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DanoFromCO wrote:

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I'd have to agree with Wulff and Smooth that the assertion that clothing caused less body hair is incorrect. I'd say it is the other way around...as we gradually lost body hair and migrated to cooler climates (away from the tropics) we learned to wear skins and clothing to survive. Those not "smart" enough to do so died off...that's where evolution fits in.

As for the bigger question, why do some races have better beards than others? Was there really an evolutionary aspect to it? It would be interesting to see if this has changed in the last, say, 5000 years - a relatively short amount of time. Or it it happened much earlier, like when the early human ancestors migrated to Europe and either killed off or bred with the Neanderthals. Perhaps the humans that migrated to the Orient, for whatever reason, tended to be the ones that had less facial hair...maybe they stuck together, or maybe it was diet in that region of the world that over the centuries inhibited facial hair growth.

The other interesting aspect to all this is that I heard recently that puberty used to come much later just 100 years or so ago! Apparently the average age of puberty was 17 in the 19th century whereas it is 12 now. I can't remember the source, though, but that is astonishing to me.

If true, and we assume that beards typically mature a few years after puberty, then average guys would be well into their 20s before their beards really filled in. Thus, I suspect most young adults married right around puberty WELL BEFORE their beards matured. Beard maturity, therefore, would not provide a visual signal that a guy is ready to marry, though the beginnings of a beard might...

It's hard to say as our societies evolved from the more polygamous trial/communal nature to the monogamous if this had any effect at all. I imagine that the Elder with a big beard MIGHT sire more children in the polygamous society if beards were considered attractive to those females in the tribe at the time. But in the monogamous societies that most of the world has lived in over the last several centuries, if not millennia, would beard growth have ANY significant effect on selection of mates? I doubt it since most of the couplings probably started at a younger age than the beards did.

Great post!!

I always thought large west eurasian beards were a byproduct of intermixing with the Neanderthals, like red hair may be- seeing as how the "ginger" gene first appeared in them in the HOMO SAPIENS lineage. It is great for me to see anyone open to the multiregional hypothesis of human evolution, especially as this hypothesis is gradually confirmed by science as archaic mutations appear in modern populations.