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Curly hair it seems is more than just a fashion statement.
"Tightly curled hair, the team argued, helped shield our ancestor's scalps from the intense African sun - reducing the need to waste resources on sweating.
The evolution of curly hair was an adaptation to protect the head against the heat of the sun after our ancestors started walking upright.
This is the conclusion of an international team of researchers who explored how different hair types influence the heat gained when the sun shines onto a person’s scalp.
They did this by dressing a special manikin up in wigs under a lamp and measuring the rate at which it lost heat under various wind and simulated sweating conditions.
By helping to regulate body temperature, tightly curled hair would have reduced the need for our ancestors to sweat — a practice that, while cooling, uses up vital water and electrolytes.
Furthermore, the team proposes that the evolution of cooling curls freed up early humans to grow larger brains without the risk of developing conditions like heat stroke.
The study was undertaken by anthropologist Professor Nina Jablonski of the Pennsylvania State University and her colleagues.
Prof. Jablonski said: “Humans evolved in equatorial Africa — where the sun is overhead for much of the day, year in and year out.
“Here, the scalp and top of the head receive far more constant levels of intense solar radiation as heat. We wanted to understand how that affected the evolution of our hair.
“We found that tightly curled hair allowed humans to stay cool and actually conserve water.”
In their experiments, the researchers put various human hair wigs on a thermal manikin — a body-shaped model that uses electrical power to simulate body heat, and is normally used to test the functionality of protective clothing.
In this way, the team were able to assess exactly how different hair textures affect heat transfer between the environment and human skin."
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Curly hair may have given early humans a key evolutionary advantage
"Tightly curled hair, the team argued, helped shield our ancestor's scalps from the intense African sun - reducing the need to waste resources on sweating.
The evolution of curly hair was an adaptation to protect the head against the heat of the sun after our ancestors started walking upright.
This is the conclusion of an international team of researchers who explored how different hair types influence the heat gained when the sun shines onto a person’s scalp.
They did this by dressing a special manikin up in wigs under a lamp and measuring the rate at which it lost heat under various wind and simulated sweating conditions.
By helping to regulate body temperature, tightly curled hair would have reduced the need for our ancestors to sweat — a practice that, while cooling, uses up vital water and electrolytes.
Furthermore, the team proposes that the evolution of cooling curls freed up early humans to grow larger brains without the risk of developing conditions like heat stroke.
The study was undertaken by anthropologist Professor Nina Jablonski of the Pennsylvania State University and her colleagues.
Prof. Jablonski said: “Humans evolved in equatorial Africa — where the sun is overhead for much of the day, year in and year out.
“Here, the scalp and top of the head receive far more constant levels of intense solar radiation as heat. We wanted to understand how that affected the evolution of our hair.
“We found that tightly curled hair allowed humans to stay cool and actually conserve water.”
In their experiments, the researchers put various human hair wigs on a thermal manikin — a body-shaped model that uses electrical power to simulate body heat, and is normally used to test the functionality of protective clothing.
In this way, the team were able to assess exactly how different hair textures affect heat transfer between the environment and human skin."
