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Maori and Polynesian: their origin, history and culture

The Evolution of the Northern Blonde and his — Appearance in the South

The Evolution of the Northern Blonde and his
Appearance in the South

(6) It is more than likely that this blonde Caucasian was evolved in a region more dominated by winter and its snows than by summer. The blanching of the epidermis was doubtless due primarily to the reduction in vitality produced in the extremities and the outer layer by excessive cold, where tallowy or oily foods did not, as in the Esquimaux and the Fuegians, keep the liver and the adjacent pigment-forming organs abnormally large; this at least is the primary cause of the white winter plumage or fur of Arctic animals that change their coats with the season; later the selection of evironment may have aided; but, with the humans, sex-page 21ual selection must have been ultimately all-powerful, once the majority of them had taken on the blonde appearance.

(7) That so many of this type should have found their way so far south as North Africa, we may take it for granted, is due to some natural compelling cause, such as climatic change. Now, the most striking change in climate was that produced by the great ice-sheet that twice, at least, crept far southwards over Europe and twice receded. During the advance of the glaciation, Northern Europe must have been difficult for man to live in, and great migrations southwards resulted. To these are doubtless due the inter-minglings of blonde and brunette long-heads in the region of the Mediterranean, and to the last advance, perhaps, also the short-statured broad-head of North Africa being much the same as the Alpine round-head that came in from the East along the mountains of Central Europe. To the glacial stimulus advancing and receding is also doubtless owing the migratory nature of the Caucasian, whilst his early development of maritime capacity has natural causation in the island seas round which he was bred.