The Danish Iron Age crania form a homogeneous group. They belong definiiely in the same class with the other Iron Age Nordics of Lausitz Urnfields inspiration, and more particularly the purely long-headed element in the Keltic blend, for the low vault and cylindrical transverse profile of the Keltic crania are also common here. Except for the lesser breadth of head and face, and greater vault length, they closely resemble the Keltic crania of Gaul and of the British Isles, and those of the Scythians, while they are virtually identical with the Armenian Iron Age skulls discussed in the last section. The Danish Iron Age crania, then, are probably the same as those of the ancestral proto-Kelts before their arrival in southwestern Germany, and of the ancestors of the Scythians and eastern Iranians. These Danes were a tall people, however, for the stature of 25 males was 171.5 cm. This agrees with that of the earlier peoples of the same region, and with that of the Scythians.
In this Danish series there was, without doubt, a selection on the basis of differential methods of disposal of the dead; the numerous Bronze Age population, compounded of Megalithic, Borreby, and Corded elements, could not have disappeared completely. After the various elements in the Danish population have had time to blend, we shall see them reappear.
The Swedish population of the Iron Age, best represented by a smaller group of 14 males72 (see Appendix I, col. 40), was essentially the same as that in Denmark. There are, however, a few differences - the vault is higher, the face wider, the upper face shorter. Perhaps these more peripheral Scandinavians showed a little of the older blood.
During the Iron Age, Norway was, for the first time, definitely settled by people comparable in civilization to those in Denmark and southern Sweden; it is likely that many of the earlier inhabitants of Jutland and the Danish archipelago had fled to the southwestern corner of that country, while other migrations came across from southern and central Sweden.
The most extensive Iron Age series from Norway is that of Schreiner, which contains 27 male crania.73 (See Appendix I, col. 41.) These are quite different from those of either Denmark or Sweden. They are larger and much more rugged, with heavy browridges and strong muscular markings. Metrically, they approach the Upper Palaeolithic series of Morant; and they could fit easily into the range of the central European Aurignacian group. The Mesolithic crania of Stångenäs and MacArthur's Cave would not be out of place here. Yet in most dimensions, they fall a little short of the Upper Palaeolithic mean.
...
Although there is not much data concerning the physical type of these eastern Germans, there is enough to enable us to come to some definite conclusions. A series of Goths from the Chersonese north of the Black Sea, dated between 100 B.C. and 100 A.D., includes three male and eight female skeletons.76 All of these are long headed, and they belong to a large, powerful Nordic type which reflects their Swedish origin, for they are no different from the Swedish Iron Age crania which we have already studied.
A later group of Gepidae dated from the fifth or sixth centuries in Hungary shows the persistence of this same type; despite historical blending with the Huns, of eight skulls at our disposal, all but three fail to show definite traces of mongoloid mixture, and in these three the non-Nordic traits are not manifested metrically. One is forced to the conclusion from this series, as from that of the Goths in the Chersonese, that the East Germanic peoples who took part in these wanderings preserved their original racial characteristics so long as they retained their political and linguistic identity.
The same conclusion results when one examines the Visigothic skulls from northern Spain which date from the sixth century A.D.77 Here a series combined from several cemeteries shows us exactly the same Nordic type, with tall stature and with a high-vaulted skull, a long face, and a broad law; in this respect resembling, in a sense, the earlier Hallstatt crania, but more particularly those of the western Germanic group, especially the Hannover Germans and the Anglo-Saxons.
The western branch of Germanic-speaking peoples, while historically less spectacular, was destined to be far more important in the eventual peopling of Europe. This included the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons, of the Frisians, and of the Germans proper. Among the latter may be listed the Franks, the Alemanni, the Bavarians, the Thuringians, and the Chatti, whose descendants are the Hessians. Under the Franks may be listed the ancestors of the Flemish- and Dutch-speaking peoples whose closely related languages are a mixture of low Franconian and Saxon elements. All of these peoples worked their way southward, and in some cases westward, gradually and without ostentation; the Alemanni to Switzerland and Austria, the Bavarians to the principality which bears their name, the Thuringians to Bohemia as well as to Thuringia, and the Franks to the upper Rhine country, Belgium, and France. The Burgundians, members of the eastern branch of Germans, sophisticated like the Goths from contact with the Roman Empire, crossed the Rhine ahead of the Franks, and occupied Rhenish Gaul at the same time that the Vandals were admitted under Roman sanction.
The prototype of the western German peoples who migrated from the region about the mouth of the Elbe is well represented by a series of skulls from Hannover which includes 41 male crania.78 (See Appendix I, col. 42.)
Metrically, these differ from the Danish Iron Age skulls in being slightly longer, somewhat broader, and considerably higher. The foreheads are broader, and the face is wider, and in many cases a bit longer. These skulls deviate from the normal Nordic type of central European origin with which we are familiar in their greater size and roibusticity, and particularly in their greater vault height.
The skulls of the Anglo-Saxons who invaded England in the fourth and fifth centuries of the present era79 (see Appendix I, col. 43) are almost identical with this Hannover group. It is to this same specific category that the Spanish Visigothic skulls to which we have already referred belong. To it must be added two series of old Frisians from northern Holland,80 which are identical in every respect. The skulls of these old Saxons, old Hanoverians, and old Frisians differ in a number of ways from those of other Nordics which we have studied. They arc larger than the Aunjetitz group and the Danes, and in fact any other series of Indo-European speakers that we have met, except the Norwegians. They lack the low vault and sloping forehead common to the earlier Nordics of Denmark, the Gauls, and the Scyths. The vault is moderately high; while the cranial index is on the border of dolicho- and mesocephaly. Compared with the other Nordics, the forehead is relatively straight, the browridges are greater, the muscular markings more pronounced, the cranial base wider, the face longer and somewhat wider.
The type represented by these three groups and by the Visigoths seems to be a variant of the Nordic type to which the early Indo-European speakers belonged. Its difference is one of size, and it appears to have attained this distinction through a mixture, in southern Scandinavia and Germany, between the older local population, consisting of a combination of Megalithic, Corded, and Borreby elements, and the purely Nordic Danish Iron Age group. The resultant type approaches in some respects, but does not even approximate in size, the coastal Norwegian population which we have already studied, and it deviates far less from the central European Nordic than does the Norwegian group.
This physical type is accompanied by tall stature, of about 170 cm., and by a considerable heaviness and robusticity of the long bones. The bodily build was clearly heavier and thicker set than that of the previously studied Nordics. That it was characteristically blond is attested by the pigmentation of living examples as well as by numerous early descriptions. This type, being a mixed variety of central European Nordic combined with old northwestern European elements, is not a true Nordic in the sense in which the word has been used in this work, and its common and exclusive designation as Nordic in popular parlance as in scientific works is responsible for much of the confusion prevalent in the identification of that racial type today. Since it is found among both West and East Germans of the period of dispersal, it is essentially the Germanic or Teutonic racial type. The eccentric linguistic position of the Germanic peoples in the total Indo-European family has its racial connotations.
Source: C. Coon, TROE (1939)
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