Changes of Cephalic Index in South-Eastern Poland, 1978 vs. 2004

[Peterski]

South-Eastern Poles have been the most brachycephalic subgroup of Poles.

Between years 1978 and 2004 mean Cephalic Index in Rzeszów (South-Eastern Poland) declined from 85.1 to 81.9 among 18 year old boys and from 86.0 to 82.9 among 18 year old girls, as data below shows.

This means that during just one generation mean C.I. declined by 3 points:

http://www.pmurz.nazwa.pl/PDF/2008/2/05_z2_2008.pdf

https://s17.postimg.org/rifu7rdq7/debrachycephalization.jpg

How do you explain these changes?

This question is to people who claim that brachycephaly is caused by Mongoloid admixture.

Can you become de-admixed as well? :laugh:

[Lucas]

I think the warmer winter in Poland the longer head:) It couldn't be great improvment of life because in '80 Poland had big economical crisis. Of course no migration, no war, no epidemic and other shit.
But debrachycephalization in 1993/1994 was also evident (especially in girls 86 > 83,7).

Rzeszow boys between 1994 and 2004 lost 2,5 C.I. Now probably mean index among them is 79?

[Lucas]

Poznan (western Poland) boys and girls C.I. changes.

Процессы эпохальной трансформации формы головы у детей и подростков России и Польши
http://www.kunstkamera.ru/files/lib/978-5-88431-152-7/flip/index.html

Now probably about 80.
https://s14.postimg.org/9lizwro81/poznan_debrachycephalization.jpg

[XenophobicPrussian]

That's such a small sample size it's irrelevant. Environmental by what? Nutrition? That doesn't explain well nourished Koreans and Japanese being high brachy and undernourished SSAs mainly doli.

It's within the margin of error or just different phenotype breeding patterns. Even old studies had completely different numbers.

http://www.theapricity.com/snpa/bilder/troe-map6a.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Aqpf6MlKfkU/ThlYtSu0exI/AAAAAAAAAVQ/G1rx--gl8xQ/s1600/ripley-cephalic-index.png

http://s4.postimg.org/5f089bh3h/image.jpg

It obviously doesn't come from Mongoloid admixture, given the large amount of brachy French/North Italians and I agree it isn't anything "ancient", but it isn't environmental.

[Lucas]

Those map are out-dated for many regions now. For Poland there were based on imagination of western authors. Poland at the begining of XX century wasn't prevailingly meso in all northern part.

Bear in mind that those statistics are for 17-18 years old. Not for all population in those regions. Maps were for all.

In recently very brachy Dinaric Croatia now mean index is about 77 among men. How do you explain that?
https://s28.postimg.org/e2ab6tjtp/croatian.jpg
https://www.omicsonline.org/references/secular-change-in-body-height-and-cephalic-index-of-croatian-medical-students-university-of-rijeka-1257777.html


As for Mongoloids (Japan and Korea). They have completely different patterm. As living standards improved they start to be more brachy.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10861351


Somatometric data are presented which show that the rapid brachycephalization in Japan has recently ceased. The causes of brachycephalization are investigated in relation to the secular change in height. Increases in head breadth have been the main cause of brachycephalization, and its pattern of secular change is very similar to that in height. Associations between head breadth, height, and year of birth were examined by partial correlation coefficients and through a comparison of students and the general population. Brachycephalization is thought to result from increases in the growth rate for head breadth caused by improvements in nutritional levels, as seen in increases in height. Increases in height over the last 100 years have been accompanied by brachycephalization in Japanese and Koreans, but by debrachycephalization in many European populations. Increases in lateral growth in Asian heads may be related to the facial flatness which is characteristic to northern Mongoloid populations.

[Lucas]

BTW OP is about Rzeszow, which is lying in region which was formerly more brachy in Poland.
In all previous maps this region was about 85.

https://s8.postimg.org/6hxyo6ljp/rzeszow.jpg

https://antropologia-fizyczna.pl/images/statystyki/mapy-antro/mapka-cefaliczny.jpg

[cosmoo]

Firstly, change of cephalic index doesn't mean magical change of racial types. Even extremely homogenous populations (like UP Europeans) had very varied cranial indices. What doesn't change much, however, is the total dimensions (cranial capacity) of skull.
Secondly, older studies were mainly done on mature men, while newer ones on teenagers. You don't develop fully until you are (more or less) 25.
Thirdly, a part of a certain population can have quite different phenotype from another. In Coon's time, for example, it was noted that people of Mediterranean types in England were more common among worker class, and with it came darker pigmentation and lower cranial index. So population boom among urban dwellers can surely cause shifting of phenotype concentrations in many countries.

Change of phenotype never comes by itself, no matter how hard someone tries to prove it. For example, the reason why early Slavs shifted from being Hallstatt Nordids, with mainly dolicho index on average, to a population with high meso index and high admixture of Neo-Danubian type, is because of intermixing with populations who were native in areas they spread over.

[Lucas]

Problem is that brachcephalization started in Central and partially Eastern Europe (Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, western Ukraine etc.) about XIV century and continued till XIX. There weren't any big migrations of people from outside Central Europe in those times.
But there were wars, epidemics and so called Little Ice Age – LIA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age) when climate were colder than today. I think there is some correlation between those factors but especially climatic. Debrachycephalization started about end of XIX century when climate changed.

