainly seem to run into a lot of people with dark hair and blue eyes, though I can't remember the last time I saw a natural blond with dark eyes.

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.

This is actually a hoax. The WHO has never done any such study. Very strange that they're repeating an error that's been debunked for going on four years. Kind of makes me raise my eyebrows about the rest of the article. I expect better from the Times of London, somehow. :nono:


Hair-raising story about blonds cut short
October 03 2002
By Lawrence Altman
New York

Apparently it fell into the category "too good to check".

Last Friday, several British newspapers reported the World Health Organisation had found in a study that blonds would become extinct within 200 years, because blondness was caused by a recessive gene that was dying out.

The reports were repeated on Friday by anchors for the ABC News program Good Morning America, and on Saturday by CNN.

There was only one problem, the health organisation said on Tuesday it had never reported blonds would become extinct and it had never done a study on the subject. "WHO has no knowledge of how these news reports originated," the organisation, a United Nations agency based in Geneva, announced, "but would like to stress that we have no opinion of the future existence of blonds."

Continued (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/10/02/1033538673583.html)

[Nordicist]

This is actually a hoax. The WHO has never done any such study. Very strange that they're repeating an error that's been debunked for going on four years. Kind of makes me raise my eyebrows about the rest of the article. I expect better from the Times of London, somehow.

That is correct. This alleged study is a hoax.

[Professor John Frink]

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.


Nope, that was a canard.

Clarification of erroneous news reports indicating WHO genetic research on hair colour

1 October 2002 -- In response to recent media reports citing an alleged World Health Organization (WHO) study predicting the extinction of the naturally blonde hair gene, WHO wishes to clarify that it has never conducted research on this subject. Nor, to the best of its knowledge, has WHO issued a report predicting that ‘natural blondes are likely to be extinct by 2202’. WHO has no knowledge of how these news reports originated but would like to stress that we have no opinion on the future existence of blondes.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/statement05/en/

[Watzy]

According to the WHO study, the last natural blond is likely to be born in Finland during 2202.

I don't see what could possibly stop the blond people to reproduce in rural areas. Immigrants (Negroes and Arabs) aren't peasant and fishermen sorts, they do not inhabit small cities and villages, but the large industrial areas.

[Niko Bellic]

I think there would have to be a HUGE disparity between men and women for the natural selection to take place the way the study is argueing. What's to stop a caveman from :hump: every woman in sight, regardless of hair color?

[Janus]

What's to stop a caveman from :hump: every woman in sight, regardless of hair color?A sense of taste? :)

[tricknologist]

What's to stop a caveman from :hump: every woman in sight, regardless of hair color?

The same thing that stops everyone else; availability, his wife, her husband or father and what not.

[Starr]

though I can't remember the last time I saw a natural blond with dark eyes.

This does seem to be pretty rare. You see it a little more often in children. I was very blond as a child with dark eyes.

[tricknologist]

though I can't remember the last time I saw a natural blond with dark eyes.

My grandma has blond hair and brown eyes, it's not as common as dark hair and blue eyes though.

[Billy Score]

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.”

ROFl. The funniest thing is in context, they pass this off as a serious counterargument in the article. You know how much cavemen gave a shit about their cave wife's pseudopersonality:rolleyes:

i too (as surprising as it may sound) had blondish straight hair as a child. then god realized i might turn out looking somewhat decent so he cursed me with jewy curly hair and turned the color semitic brown. I hate my life.

[sugartits]

ROFl. The funniest thing is in context, they pass this off as a serious counterargument in the article. You know how much cavemen gave a shit about their cave wife's pseudopersonality:rolleyes:

i too (as surprising as it may sound) had blondish straight hair as a child. then god realized i might turn out looking somewhat decent so he cursed me with jewy curly hair and turned the color semitic brown. I hate my life.

You should be thankful he made you less attractive to cavemen.

[Jonathan]

I don't understand the article completely. It implies that Blonde hair developed because of competition for males, this also implies that blonde hair is necessarily more attractive than dark hair. Are men supposed to be genetically predispossed to go for blonde hair or something? I find that hard to believe.

