Only about 1 to 2 percent of people on the planet have natural red hair. That makes us one of the rarest hair colors on Earth. So where do we come from?
It's all in one gene
Red hair is mostly caused by variants of the MC1R gene. To be a redhead you usually need to inherit a variant from both parents. With only one copy you're a "carrier": maybe some freckles, maybe a red beard, but brown or blond hair. That's why two dark-haired parents can suddenly have a ginger baby.
Scotland and Ireland, the red capitals
Around 13 percent of Scots have red hair, and genetic testing by the ScotlandsDNA project estimated that about 40 percent carry at least one red hair variant. The hotspot is south-east Scotland, around Edinburgh. Ireland is close behind, with around 10 percent redheads.
Why there?
Nobody knows for sure. The most popular hypothesis is about sunlight: in cloudy northern places, pale skin helps the body make vitamin D with very little sun, so there was no pressure against it. It's a theory, not a proven fact.
Even Neanderthals had it
In 2007, a study published in Science analyzed ancient DNA and found that some Neanderthals carried an MC1R variant that likely gave them red hair. It's a different variant from ours, so we didn't inherit it from them, but red hair appeared in human history more than once.
Rare, but not alone
Since 2005, the Netherlands hosts Redhead Days, the biggest redhead gathering in the world. It started by accident, when Dutch painter Bart Rouwenhorst advertised for 15 red-haired models and received about 150 replies. Today it brings thousands of natural redheads from more than 80 countries to Tilburg every August.
Rare isn't a burden. It's just loud.
Sources
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