An Age of Magic

Where did you get those big blue eyes?

February 1, 2008 on 11:17 am | In Culture |

We blue-eyed babes are often asked that aren’t we? Well, actually it has just been revealed that blue eyes are a mutation that occurred about 10 000 years ago in one ancestor who lived near the Black Sea.

A gene mutation in this individual is responsible for all the blue-eyed people in the world today. The gene OCA2 does not “make” blue in the iris; rather, it turns off the mechanism which produces brown melanin pigment. Originally, we all had brown eyes. And most people still do. The finding that a rare mutation, probably dispersed in the rapid wave of colonisation that followed the end of the last ice age, highlights one of the great mysteries of human evolution: the oddness of Europeans.

Those from Europe and the Near-East have many characteristics that set them apart from the rest of the human race. Not only are Europeans far more likely to have blue eyes (95 per cent in some Scandinavian countries), they also have a far greater range of skin tones and hair colour than any other ethnic grouping.

It is only in Europe that you will find large numbers of blondes and redheads, brunettes, pale skins and olive skins, blue-eyed and green-eyed people living together in the same communities. Across the rest of the world people are almost uniformly darkhaired and dark-eyed. Why this should be remains unknown, and in particular how such mutations can have arisen so quickly since Europe was colonised by Africans just a few tens of thousands of years ago.

One theory is that Europe’s cold weather and dark skies played a part. Another suggestion is that the strange skin, eye and hair colours seen in Europe are down to ancient interbreeding with the Neanderthals, who died out about 25,000 years ago.

 So now you know; when someone next asks you where you got your blue eyes from  just say ‘ oh about 8000 years ago from the Black Sea ‘.

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