P.S. Does this hold true for women as well? What of red hair?

P.P.S. Great job Cowcube.

[Kodos]

Are men supposed to be genetically predispossed to go for blonde hair or something? I find that hard to believe.


You do...

[brigadier Biggles]

the article doesnt explain why european hair is mostly fine, especially when it is light, while niggers hair is coarse, maybe it has something to do with the climate/amount of rainful, diet (which it does mention) :confused:...

i had lovely golden curly locks until about 8, once when we all went to an animal park a donkey took a bite out of my hair, because he must of thought it was hay :(.

anyway, alot of european kids are born with blonde hair, it means nothing.

[Heimdall]

I don't understand the article completely. It implies that Blonde hair developed because of competition for males, this also implies that blonde hair is necessarily more attractive than dark hair. Are men supposed to be genetically predispossed to go for blonde hair or something? I find that hard to believe..

Blonde hair reflects more light than other colors and is therefore more noticeable. It's not necessarily attraction, but it does give a fair number of blondes a leg up in being the first one to catch a man's eye. This is true especially against women of the same body type/figure.

[Starr]

My hair has been every color at one time or another. And my looks have stayed fairly similar(no major weight gains, style of dress the same,etc.) and I would say the most attention I ever got from men was as a redhead.

[brigadier Biggles]

Blonde hair reflects more light than other colors and is therefore more noticeable. It's not necessarily attraction, but it does give a fair number of blondes a leg up in being the first one to catch a man's eye. This is true especially against women of the same body type/figure.

yep that would make sense seeing how popular dying your hair and highlights are these days with women from all races.

[Billy Score]

I notice that my facial hair is multicolored (red, blond, black, brown, i've got all shades) if i don't shave for awhile.

And yes, why are redheads ... redheaded? Is it the same reason?

[Faustian Dreams]

Blonde hair reflects more light than other colors and is therefore more noticeable. It's not necessarily attraction, but it does give a fair number of blondes a leg up...

*Cough* ...It sure does. :o This off-color humor leads me to a question: what is with the stereotype of blondes being more promiscuous than women with any other hair color? In my opinion, the shining beauty and grace of the idealized blonde woman has been bastardized and defiled somewhere along the way in the annals of time. (Probably within the past century and the rise of mass media--a reversal of "Aryan" ideals by the misled predominantly Jewish industry, as a reaction to the Second World War?)

[Donny the Punk]

*Cough* ...It sure does. :o This off-color humor leads me to a question: what is with the stereotype of blondes being more promiscuous than women with any other hair color? In my opinion, the shining beauty and grace of the idealized blonde woman has been bastardized and defiled somewhere along the way in the annals of time. (Probably within the past century and the rise of mass media--a reversal of "Aryan" ideals by the misled predominantly Jewish industry, as a reaction to the Second World War?)
Sure, along with black helicopters and Jewish X-rays from space. :rofl: In a post wherein you admit that blondes get more male attention than other women, you wonder why it's thought they're promiscuous? Are you really, really dumb? Holey moley.

[Ahknaton]

This is actually a hoax. The WHO has never done any such study. Very strange that they're repeating an error that's been debunked for going on four years. Kind of makes me raise my eyebrows about the rest of the article. I expect better from the Times of London, somehow. :nono:
I notice that VNN has this bogus study up on their main page now: http://www.govnn.com

[Jonathan]

One other thing:
If we accept the arguement that people are attracted to those of their own kind, then wouldn't the first blondes have been pariahs? So much for the "it made them more attractive" line?

[Pablo Escobar]

then wouldn't the first blondes have been pariahs?

Actually, I think blondism appeared earlier than the article would like to admit.
The children were probably even then, lighter pigmented than adults, so it wouldn't appear extremely strange to them if some grew up being light-pigmented.

Even though I think humans are "racist" by nature ( meaning they recognize difference ), there's no reason to think the ancients would end everything in violence. Their way of life was probably much more in accordance with nature,
and therefore more reasonable than today. The best male would win the female,
regardless of his hair-colour. Groups would from time to time accept new males or females. Young females would sometimes leave their group and find another.