Natural blond hair is surprisingly common in the Solomon Islands, a nation in the south-western Pacific where most people have dark skin. Researchers estimate that somewhere around 5 to 10 per cent of people there, mostly children, have bright blond hair. For a long time, outsiders assumed it came from European sailors or traders, or from sun and sea bleaching. A genetic study published in the journal Science in 2012 showed that none of that is the explanation: Melanesian blond hair is caused by a single change in a gene called TYRP1, and that variant arose in the Pacific on its own. It is not the gene behind blond hair in Europe.
The photographs on this page show children and families from the islands. Below them you will find what the research found, why it matters beyond hair colour, and which popular claims do not hold up.
Where the Solomon Islands are
The Solomon Islands lie east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu, made up of hundreds of islands spread across the Pacific. The country became independent from Britain in 1978 and remains a member of the Commonwealth; its capital, Honiara, is on the island of Guadalcanal. Most people live in rural villages, and the population is largely Christian.
The islands are part of Melanesia, a name coined by the French explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville in 1832 to describe the island region that stretches from New Guinea east to Fiji, including Vanuatu and New Caledonia. People have lived in the Solomons for tens of thousands of years, long before any European contact, and the region is one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse on Earth.
Children in traditional shell and bead ornaments, wearing headbands and necklaces made for a ceremony or dance. Several of them have blond or reddish-blond hair, while others are dark-haired, which reflects how the trait varies even within one family or village.
A smiling girl with long, wavy golden hair. Portraits like this one circulated widely online and helped make the Solomon Islands' blond children famous, though the photographer is rarely credited when the image is shared.
What the 2012 study found
The research grew out of a beach visit. Sean Myles, then a graduate student and now a geneticist at Dalhousie University's Faculty of Agriculture in Nova Scotia, went to the Solomon Islands in 2004 and noticed how many children had blond hair, informally estimating it at five to ten per cent. He returned in 2009 with a colleague, travelling from village to village with the permission of local chiefs, and collected samples and measurements from more than 1,000 islanders.
The team, which included Eimear Kenny and Carlos Bustamante at Stanford University, compared the DNA of 43 blond islanders with 42 dark-haired islanders, many of them from the island of Malaita. They expected the trait to be shaped by many genes. Instead, one signal stood out on chromosome 9, in the gene TYRP1, which helps produce the pigment melanin.
The key points of the study, published in Science in May 2012:
- A single change in one amino acid of the TYRP1 protein explains most of the blond hair seen in the islands.
- The trait is recessive: a child needs to inherit the variant from both parents to be blond.
- About 26 per cent of Solomon Islanders carry the variant, but it has not been found outside Oceania.
- The European form of blond hair is linked to different genetic changes, including one that affects the KITLG gene. Blondness evolved separately in the two regions.
Kenny summed up the surprise to NBC News: "We did not expect to find a single gene."
Three children standing by a wooden post, two of them with sandy curls and one with darker hair. Under the recessive inheritance described by the 2012 study, siblings can easily differ: whether a child is blond depends on getting a copy of the variant from each parent.
A family group: a young father holding a blond toddler, beside a woman with a baby. Adults in the islands are much less often blond than children, because the hair colour of many carriers darkens as they grow older.
Why the hair darkens with age
As with blond children in Europe, many blond Melanesian children develop darker hair in their teens and adulthood. Pigment production changes as people grow, and hair that is pale gold at five may be light brown at twenty. That is why photo collections from the islands show so many blond children and relatively few blond adults.
Three boys proudly showing a long, silver needlefish, a reminder that fishing is part of daily life in the islands. Their hair ranges from sun-touched brown to pale blond. The image is credited to Getty Images.
The same scene of the boys with their catch. For years, fish-rich diets were offered as a reason for the islanders' blond hair; the genetic study found that diet is not the cause.
Myths the research put to rest
"It comes from European ancestry." This was the most common assumption, including among some scientists before the study. The variant is not present in Europeans, so it cannot have been brought by sailors, traders or missionaries.
"It's caused by the sun, salt water or eating fish." Sun and sea water can lighten hair a little, but they do not explain the striking, consistent blondness seen in some children and not their siblings. Genetics does.
"Melanesians are the only dark-skinned people with natural blond hair." Blond hair also appears among some Aboriginal Australian communities, especially in children. The Melanesian case is simply the best studied.
"Hair colour tells you about race or ancestry." A single trait like hair colour says very little about a person's wider ancestry. Human genetic variation does not fit neatly into a few fixed racial boxes, and this case shows how similar-looking traits can arise in completely different ways.
A group of children in ceremonial dress, with shell headbands and bead necklaces. Traditional adornment like this is still worn for festivals, church events and cultural performances across the Solomon Islands.
A girl in a white top and a toddler with fair, fluffy hair standing on grass. Pictures like this show how common the trait can be in some villages: by the 2012 estimate, roughly one in four islanders carries the blond variant, even if most carriers have dark hair.
Why this matters for science
The study is often cited as an example of why genetic research needs to look beyond people of European descent. Myles has pointed out that medical research focuses almost exclusively on populations of European origin. If the scientists had assumed that blond hair always works the European way, they would have missed a completely different mechanism.
The same applies to disease genes and drug responses. Variants that matter for health in one population may be rare or absent in another, so studying a wide range of people leads to better medicine for everyone. The researchers also stressed working with communities, which in the Solomon Islands meant seeking village chiefs' permission and explaining the study.
A child sitting in a dugout canoe on clear blue water, with a catch of shellfish or sea cucumbers beside him. Canoes are still everyday transport and fishing boats in many coastal Solomon Islands communities.
The family portrait again, showing the toddler's light hair beside his father's dark hair. Dark-haired parents can have a blond child when both carry one copy of the recessive variant, which is exactly the pattern the researchers described.
More faces from the islands
The remaining photographs show the range of hair colour and texture among children in the Solomon Islands, from pale blond curls to golden waves and darker brown.
A close-up of the smiling girl with golden curls. Her hair shows the typical Melanesian blond, which often has a slight copper or honey tone in sunlight.
A girl with tousled blond hair leaning on a wooden rail, looking straight at the camera. Light hair like hers usually darkens by adulthood, so photographs of blond teenagers are rarer than those of younger children.
Two young boys with tight, very pale curls, standing against a dark wooden wall. This image is one of the most widely shared pictures of blond Solomon Islanders, and it shows how strongly the trait can show in early childhood.
A group of small children, several with almost white-blond hair, crowded together in front of stacked timber. Five or more blond children in one group is not unusual in some villages, given how common the variant is locally.
The three children by the post, seen again. Notice how hair colour, texture and shade differ among them, a small illustration of how varied a single community can be.
Boys crowding in for the camera, with hair from dark brown to light gold. Group photos like this capture both the trait and the everyday friendliness visitors often describe in the islands.
The blond children of the Solomon Islands are not a curiosity left over from European contact, but the result of a gene variant that arose in the Pacific itself. For more on how appearance can mislead us about ancestry, read about Lucy and Maria Aylmer, twin sisters with different skin colours.
Sources: NBC News: Genetic mutation may explain mysterious blond Solomon Islanders; Dalhousie University, 3 May 2012: Blond hair to apples (Sean Myles); Discover: Case closed, blonde Melanesians understood; Blond (Wikipedia).
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