The above post is not complete. It is the most comprehensive of its type, but a few facts have been left out.
Here are the additional pieces I have saved for Part 2:
In Asia, red hair can be found among some peoples of Afghan, Arab, Iranian, Mongolian, Turkic, Miao and Hmong descent.
Ancient human remains with red and reddish-brown hair have been discovered in various parts of Asia including the Tarim mummies of Xinjiang, China. Several preserved samples of human hair have been obtained from an Iron Age cemetery in Khakassia, South Siberia. Many of the hair samples appear red in color, and one skull from the cemetery had a preserved red moustache.
For several centuries, the Tarim basin was ruled by the Xiongnu, the Han Dynasty, the Tibetan Empire and the Tang Dynasty. From the 8th century AD, the Uyghurs – speakers of a Turkic language – settled in the region and founded the Kingdom of Qocho that ruled the Tarim Basin. The peoples of the Tarim city-states intermixed with the Uyghurs, whose Old Uyghur language spread through the region. The Tocharian languages are believed to have become extinct during the 9th century.
In the Kizil Caves appear portraits of Royal families, composed of the King, Queen and young Prince. They are accompanied by monks, and men in caftan. According to Historian of Art Benjamin Rowland, these portraits show “that the Tocharians were European rather than Mongol in appearance, with light complexions, blue eyes, and blond or reddish hair, and the costumes of the knights and their ladies have haunting suggestions of the chivalric age of the West”.
Fortson, Benjamin W. 2004. Indo-European Language and Culture. Blackwell Publishing. Page 352: “Adding to the various mysteries surrounding the Tocharians is the existence of extremely well-preserved mummies in the Takla Makan desert that have striking Europoid features and often red hair; some are nearly 4,000 years old. The mummies were found with tapestries woven in plaids that are similar in weaving style and pattern to tartans from the Hallstatt culture of central Europe, which was ancestral to the Celts… the wool used in weaving the tapestries comes from sheep of European ancestry…”
Ögedei Khan, son of Genghis Khan and second Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, is shown with dark hair but with possibly little traces of red
In the Book of Wei, Chinese author Wei Shou notes that Liu Yuan was over 6 feet tall and had red strain on his long beard.
There are other examples of red hair among early Turkic people. Muqan Qaghan, the third Qaghan of the Turkic Khaganate, was said to have red hair and blue eyes.
In Chinese sources, ancient Kyrgyz people were described as fair-skinned, green- or blue-eyed and red-haired people with a mixture of European and East Asian features.
The Kipchak people were a Turkic ethnic group from central Asia who served in the Golden Horde military forces after being conquered by the Mongols. In the Chinese historical document ‘Kang mu’, the Kipchak people are described as red haired and blue eyed.
The ethnic Miao people of China are recorded with red hair. According to F.M Savina of the Paris Foreign missionary society the appearance of the Miao was pale yellow in their skin complexion, almost white, their hair color often being light or dark brown, sometimes even red or corn-silk blond, and a few of them even have pale blue eyes.
A phenotype study of Hmong People show they are sometimes born with red hair
A 2007 report in The Courier-Mail, which cited the National Geographic magazine and unnamed “geneticists”, said that red hair is likely to die out in the near future. Other blogs and news sources ran similar stories that attributed the research to the magazine or the “Oxford Hair Foundation”. However, a HowStuffWorks article says that the foundation was funded by hair-dye maker Procter & Gamble, and that other experts had dismissed the research as either lacking in evidence or simply bogus. The National Geographic article in fact states “while redheads may decline, the potential for red isn’t going away”.
Red hair is caused by a relatively rare recessive allele (variant of a gene), the expression of which can skip generations. It is not likely to disappear at any time in the foreseeable future.
In ancient Egypt red hair was associated with the deity Set and Ramesses II had it.
In the Iliad, Achilles’ hair is described as ksanthēs (ξανθῆς), usually translated as blonde, or golden but sometimes as red or tawny. His son Neoptolemus also bears the name Pyrrhus, a possible reference to his own red hair.
The Norse god Thor is usually described as having red hair.
The Hebrew word usually translated “ruddy” or “reddish-brown” (admoni אדמוני, from the root ADM אדם, see also Adam and Edom) was used to describe both Esau and David.
Early artistic representations of Mary Magdalene usually depict her as having long flowing red hair, although a description of her hair color was never mentioned in the Bible, and it is possible the color is an effect caused by pigment degradation in the ancient paint.
Judas Iscariot is also represented with red hair in Spanish culture and in the works of William Shakespeare, reinforcing the negative stereotype.