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From the assumptions about Norsemen having beards, you can assume that the ones who lived in areas where you find red hair genes dominant would, consequently, have had red beards. From 27 to 29 August redheads from around the world will be gathering again in Tilburg for Redhead Days, an annual international event that celebrates red hair. And can you pass red hair on to your children even if you do not have red hair yourself?
Prejudice and discrimination against redheads
According to historical records, there are more redheads in the Volga region in Russia than anywhere else in the world. The men around this region have been described to have the most red hair in the rest of the world. All of these red-haired tribes match the genetic makeup of the current inhabitants of the lands they occupied. Scotland, Wales and Ireland respectively- the British Celtic nations- all having the high level of red gene carriers and manifestations. On mainland Europe, Brittany, the border between France and Belgium, Switzerland, and Jutland – the ancestral lands of the Gaulish and Germanic tribes- also carry high levels of the red-haired gene.
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The study – which also sheds light on blondes and brunettes – is the largest genetic study of hair colour to date. Blue eye colour is a recessive trait, which means both parents must carry the gene for the child to be born with it. As previously mentioned, ginger hair occurs naturally in an average of just two percent of the world’s population, while only 17 percent of humans have blue eyes.
Were most redheads Vikings?
What is immediately apparent to genetic genealogists is that the map of red hair correlates with the frequency of haplogroup R1b in northern and western Europe. It doesn't really correlate with the percentage of R1b in southern Europe, for the simple reason that red hair is more visible among people carrying various other genes involved in light skin and hair pigmentation. Mediterranean people have considerably darker pigmentations (higher eumelanin), especially as far as hair is considered, giving the red hair alleles little opportunity to express themselves. The reddish tinge is always concealed by black hair, and rarely visible in dark brown hair. Rufosity being recessive, it can easily stay hidden if the alleles are too dispersed in the gene pool, and that the chances of both parents carrying an allele becomes too low.
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However, a majority of the pheomelanin-rich population live in the northern hemisphere, where the sun is not as harsh as in the equatorial region. Because the population does not face the wrath of the burning rays of the sun, their body doesn’t require a large amount of eumelanin pigment. When the MC1R gene is activated, the cell will have more MC1 receptors, which will cause your melanocytes to produce more eumelanin and give you a darker hair color. Now researchers at the University of Edinburgh have looked at DNA from almost 350,000 people who had taken part in the UK Biobank study. The study, which was led by The Roslin Institute and the MRC Human Genetics Unit, focused on people of European descent because they have greater variation in hair colour.
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What the Study Found
The other theory is that the prevalence of red hair is directly proportional to the areas that the Vikings mapped as their trade route. In whichever case, it seems that the Vikings are mainly responsible for the widespread number of red haired individuals around these two countries in particular. The fact of the matter is that when it comes to association with red hair the Irish and the Scottish will always come to mind. Even though the global population of red haired individuals dwindles at below 2%, these countries have the highest concentration of red haired people globally.
The Ginger Gene
This gene is located on chromosome 16 and is responsible for producing the pigment eumelanin. When a person has two mutated versions of this gene, they are unable to produce eumelanin and instead produce the pigment pheomelanin, which is what gives their hair its distinctive red hue. Reddish-brown (auburn) hair is also found among some Polynesians, and is especially common in some tribes and family groups.
The 45th parallel, a natural boundary for red hair?
The MC1R gene found on chromosome 16 plays a critical role in the process of melanin synthesis by melanocytes. The MC1R gene provides instruction for the formation of a protein known as the melanocortin 1 receptor, which are present on the surface of melanocytes. Even as far back as Neolithic times, the 45th parallel roughly divided the Mediterranean Cardium Pottery culture from the Central European Linear Pottery culture. Superstar actress Nicole Kidman is perhaps Australia’s best known redhead, while British model Alexina Graham became the first ever ginger beauty to walk the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in 2018. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story "The Red-Headed League" (1891) involves a man who is asked to become a member of a mysterious group of red-headed people.
There are more than seventy known variants of the MC1R gene that can influence your hair colour. This means that you will only get a red hair colour if two ‘alleles’ of the gene are present that suppress eumelanin production. It is therefore possible for two people, neither of whom has red hair but who both carry this gene, to unexpectedly have a child with red hair.
23andMe’s Health + Ancestry Service can tell you more about the genetic roots of your hair color. People who have certain variants in this gene are more likely to have red hair because they have higher levels of pheomelanin. The Italic branch crossed the Alps around 1300 BCE and settled across most of the peninsula, but especially in Central Italy (Umbrians, Latins, Oscans). It is likely that the original Italics had just as much red hair as the Celts and Germans, but lost them progressively as they intermarried with their dark-haired neighbours, like the Etruscans. The subsequent Gaulish Celtic settlements in northern Italy increased the rufosity in areas that had priorly been non-Indo-European (Ligurian, Etruscan, Rhaetic) and therefore dark-haired.
The thing is, there were already red haired individuals way before the Vikings era. Scientific evidence points towards red haired people around the period that Celtic and Germanic tribes thrived. One can argue that the genetic disposition for red hair was already among the population. The Classical suspicion of redheads probably derived from the fact red hair was so rare in the Mediterranean regions.
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