Melanesians are the only natural black blondes on the planet, and their pictures are breathtaking!

Melanesians, who live mostly east of Papua New Guinea, have the darkest skin outside of Africa. They also have blonde hair. The subject has been a mystery to many people and scientists for a long time now.

Blond hair has long been associated with Caucasians, however, the Melanesians of the Solomon Islands are one of the rare populations with blonde hair outside of Europe.

These unique Melanesians are black island people from the South Pacific who moved thousands of years ago, long before enslaved Africans arrived in the Americas.

In 1832, Jules Dumont d'Urville developed the word "Melannesia" to define an ethnic and geographical grouping of islands distinct from Polynesia and Micronesia.

There were a half-dozen languages and cultures spoken by Melanesians when Europeans first came to the area 2,000 years ago. Scientists now think that this was the result of changes that had taken place over that time.

The indigenous Melanesian people, such as the Asmat tribe, practiced cannibalism, headhunting, kidnapping, and slavery until recently.

When it comes to dark complexions and blond hair, the Melanesian people of the Solomon Islands are of particular interest. They are part of the British Commonwealth and are in the South Pacific, between Papua and Vanuatu, just north of Australia. The Solomon Islands are a self-contained nation.

It doesn't matter how dark the native Melanesian people on the islands are; between 5% and 10% of them have hair that looks like it's been dyed.

There are numerous hypotheses as to how these people gained their blond hair. Some speculate that the islands were formed due to sun and salt whitening, a high fish diet, or a genetic legacy of mixed-breeding with Americans and Europeans.

Sean Myles, a geneticist from Canada's Nova Scotia Agricultural College, performed a genetic analysis on saliva and hair samples from 1209 Melanesian Solomon Island natives. He determined that the blondes possessed two copies of a mutant gene present in 26 per cent of the island's population after comparing 43 blond islanders and 42 brown islanders. The Melanesian people have a native TYRP1 gene, partly responsible for blond hair and melanin and differ from Caucasians in that it is not present in their genes.

It's a recessive gene that affects youngsters more than adults, with the hair darkening as the individual grows older.

This backs up the claims that black Africans were the first humans and that all other races came from them.

Melanesia now includes over 1,000 languages, with pidgins and creole languages emerging from centuries of trade and cultural exchange before European contact. The main religion is

Christianity and there are a lot of missionaries in the area. Some people still believe in various spirits that live in the forests, mountains, and swamps.

The tropical region of Melanesia, like the rest of the world, has had to deal with societal issues such as alcoholism, crime, and other significant health diseases such as malaria and AIDS, particularly in Papua New Guinea.

Despite these obstacles, many people regard the region, with its gorgeous islands, as a paradise with an exciting history and culture and the world's happiest and friendliest people.