Our eyebrows are one of the most expressive, identifying, non verbal forms of communication. They can be scrunched when ones angry, or have one of them go up if they are wondering about something. Today, people pluck, trim, and thread their eyebrows for a better physical appearance, but the real question is, why do we have them in the first place?
The answer is because of evolution and the natural loss of body hair over time due to natural selection., but our eyebrows remained. The real main purpose of them is for protection of our eyes, just like how the purpose of the hair on our head is to protect the scalp. If you think about it, if you are on a run with sweat dripping down your forehead, or caught in a rainstorm, the arch of our eyebrows keep the sweat or rain out of our eyes and instead, go down the sides of our face, allowing us to see clearly. Also, although sweat is natural and comes from our bodies, the salt in it irritates the eyes, which would be extremely uncomfortable if our eyes got irritated every time we sweat, and would make doing basic daily activities nearly impossible.
Some researchers think that if evolution didn’t play out as it did, and humans ended up not having eyebrows, we would have had another form of protection such as an extremely large, shelf-like forehead, or extra long eyelashes.
I always thought eyebrows were just for looks. Think about it, we would look weird without eyebrows. It is clear that we can live without them because some people shave them off but I was unaware that they serve any purpose whatsoever.
It’s an interesting thought to believe that in a few centuries, humans could evolve into a species without eyebrows. They are not useful to us, and therefore, could possibly be a rare existence in the world. It is clear that people can live without the use of their eyebrows because some people even shave them off and get fake ones tattood on.
It is interesting because I would never have thought why we have eyebrows. I was unaware that they have a physical purpose. I would be curious to see if humans could ever evolve without them.