Why in my city almost 50% of the people are blond or carrot top?

Question

I can't explain it: I live in a small city near Naples, Italy!

Answer 1

if youre saying thats alot of people then congrats! youre diffrent!!!!!

Answer 2

Well it's either the workings of Genetic Drift or some have been using hair coloring.

The lighter hair colors are recessive and should therefore not represent half the population.  Genetic Drift can account for variance within a small population that's fairly isolated.  But to be honest, I think the hair coloring answer is more likely.

Answer 3

Population mixing (gene pool mixing) can have a big effect on population genotype.

Check out this article.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jht...

It shows how a small % Chinese people, have naturally green eyes, Roman noses, and blondish hair. These people are still part of the Asian gene pool but are descended from the ancient Northwestern European peoples and ancient

Chinese people.

Here is another article too.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_ama...

There are lots of pics on another site. I'll post the site L8er.

Answer 4

Dying your hair blond is the fashion trend for the past 50 years

Answer 5

If you have ever seen Napoli Milionaria, a film by Eduardo De Filippo, you'd understand - apparently following the second world war, there was a huge boom in non brunette people, as a direct result of American military placements in Italy during the war - seemed they lika de ladies, and left their mark on the Italian baby boom. Theres seemingly been an American Naval Support base in Naples since the end of the war.

hope this helps

Answer 6

The Celts and German (Lombards) tribes did conquer Rome and occupied territory.  Maybe their offspring are still represented in the population.

Answer 7

Sounds like inbreeding to me.

Answer 8

Blondes and carrot tops have more fun?

Answer 9

its the latest fashion

Answer 10

lol... "inbreeding"...

It sounds like blond and red are very popular boxed hair colors around those parts, i guess.

Edit:

check your email. i sent you a good long explanation.

Answer 11

blame my dad it was the war years?

Answer 12

It depends on the isolation of your city, and the lack of residents who have darker coloring. I'm curious about the color of the eyes of your population.  Any brown eyes, any green eyes, blue eyes.  Isolated pockets of population who reproduce with each other, double the genetic influence for the coloring you describe.  When I visited Italy, I saw beautiful blond Italians, with green or blue eyes, fair skined Italians with dark hair and blue eyes, dark skined Italians with dark hair, and flashing white teeth.  The national  population of Italy has the same amount of gene mixing as most nations.

Answer 13

Bleach and Henna.

Answer 14

I thought Vikings had added their genes but can't remember the source.  I found one in Wiki that shows viking settlements in southern Italy.

Answer 15

dyed hair you mean as i would have thought the majority of people from southern Italy would have dark hair, maybe a similar story to the Romania football team in the 1994 Football world cup where the whole team dyed their hair blonde

Answer 16

well, you mention the Normans. if they settled in any kind of large numbers this could account for it--the Norse often had fair or  reddish hair. Also, Normans tended rather to keep themselves apart from the people they had conquered so that might have kept this strain of colouring more obvious.

Alternatively maybe these people have some celtic ancestry,although that generally appears more often in the northern and mountain regions of Italy.

Answer 17

scusa ma dove vivi.vicino napoli?idem.

dove sono così???mai sentito...XD

Answer 18

Many recessive genes and not a lot of change in the population....small gene pool.

Answer 19

Because 1) that's what you notice.. and 2) you don't have the proper & actual percentage.. I'd bet you.  (To be honest, even in Denmark or Finland, you can't find 50% of people with blonde or red hair.. sorry.) What's "almost 50%" to you.. 20%? 15%?... ciao

Answer 20

Naples was once a city state and it may be that foreigners were not allowed to live within the city and so they lived outside it.

It could once have been an Eastern European enclave hence the blond hair. Some other answerer's may be on the right lines and . it may be an idea to look into the towns history and see who was stationed there for any length of time during WW ll but I think it may go back to the Napoleonic wars of the 18th & 19th century or even earlier

Answer 21

Could be that a lot of Scottish soldiers were in the area in the Second World War and left their genes behind.........

My dad was there, incidentally!

Answer 22

50% = blond/carrot top.

so we can assume that perhaps:

25% = blond

and

25% = carrot top

then we can assume

25% = brown hair

25% = black hair

so whats the problem.

Answer 23

The Scottish visited there once.

I'm serious, the red headed Celts invaded Italy in the past, a lot of DNA was, er, deposited there.

Answer 24

oi im a red head, apparently most people have a little red in their hair and blondes sometimes turn to brown.

Answer 25

human cloning has secretly succeeded?

Answer 26

Interesting.