[Styrian Mujo]

Firstly, change of cephalic index doesn't mean magical change of racial types. Even extremely homogenous populations (like UP Europeans) had very varied cranial indices. What doesn't change much, however, is the total dimensions (cranial capacity) of skull.
Secondly, older studies were mainly done on mature men, while newer ones on teenagers. You don't develop fully until you are (more or less) 25.
Thirdly, a part of a certain population can have quite different phenotype from another. In Coon's time, for example, it was noted that people of Mediterranean types in England were more common among worker class, and with it came darker pigmentation and lower cranial index. So population boom among urban dwellers can surely cause shifting of phenotype concentrations in many countries.

Change of phenotype never comes by itself, no matter how hard someone tries to prove it. For example, the reason why early Slavs shifted from being Hallstatt Nordids, with mainly dolicho index on average, to a population with high meso index and high admixture of Neo-Danubian type, is because of intermixing with populations who were native in areas they spread over.

I know this is off topic but I am confused as to what skull shape I have...I seem to have a long head but horizontally wide at the same time. Can I be brachi but have a longish skull at the same time?

[Peterski]

For example, the reason why early Slavs shifted from being Hallstatt Nordids, with mainly dolicho index on average, to a population with high meso index and high admixture of Neo-Danubian type, is because of intermixing with populations who were native in areas they spread over.

In Poland Slavs spread mainly over leftovers of East Germanic populations (Vandals, Goths, etc.). Are you saying that those populations were predominantly Neo-Danubian?

[Lucas]

Unfortunately pagan east-Germanic tribes burned their deads. But from scanty normal burials they were mostly Nordoid.

Slavs were meso-doli in the period of expansion. After Slavic settling in Central Europe there wasn't any influx of brachy people (between VII to XIII century).
Brachycephalization started in XIV century when Poland were local power. We even missed Black Death which from some unknown reasons didn't appear in Poland.

[cosmoo]

I know this is off topic but I am confused as to what skull shape I have...I seem to have a long head but horizontally wide at the same time. Can I be brachi but have a longish skull at the same time?
Absolute width and length are not correlated to cephalic index in any way. Cephalic index is merely a width:length ratio. So yes, a brachycephalic man can indeed have head that is very long in absolute sense. Borreby Jutlander from Coon's plates, for example, was brachy, but had longer head than any Nordid example:
http://www.theapricity.com/snpa/bilder/troe051.jpg
I doubt cephalic index can be accurately determined without calipers, but it is possible to define it in broader sense.

In Poland Slavs spread mainly over leftovers of East Germanic populations (Vandals, Goths, etc.). Are you saying that those populations were predominantly Neo-Danubian?
No, Neo-Danubian element is strongest in East Slavic lands, where I reckon it appeared by mixing with some Ugro-Finnic population with high dose of basal Ladogan (even though original Ugro-Finnics were mostly Nordid, they too got changed by a possibly Uralic strain).
Poland, in comparison with eastern Slavic lands, had higher amounts of Nordids (what most of original Slavs looked like) and East Baltic (probably influence of Baltic peoples, mostly in Prussia).

Unfortunately pagan east-Germanic tribes burned their deads. But from scanty normal burials they were mostly Nordoid.
It is quite hard to determine east Germanic burials before some of them converted to Arianism, when they practiced weaponless burials. AFAIK none of the skulls studied are from that period, so their main phenotype is not known with certainity.
The only preserved skull I've seen so far is that of a Bastarnae woman. It looks UP.

[Lucas]

In Poland Slavs spread mainly over leftovers of East Germanic populations (Vandals, Goths, etc.). Are you saying that those populations were predominantly Neo-Danubian?

www.statsoft.pl/Portals/0/Downloads/Zroznicowanie_antropologiczne.pdf
https://s9.postimg.org/4vwigad33/przeworsk_wielbark.jpg

Third column is for suposed East-Germans from Poland - Przeworsk and Wielbark cultures.
Calculated C.I. is 74.57.

[Sacrificed Ram]

I hope it doens't mean a loss of cranial capacity, they reduced the cephalic index reducing cranial volume.

[Lucas]

Alekseeva

Eastern Slavic tribes from early medieval period - Polans (from Kiev), Sevverians, Radymiches, Dregoviches, Vyatichi, Kryvichi, Ilmen Slovenians, Drevlans, Volynians (from supoposed Neo-Danubain center CI 73,5 and biggest dimensions)
4 column (8:1) with C.I.
https://s4.postimg.org/fy408bufv/bec266b9cff1.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Slavic_tribes_in_the_7th_to_9th_century.jpg

[Lucas]

I hope it doens't mean a loss of cranial capacity, they reduced the cephalic index reducing cranial volume.

It could be the excess of width and lenght could stay the same. In this case you have bigger head. Or lenght and breadth diminshed proportionally in this case capaicty stay the same.
Or only lenght was diminished, in this case capacity was smaller yes.

[Lucas]

Some Polish skulls (men & women) from Ostrow Lednicki in Gretaer Poland (X century). In paper there were more than 600. Generally similar.

http://i63.tinypic.com/161yk55.jpg
http://i64.tinypic.com/2gv5xn5.jpg
http://i68.tinypic.com/33c5g8n.jpg