Neanderthals had red hair!
I love red hair! Titian is my favourite hue .. it must be my one quarter Celt genes that awaken my interest!
Further to my articles on Neanderthals and modern language and Neanderthals chewing gum, I have found another gem about our much maligned ancestors … about 1% had red hair!
A variant in DNA taken from Neanderthal bones acts like one associated with red hair and light skin in humans – rather like Irish redheads.
Many scientists had predicted Neanderthals would have light skin and red hair because they evolved in Europe, a colder climate than Africa and didn’t need protection from the sun.
Elaine Warburton BSc RN ACA
What was cool about this report for me was that the neanderthal didn’t have any known human mutation in its MC1R gene. In other words, its MC1R gene doesn’t work for a different reason than my son’s. This is interesting because I can remember a lot of talk a few years back about how red hair and the MC1R gene in people suggested that there was interbreeding 30,000 or so years ago. Clearly we didn’t get our red ahir from this particular Nenaderthal.
It seems as if prominent noses and blond or red hair are co-extensive with the areas where Neanderthals apparently lived; they appear nowhere else, even in very high latitudes in Asia, for example. Reasoning backward from that, I do wonder why we are so resistant to thinking that some interbreeding, even a very little bit, might have happened between Neanderthals and homo sapiens.
I don’t think there has been a lot of resistance but scientists haven’t found any evidence yet of interbreeding when they look at Neanderthal DNA (see http://www.thetech.org/genetics/news.php?id=37 and http://www.thetech.org/genetics/news.php?id=59 for the details).