--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <richard.wordingham@...>
> To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 5:08 PM
> Subject: [tied] Re: Of Aryanism
>
>
>
> > Are any of the plausible or popular urheimats consistent with the
> > first PIE speakers often having blond hair and blue eyes? This
needs
> > some thought, because of climate changes.
>
> What's the evidence that they _often_ had them? Both blue eyes and
blond hair are recessive traits (skin pigmentation is a more complex
affair), and even if they were valued as the ideal of beauty in some
IE commmunities (there's some mythological evidence for that), their
relative _rarity_ may have been the reason why. My wife has told me
that attached earlobes (also recessive) are regarded as a desirable
feature among models and actors. Also, the fact that recessive traits
occur more frequently in inbreeding groups might have led to the
association of light hair and eye pigmentation with "aristocratic"
beauty. This doesn't prove anything about the prevalent pigmentation
of the PIE speekers, except that the recessive alleles very likely
existed in the ancestral population.
>
> Piotr
Some time back I saw a nature program on TV. It seems that male lions
who are well fed have large dark manes. If their diet is insufficient
their mane turns blond or falls off completely and other males treat
them as females. They even tested the theory with two stuffed male
lions with different color mane: Sure enough females sniffed the dark
ones.
Now I noticed that this if applied to humans fits an un-PC, but
unfortunately empirical outlook of the world: females prefer dark
males over blond or bald ones.
So what would be the advantage of a population going all blond? Less
aggression, more cooperation; the things you need to survive in a
harsh climate. This also fits in with various stereotypes.
I hasten to admit that, unlike my two brothers, I have brown hair and
brown eyes, heritage of my mormor's farmor (yes, on my mother's
side!), the woman with black hair and a big nose, who we assume in
the family was a 'tater' (Sw. tattare), the Scandinavian equivalent
of the British 'travellers'. No one knows where they came from.
Torsten