Which country/area did the mutation that causes blue eyes happen?

Question

Also if you know where the blonde hair gene comes from that would be great, as i have both of these things and i'm curious :-)

Answer 1

The blue eye gene started in Turkey. They believe that everyone with blue eyes all came from that one person.

Answer 2

Lighter hair colors occur naturally in Europeans, and as rare mutation in other ethnicities. In certain European populations, the occurrence of blond hair is very frequent. The hair color gene MC1R has at least seven variants in Europe and the continent has an unusually wide range of hair and eye shades. Based on recent genetic information carried out at three Japanese universities, the date of the genetic mutation that resulted in blond hair in Europe has been isolated to about 11,000 years ago during the last Ice Age. Before then, Europeans mostly had darker hair and eyes, which is predominant in the rest of the world.

There is no consensus, but many theories, as to why certain populations in Europe had a high incidences of blond hair. Some say that if the changes had occurred by natural selection, they would have taken about 850,000 years, but modern humans, emigrating from Africa, reached Europe only 35,000-40,000 years ago.

Other theories suggest a different form of selection: that early men simply found blond hair more attractive. Canadian anthropologist Peter Frost, under the aegis of University of St Andrews, published a study in March 2006 in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior that says blond hair evolved very quickly at the end of the last Ice Age by means of sexual selection. According to the study, the appearance of blond hair and blue eyes in some northern European women made them stand out from their rivals at a time of fierce competition for males made scarce due to long, arduous hunting trips; this hypothesis argues that women with blond hair posed an alternative that helped them mate and thus increased the number of blonds.

Another reason men may have preferred blonde women is that light hair color is a marker of youth - since many Caucasian children have blond hair but it darkens as they mature, blonde girls or women would appear younger and therefore, more fertile.

A theory propounded in The History and Geography of Human Genes (1994), says blond hair became predominant in Europe in about 3000 BC, in the area now known as Lithuania, among the recently arrived Proto-Indo-European settlers, and the trait spread quickly through sexual selection into Scandinavia. As above, the theory assumes that men found women with blond hair more attractive.

Blue eyes: scientists have concluded that the mutation may have arisen in a single individual around the Black Sea region 6,000-10,000 years ago, perhaps suggesting that all people with true blue eyes are more closely related.

Answer 3

I'm afraid thats impossible to say for certain, since humanity has been around for much longer than recorded history.

Certain areas have been recorded to have more of a certain hair colour or eye colour, but that doesn't neccessarily mean it originated there, it may simply have been found more attractive in that area so the future offspring had a higher prevalence of those traits.

I do know for certain that blonde hair, and blue eyes are a mutation which can be classed as an evolution. This doesn't mean its better than brown eyes and brown hair, they can both have their advantages to those who bear the trait.

There is no way to trace the first instance of blonde hair, or blue eyes without inventing a time machine. Maybe one day we will know the answer to this question :)

Answer 4

I'm no mutant!