Red-haired relatives
Better red than dead?: Image courtesy Mark RyanResearchers in Spain have determined through DNA analysis that some Neanderthals were redheaded. The flaming locks it seems are the result of a change in a specific gene called MC1R. In modern humans, mutations in the same gene result in red hair.
"We found a variant of MC1R in Neanderthals which is not present in modern humans, but which causes an effect on the hair similar to that seen in modern redheads," said Carles Lalueza-Fox, an assistant professor in genetics at the University of Barcelona. He’s also the lead author of the study that appeared in the journal Science.
Neanderthals were a stocky human species that is thought to have died out about 24,000 years ago. They ranged across much of Europe, Siberia to the east, and as far south as Israel. The variation in the Neanderthal MC1R gene is different from that found in modern humans (Homo sapiens) and seems to indicate that inter-breeding between the two species maybe didn’t happen as some scientists think.
The origins of Homo sapiens have been traced back to Africa, where darker skin and hair is prevalent as a protection against the UV rays of the tropical sun. But when Homo sapiens migrated northward into the diminished sunlight regions some 40,000 years ago, that selective pressure soon faded away - so to speak- and subsequently so did the hair and skin tones.
"It suggests there may be a propensity towards the reduction of melanin in populations away from the tropics,” said Dr. Clive Finlayson, director of Spain’s Gibraltar Museum. “If the Neanderthal and modern variants are different, it may be a good example of parallel, or convergent evolution - a similar evolutionary response to the same situation.”
Fair-skinned people may have an evolutionary advantage in temperate regions because they generate more vitamin D.
Well, that’s all well and good, but this whole Neanderthal-red hair connection is hardly news to me since a lot of my in-laws are redheads. My wife’s father was a redhead, as are four of her siblings, and each generation that followed seemed to pass on the gene, so now there are dozens and dozens of carrot-topped descendents running amok at family reunions. I suppose this new research does validate what I’ve been saying for years, but…
Maybe I better just shut up.
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