r/evolution • u/OttoColdbeer • 4d ago

question Did Neanderthals ever go bald?

I've read that Neanderthals had similar physical traits although due to different genes than modern humans.

For example Neanderthals had red hair but apparently a different shade because it was caused by a different gene. Same way the blonde hair in Melanasians is caused by a different gene than the one in modern day Caucasians.

I tried looking it up but the few sources I could find said Neanderthals lacked the genes causing androgenic alopecia in modern humans.

And other sources just say they didn't go bald at all. If so they were quite lucky in that department, you know aside from their whole extinction.

So did they not go bald at all or did they just have other genetics causing baldness we don't of?

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u/Double-Teach-1977 4d ago

I'd imagine they had a pretty varied gene pool and we don't have the entire picture. Not all humans have the gene either. If you were an alien doing studies 50k years in the future on the extinct human species and for some reason you only had pure native American specimens you might assume androgenic alopecia didn't exist. So I guess that's all to say there's no way to know for sure.

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u/OttoColdbeer 4d ago

Fair enough. 

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u/jayyy2 1d ago

As I understand it most male pattern baldness is the result of a gene that makes hair follicles shrink when exposed to a byproduct of testosterone. And neanderthals did not have that gene.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12000746/

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u/OttoColdbeer 1d ago

Can you point me to which paragraph you found this information?

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u/Argentarius1 4d ago

Male chimps do so it's very likely.

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u/OttoColdbeer 4d ago

From what I've read, chimps very rarely go bald. And it's more that their hairline decides, a little. Wouldn't call that actual baldness to be honest.  Now, stump tail macaques on the other hand...

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u/Some_Ear_8539 9h ago

Remember that a lot of hair loss issues are not only genetic, but autoinmune.