AG300
Feb 28th, 2006, 07:31 PM
From todays Toronto Star
Cave blondes did have more fun
They stood out in crowd, study says
Colouring led to evolutionary gain
Feb. 28, 2006. 07:37 AM
JOHN GODDARD
STAFF REPORTER
Blondes evolved by having more fun than brunettes in the European wastelands after the Ice Age, says a Canadian anthropologist.
Quebec City academic Peter Frost, writing in the current issue of Evolution and Human Behaviour, says northern European women far outnumbered their male counterparts 10,000 to 11,000 years ago and those men preferred blue-eyed blondes.
Their unions, presumably, produced even more blue-eyed blondes.
"When an individual is faced with potential mates of equal value, it will tend to select the one that `stands out from the crowd,'" Frost writes.
"Many evolutionary biologists dislike the concept of rare-colour advantage," the scholar admits. But the phenomenon, he says, has been explicitly studied in fruit flies and guppies, and has been reported in ladybugs, red flour beetles, leafroller moths and a parasitic wasp.
Frost, an academic affiliated with Laval University, was not available for comment yesterday.
In his study, Frost argues that a proliferation of blond hair and blue eyes in post Ice-Age northern Europe was linked to food shortages.
On the northern tundra, men had to travel far to hunt game. Many hunters died of starvation, exposure and accidents.
"Women had to compete for a limited supply of potential husbands," he writes. Any woman who could stand out from her rivals increased her chances for a husband, he says.
A survey conducted last year in London, England, came to a much different conclusion about men's preferences in female hair colour.
"Interestingly, we found ... men were more likely than not to have a preference for women's hair that was the same colour as their mother's," wrote psychology professor Peter Ayton of City University in London, among other conclusions.
The study, he said yesterday, , was sponsored by a shampoo company.
I find this article quite intresting and somewhat true, especially the part where men were more likery not to have a preferenace for women's hair that was the same colour as their mothers... what are your thoughts?... :)
Cave blondes did have more fun
They stood out in crowd, study says
Colouring led to evolutionary gain
Feb. 28, 2006. 07:37 AM
JOHN GODDARD
STAFF REPORTER
Blondes evolved by having more fun than brunettes in the European wastelands after the Ice Age, says a Canadian anthropologist.
Quebec City academic Peter Frost, writing in the current issue of Evolution and Human Behaviour, says northern European women far outnumbered their male counterparts 10,000 to 11,000 years ago and those men preferred blue-eyed blondes.
Their unions, presumably, produced even more blue-eyed blondes.
"When an individual is faced with potential mates of equal value, it will tend to select the one that `stands out from the crowd,'" Frost writes.
"Many evolutionary biologists dislike the concept of rare-colour advantage," the scholar admits. But the phenomenon, he says, has been explicitly studied in fruit flies and guppies, and has been reported in ladybugs, red flour beetles, leafroller moths and a parasitic wasp.
Frost, an academic affiliated with Laval University, was not available for comment yesterday.
In his study, Frost argues that a proliferation of blond hair and blue eyes in post Ice-Age northern Europe was linked to food shortages.
On the northern tundra, men had to travel far to hunt game. Many hunters died of starvation, exposure and accidents.
"Women had to compete for a limited supply of potential husbands," he writes. Any woman who could stand out from her rivals increased her chances for a husband, he says.
A survey conducted last year in London, England, came to a much different conclusion about men's preferences in female hair colour.
"Interestingly, we found ... men were more likely than not to have a preference for women's hair that was the same colour as their mother's," wrote psychology professor Peter Ayton of City University in London, among other conclusions.
The study, he said yesterday, , was sponsored by a shampoo company.
I find this article quite intresting and somewhat true, especially the part where men were more likery not to have a preferenace for women's hair that was the same colour as their mothers... what are your thoughts?... :)