WHY WE LOST OUR BODY HAIR:

The appearance of a homo erectus, predecessor of the actual homo sapiens, 500,000 years ago, was pretty different than what a man is today.

They had their body almost completely covered with thicker, denser and longer hair than ours.

It is precisely in this period, after the Australopithecines and Homo habilis, when the biological change about body hair reduction is emphasized; although, it had been occurring slowly from a million years ago.

This prehistoric age matches with the discovery and domestication of fire and the first major human migration, which leads to the use of clothing, made of animal skins, as a shelter for cold weather, when they migrated to frostbitten areas.

Charles Darwin used to say that hair loss was an evolutionary advantage. Less amount of hair reduced the possibility of parasites and helped to be healthier and cleaner. It also favored the body's breath when migrated to higher altitudes with less oxygen.

The development of black skin is associated with the loss of body hair, as a defense to high temperatures. Segregating this type of skin melanin, ultraviolet sun rays are filtered and more skin lubricant is produced, preventing dryness and burning.

This was always the most accepted theory: that when exposed to high temperature of the African savannah, the best response of the organism was a dark skin with melanin and hair reduction.