Cephalic Indices

[Amud]

Hello everyone, today I am going to discuss the Cephalic Index. This is the ratio of length of the head (from front to back) to the width of the head.

C.I. = width / length

A long head (index of 75 or less) is Dolichocephalic.
A medium head (index between 75 and 80) is Mesocephalic.
A short or wide head (index over 80) is Brachycephalic.

You can estimate this by looking at a person's side view (profile). Does their head go back very far? If so, they are probably dolichocephalic (unless they have an unusually broad head as well). Is the head flat at the back, or rounded only slightly? Probably brachycephalic. This is why I always like people to have a profile picture in their classification thread. If they have only a front view, they can not be classified accurately since we don't know what their cephalic index is.

Nordics and Mediterraneans are Dolichocephalic.
Alpines, Baltics and Dinarics are Brachycephalic.
Mixes of Dolichocephalic and Brachycephalic types are usually Mesocephalic.

Nordic, showing dolichocephaly. Notice how the head appears long in the side view, and narrow in the front view.


Alpine, showing brachycephaly. Notice how the head appears relatively short in the side view, and wide in the front view.


I hope this has been helpful.

[Amud]

From the glabella (point between the eyebrows, this would be the brow ridge if you have one) to the occiput (farthest point at the back of the head).

For people with very large brow ridges, like Neanderthals, the measurement may be inaccurate because a lot of what you're measuring is just bone from the brow ridge, not the head itself. Very few people should run into this problem, though.

[TCDA1986]

Good thread.

Do you have a mesocephalic example?

How about more info on profile shapes correlating to the different Caucasoid races? Because of course cephalic index is only one part of the picture of skull formations.

I found this but it is hard to read:



A bigger version of that picture would be great to start with.

[Not a Cop]

You can estimate this by looking at a person's side view (profile).
I hope this has been helpful.

Best way to estimate cephalic index is to look on skull from above.

On indexes borders:

Males Females

Brachy >81 >83

Meso 76-81 75-83

Dolicho <75,9 <75

[Not a Cop]

Good thread.

Do you have a mesocephalic example?

How about more info on profile shapes correlating to the different Caucasoid races? Because of course cephalic index is only one part of the picture of skull formations.

I found this but it is hard to read:



A bigger version of that picture would be great to start with.

Dolicho individuals





Meso:






Brachy :








As you can see one can have a prominent occupit, but still be brachycephalic.

[Not a Cop]

True, although it's not typical at all. Most Alpines or Dinarics do not have a prominent occiput. I think the only way it would work is if the person had an unusually wide forehead, as well as a very "pointy" head shape.

Not forehead, but usually the area above the ears is the widest part of the skull, although early protoeuropoids sometimes had wider cheekbones than head, also Dinarids and Alpinids have different occupit shape - Dinarids have Taurid occupit shape which means that it's very flat, sometimes almost vertical, while alpinids have rounded but promitent occupits:

[Amud]

Okay.

There seems to be a correlation where people with higher C.I. tend to have larger brains proportionally to their body size, so brachychepals would be on top. Do you know anything about this?

That's likely true between major races. Negroids and Australoids are most commonly dolichocephalic, Mongoloids are commonly Brachycephalic, and Caucasoids have more of a range but are often in the middle. Same distribution of brain size, basically. I don't know if that's the case among Caucasoid subraces, but it could be.

Here's an anecdote from a book:

race intelligence.jpg


http://books.google.com/books?id=DqlGuTpjmFUC

That's just an anecdote. I doubt those supposed army test results are anywhere to be found, and I would also be surprised if the testing officials actually recorded the subrace of people being tested. Anyway, he also claims that Jews are less intelligent, which we know to be false based on tests that we can actually see results from.

Gunther's theories backed up the idea of a race ladder, with Nordics at the top and East Baltic at the bottom. He claimed that Alpines were an inferior race as well, so the Nordicist theories definitely do not support the idea that brachycephalic people are more intelligent. Again, those are biased Nazi theories, of course.

[Not a Cop]

Okay.

There seems to be a correlation where people with higher C.I. tend to have larger brains proportionally to their body size, so brachychepals would be on top. Do you know anything about this?

I read only materials of S.V.Savel'ev on that matter and i have no idea about how trustworthy he is, but here is what he says about average brain weight:


Europoids 1375 gramms
Mongoloids 1332 gramms
Negroids 1244 gramms
Austroloids 1185 gramms



From what i understand data on buryats ( first in list) comes from 1927 year study and may be incorrect.

Euros listed

Hannoverians 1461
Danes 1440
Scotts 1423
English 1400
Poles, Swedes 1399
...
...
Australians (natives) 1214.

[Also]

I read only materials of S.V.Savel'ev on that matter and i have no idea about how trustworthy he is, but here is what he says about average brain weight:

Europoids 1375 gramms
Mongoloids 1332 gramms
Negroids 1244 gramms
Austroloids 1185 gramms

I've noticed a few authors give smaller brain sizes to mongoloids than to caucasoids while most give mongoloids a bigger brains. I think they are just taking different population references, since northeast asians seem to have the bigger brains but other mongoloids have smaller brains than europeans.

(link)

Humans seem to be evolving to have higher cranial index, which makes sense since with the skull size approaching a spherical shape you can build a larger cranium with the same area and resources.



Homo erectus was dolichocephal and we're becoming less long-headed and more prognathic with time. So it makes sense to me that brachycephals would have larger brains and be smarter, and would help explain high jewish and northeast asian IQ and why almost all professional chess-players are brachycephals. So I think the nazis got it wrong with long-headed nordics being the master race.

[TCDA1986]

No, absolute width. I.E. if you took the two farthest apart spots on your head, from left to right, drilled a hole through your skull, and stuck a ruler in that hole to measure.

ok I guess you are being ironic?

but it is a valid question because it's not the same to put a tape measure from the side of your head, over the top, to the other side, as it is to put it from the side of your head, across the back of your head, to the other side. These 2 contradictory diagrams should show my point: