ChiO wrote:Not to be left out: Welsh & English on father's side; English (Comstock), Irish (Cochran), & Scot (McCrea) on mother's. And red hair does run through my mother's side, though I had white hair until I was about 8, then it gradually turned to mouse to light brown to dark brown. It has since reverted to its natural color (no, it's not gray or even silver; it is white, honest).
MrsChiO is 100% Greek (or won't admit to any Turk). And Ken -- she went to Austin H.S. Me: I'm Hoosier (note the basketball in my hand and hayseed in my hair).
And speaking of the Irish and red hair: Slap me down, Klonny, but I thought credit was to be given to dem dere Viking invaders, dere, youbetcha.
A salient point, ChiO.
Not only is the red hair credited to those pesky Vikings, but the dark haired Irish, (often called Black Irish) are allegedly the descendants of the Spanish sailors who washed up on the shores of Eire after 24 ships of the Spanish Armada were shipwrecked by severe storms near the north and western coasts of Ireland in 1588. Exhibit A of the process of a splendid result of this trans-germination among humans in Ireland after this catastrophe is seen below:
Another factor that is said to have contributed to the unlikely event of so many redheads: malnutrition. Poor sources of protein in Ireland are allegedly one factor that may have contributed to an unusual number of carrot tops in the entire British Isles, especially Ireland (the poorest region by far).
As a person who has been a real redhead all her life, (with freckles, and no chemical enhancement yet), I've often wondered why this recessive trait has lasted this long in the human race, particularly because it makes one stand out even when you don't want to, (adolescence was hell), led to certain outcasts being known as "redheaded stepchildren" and the burning of many redheads as witches in the Middle Ages.
Btw, there was a widely circulated report from geneticists last year that concluded that red hair may be gone from the planet by the end of this century due to intermarriage. As a member of this endangered species, I was interested in a report prepared by
Sir Walter Bodmer, the Oxford geneticist studying the prevalence of red hair in Ireland, Scotland and Britain:
But why do we have such numbers in these parts of the British Isles today and not others? The answer, says Bodmer, is that red-hair genes were common among the first Britons and that populations in the archipelago’s fringes still carry their bloodline.
“Genes for red hair first appeared in human beings about 40,000 to 50,000 years ago,” agrees Rees.
These genes were then carried into the islands by the original settlers, men and women who “would have been relatively tall, with little body fat, athletic, fair-skinned and who would have had red hair”, says David Miles, of English Heritage.
Redheads therefore represent the land’s most ancient lineages. So if you want an image of how those first people appeared, don’t think of a hairy savage with a mane of thick black hair. Contemplate instead a picture of a slim, ginger-haired individual: Prince Harry, perhaps, or the actress Nicole Kidman who has Scottish and Irish descent.
Why did those early Britons have so many redheads in their midst in the first place? Is there an evolutionary advantage to having red hair in this part of the world? According to Rees, the answer may be yes.
The MC1R variants that cause red hair also have an effect on the skin. As a result, redheads do not make enough of the dark pigment melanin to protect them against the sun’s powerful ultraviolet rays. Their skin rarely tans. It just burns or freckles.
In Africa, where modern humans first evolved 150,000 years ago, this would have been fatal. In northern Europe, however, melanin-free skin could have provided an advantage because we make vitamin D in our skin when sunlight shines on it.
Dark-skinned people were protected against the African sun, but their ability to make vitamin D would have been badly affected in relatively gloomy northern Europe. This could have caused rickets, resulting in weak bones and curved legs — bad news for a hunter-gatherer. Rickets is particularly damaging for women, as it increases pelvic deformations, raising the risk of death in childbirth. So, the theory goes, we evolved white, melanin-free skin that has no dark pigment to block sunlight and cause rickets. Red hair was a side effect.
So there it is: being a redhead could mean you possess an evolutionary advantage over non-red-haired people
I always knew we were an oddity in the general population, but now I guess I can start to feel oh, so special!!
Btw, anyone who wants to take pride in their hyphenated ethnicity is fine with me.
