IT’S a mystery that has long baffled scientists – why so many Scots have red hair.

The answer, according to a new theory, is down to Scotland’s rotten weather – lots of rain and not much sun – and genetics.

Genetics student Emily Pritchard’s theory, detailed in Edinburgh University magazine EUSci, can be summed up as: Genetic mutation + bad weather = redheads.

An estimated one in 10 Scots – including Doctor Who’s new companion Karen Gillan, actor Ewan McGregor and late Scottish football star Billy Bremner – were born with red hair, against just one to two per cent of all Europeans. It is thought relatively new in humans, appearing only after they settled in Europe, perhaps only 20,000 years ago.

Having the fair skin common to redheads in sunny southern climes would leave people more vulnerable to skin cancer.

But when groups migrated north where summers were shorter, red hair would have been less of a problem. Having a redhead’s pale skin may even have helped when sun was lacking, as it made the body better able to produce Vitamin D. Coupled with this, suggests Ms Pritchard, 26, was the tendency for smaller tribes to form new communities. This led to “genetic bottlenecks” where rare features such as red hair could keep appearing.

In this way the trait could have become common to the northern-dwelling Celts, predecessors of the Scots and Irish, who also have more than the usual share of redheads.

Ms Pritchard, a PhD student at the Human Genetics Unit at Edinburgh’s Western General Hospital, stressed her theory “was speculation rather than scientific study”.

id be feeling hard done by if i was ewan mcgregor and i got called ginger.


i see the 3 people they name are the ONLY famous scots who are ginger.

ive also only seen about 5 properly ginger people in my lifetime.

they must lurk outside glasgow.