Blond
hair is mostly seen in people of Northern European ancestry around the world,
but the Melanesians of the Solomon Islands have become famous throughout the
years for their stunning physical features: gorgeous dark complexion and
dazzling blond hair.
100,000
years ago, Melanesians migrated to a sub-region of Oceania extending from New
Guinea Island in the South Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea. This region includes
Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, and New Caledonia, as well as
most of the islands northeast of Australia.
Dark skin
and blond hair are found in about 5 to 10% of the Solomon Islands' indigenous
Melanesians. Blond hair is more frequent in youngsters since hair darkens as a
person grows older regardless of ethnicity. However, the stunning trait has
drawn hundreds of researchers to the islands in an attempt to figure out what
is causing the odd hair color.
There are
a few theories... Until the truth was revealed, that is.
Scientists
have ascribed the Melanesians' blond color to a possible cross-breeding with
Europeans who were involved with the islands in previous centuries. Others
suggested that the sun's bleaching rays or high salt levels in the water were
to blame. Another notion blamed it on the heavy consumption of fish, which is a
staple meal for islanders.
Melanesians
are mostly Christian people that speak over 1000 languages including Creole and
other Pidgin dialects. People's language variances have been used as a basis
for research.
Sean
Myles, a Canadian geneticist and assistant professor at the Nova Scotia
Agricultural College made a revolutionary discovery. [Two] In 2004, he went to
Melanesia for the first time to look into the region's hair gene and language
peculiarities.
“They have these very dark skin and
bright blond hair. It was mind-blowing,” he adds. “As a geneticist on the beach
watching the kids playing, you count up the frequency of kids with blond hair,
and say, ‘Wow, it’s 5 to 10 percent.’ That’s not very far off from the
proportion of blond-haired people in Europe.”
Myles
returned to Melanesia in 2009 with genetic epidemiologist Professor Nicholas
Timpson of the University of Bristol. They collected hair and saliva samples
from 1209 Melanesians over the course of many months. Eimear Kenny, a
postdoctoral scholar at Stanford's Bustamante laboratory evaluated the samples
in September 2010.
They
revealed that 26% of Melanesians in the Solomon Islands contained two copies of
a mutant recessive gene more common in youngsters after comparing 43 blond
islanders with 42 brown-haired islanders. The people have a naturally occurring
TYRP1 gene which contributes to their blond hair and dark skin. It was also
discovered to be distinct from the gene that creates blue eyes in
African-Americans.
They
looked at the genomes of 52 people from all across the world and discovered
that the mutation is unique to Melanesians and not seen in Europeans. The
Melanesians evolved blond hair on their own, not as a result of cross-breeding
with native whites, a revelation Kenny described as "unexpected and
exciting."
Dark
pearls on the skin, white gold on the hair...
As per
Bustamante’s laboratory, more research is needed to learn more about the
Melanesian people's genetic information. They are looking for financial
assistance to continue their studies.
“If we’re going to be designing the next
generation of medical treatments using genetic information and we don’t have a
really broad spectrum of populations included, you could disproportionately
benefit some populations and harm others. For instance, the genetics of skin
pigmentation might be different there too — not the same as in Europe or
Africa, or India. We just don’t know.”
Melanesians are quiet people that have
had little to no contact with the outside world.
Source of the information: Family Life Goals
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