


Similarly, religious men with long hair include Paganism, the Nazarites of the Hebrew Bible ( Samson being a well-known example) and the Sikhs. For example, Buddhist monks shave their heads as part of their order of worship. Ways of life often viewed as more rigid, such as soldiering and religious discipline, frequently have explicit rules regarding hair length. īy seven to nine months, infants can tell the sexes apart based on hair length, vocal pitch, and faces. For some groups or individuals, however, short hair is the selected trait. Another possibility is that long head hair is a result of Fisherian runaway sexual selection, where long lustrous hair is a visible marker for a healthy individual. Psychological significance Īnthropologists speculate that the functional significance of long head hair may be adornment, a by-product of secondary natural selection once other androgenic/ somatic hair (body hair) had largely been lost. Malnutrition, and deficiencies in minerals and vitamins due to starvation, cause loss of hair or changes in hair color (e.g. As hair grows slowly, long hair may reveal 2–3 years of a person's health status, nutrition, age and reproductive fitness. An evolutionary biology explanation for this attraction is that hair length and quality can act as a cue to youth and health, signifying a woman's reproductive potential. Scientists also view the ability to grow very long hair as a result of sexual selection, since long and healthy hair is a sign of fertility. Relative to kinked Afro-textured hair, straight hair allows more UV light to pass to the scalp (which is essential for the production of vitamin D, that is important for bone development ). The ability to grow straight hair has been observed among Homo sapiens sub-groups in less sunny regions further away from the equator. Head hair was an exception, which was a survival trait because it provides thermal insulation of the scalp from the sun, protects against ultraviolet radiation exposure (UV), and also provides cooling (when sweat evaporates from soaked hair). Humans are believed to have lost their fur 2.5–3 million years ago as hominids when transitioning from a forest habitat to the open savanna, as an effect of natural selection, since this development made it possible to run fast and hunt animals close to the equator without getting overheated. Humans, horses, orangutans and lions are among the few species that may grow their head hair or manes very long. A woman with lower shoulderblade length hair
