What exactly would the evolutionary advantage be for having long hair on your head?

Alright... the hair on the rest of your body only grows to a certain length, but the hair on your head grows until you cut it. What's the deal? Wouldn't it be a disadvantage, coming from a wild animal perspective?

 

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Correct me if I am wrong but if I recall correctly, hair and nails are ways for your body to get rid of waste. They are made of mainly dead cells.

 

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actully your wrong

they ARE made of dead cells but they are not waist products

nails are remanats of our claws to kill with

hair might be like pecock feathers or it might be insulation

either way im glad my hair is long

 

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That big-arse human brain requires a lot of blood passing through it. Lots of blood passing through the scalp, which is affected greatly by outside temperature. Hair helps moderate temperature extremes. In summer it keeps the sun off a bit, and in winter it keeps the heat in.

 

The scalp is so highly vascular, up to 50% of the body heat you lose goes out via the scalp, especially if you are bald, or have a very thin thatch of hair (e.g. a baby).

 

Maybe baldness in women was evolutionarily undesirable because hair is useful for babies to cling to?

 

That's not correct, as a matter of fact. Hair on the head has a cycle and does stop growing and fall out in a mosaic pattern. The duration of the growth cycle varies between individuals. Women who can grow their hair very long have a growth cycle around 7 years, maybe longer in some cases. But most women have a shorter scalp hair cycle and find, if they try to do the 'waist length hair' thing, that they cannot grow their hair that long no matter how hard they try. I tried and could not get my hair to grow beyond my shoulder blades.

 

kmguru, the women who can grow their hair past their waists, in one case I know of almost to the ankles, are the ones with very long hair cycles of 7 years or more.

Those of us who can't grow it anywhere near that long have much shorter hair cycles.

I hope that's clear now.