Answers to Everyday Questions : What is the point of eyebrows ?

As humans, just like any animal, evolved over time, nature selected what qualities we should keep and what things we no longer needed. As they rest of the think hair on our bodies disappeared, the eyebrows stayed. Why was that? What important role do eyebrows play?

Although we no longer need eyebrows to survive (as a matter of fact some people even get their real ones removed and have permanent ones tattooed on,) we may have needed them at some point. The most accepted conclusion for eyebrows is that they were needed to keep moisture out of our eyes many years ago. Although we have other solutions for that now, there was a time when other solutions just were not options.

For example, when animal and man roamed the Earth side by side, hunting each other, eyebrows probably played an important role during this pursuit. If a human was running after or running from another animal, they would have likely broke a sweat. The eyebrows then allowed the sweat to roll down the side of the face or caught the moisture in its furry grasp, instead of dropping directly into the eye. If the eyebrows were not there, the sweat could have rolled into the human’s eyes and stung them or made them blurry. This would have put them in danger of being caught or losing their dinner.

Of course, although not vital to life, eyebrows do serve a useful purpose for us today. They help us convey what we say to others through our facial expressions and help accentuate out features. We can even send an entire message to someone by lifting one of our eyebrows. In this way, they are still an important part of our life and, we are so used to seeing them, not having them would likely be an unattractive feature to us today.