Goswinus
11-13-2008, 03:57 PM
What follows in this entry is an article of mine written way back in the passing height of the Summer of 2003 (slightly edited and abridged), basically compiled from various, somewhat dated literature yet still very pertinent to the genesis of the Nordid racial spectrum:
Kossinna states in Ursprung und Verbreitung der Germanen in vor -und fruehgeschichtlicher Zeit (1936) that the emergence of the Nordic race and its subtypes lies in an UP phase to which three distinct UP races have contributed: Cro Magnon, Combe Capelle and Chancelade.
Basically,hee adopts a stance in favour of a Paleolithic continuity from UP to Nordics.
From Cro Magnon the Nordic inherited its dolichoid strong projection of the skull nape, assuming the like of a bulging dome, the jutting chin and nasal beakiness, while Combe Capelle is seen in a long face with recession of the forehead and marked browridges, Chancelade's skull rounded to an ellipsoid shape surfaces among the Battle Axt/Corded Ware/East Nordic type, although another anthropologist, Georges Montandon in his 1943 publication L'Homme préhistorique et les préhumains observes that the Cromagnids generally don't differ extremely fron the Magdalenian Chancelade type as the pentagonoid contour of the so-called Old Man of Cro Magnon was rather exception than the rule.
The hipsicephaly of Combe Capelle and Chancelade will eventually find its analogy in the Corded type, however, both the Elb-Saale group in Thueringen as in Bohemia and the Oder group in Central Schlesia are flat-topped and much more moderate in height. These populations also stood under influence of short-headed Beaker Folk and the shallow-built Danubians.
Anyhow, about the fourth to third millenium BC three nordiform skull types are found among various North Europeans:
1. a dolichoid with dome-like occiput, low or medium long face with in dimensions matching upper facial parts, steep forehead, with beaky nose, angular slant-like orbits, but unlike Cro Magnon the browridges are considerably marked (finds: Mysinge,Öland, Swedish megalithic burials, Hunnebo in West Sweden).
2. a dolichoid type with receding forehead and marked browridges, long-faced but with more globular occiput (finds: Visby, Gotland).
3. the Avigny type: like the previous but with steep-rising forehead and no brow eminences
(finds: Denmark, North France).
The typical Nordic long-headed skull was in pre-WWII literature from Denmark associated with the Cro Magnon race on behave of the flattened skull top; further the stricture of the shull shape towards the lower rear leading to a dome-like jutting appendage, the nasal prowness as a degree of alveolar prognathy (while seen in the Old Man of Cro Magnon, in general the Cromagnids were orthognatious, though!) gave some sustenance to such relationship, if not the fleeting forehead behind well-developed
browridges, malars which don't protrude but retract, don't hold very well with the classic typology of Cro Magnon.
The narrowness and medium long face is neither seen in Combe Capelle and Chancelade (except in their mutual higher face) nor does it match to the euryprosopic Cro Magnon (FI 83!), the narrow bizygomatic breadth consorts with the possibility of absorbing a Predmost (Central European Cro Magnons) element into the Nordic race, albeit that Predmost was generally mesoprosopic, euryene to mesene, while his face width was broad down to narrow, coalescing in this last aspect with the Nordic average of 135mm. The forehead is wide, smooth and sideways slightly bowed; in combination with the tapering backhead a Keilform (keeling) is attained.
For Central Germany, South Germany and Austria the ellipsoid form is dominant and identical to the condition seen in the Corded Ware people. Kossinna juxtapositions them against the Mediterrenean (Ibero-Insular?) race with its ovoid skull, narrow forehead and larger occiput. Viewed from behind the Nordic skull appears "fünfeckig", Predmost and Mladec (another CE Cromagnid) are in this respect one in kind, another indication that in these Pleistocene inhabitants of Central Europe the putative ancestors of the Nordic race should be searched for (oddly, Kossinna misses those bearings out, the assumption is established by me).
The North German skulls resemble closely the Denmark finds but differ in size as they're smaller, while in Northeast Germany the vault height is higher, its orbits, face and nose broader and therefore untypical for Nordics. The Northwestern Germanic or Megalithic type are typified by 14 skulls dug up in Warburg (Brandenburg). Overall, these skulls are long to medium in lenght, notably smaller compared to the Northern and Northeastern types, but as the former low vaulted; the occiput appears restrained it its outward curvature. Only three individuals show a strong protrusion of the skull.The keeled shape is sustained in three slightly deviating skull types: 1. seven individuals with a steeply climbing foreheads and the occiput achieves the Kegelform, 2. four have receding foreheads with Kegelform, 3. The last three have a steep orehead with rounded occiput. In all finds, the narrow and medium lenght facial configuration is the rule.
H.F.K. Günther adheres in Beknopte Rassenkunde der Germaansche Volken(1942) Otto Reche's hypothesis that the Nordic race stems from a Chancelade connection and refers thereby to the finds at the Pritzerber Lake in Brandenburg, Oberehausen in the Rhineland and near Hochlarmarck in Recklinghausen. In his outline of racial history Central and Northwest Germany is the cradle of the Nordic race. Though the contribution by the high-skulled and small-set Chancelade is perhaps overrated insofar that its traits show more a tendency into attenuation of protomorphic traits in the Pre-Nordics and Proto-Nordics.
In any case, the thesis proposed by the German school of racial anthropology refutes a Mediterrenean or Southeastern origin of the Nordic race and smoothens the rigid dividing line seperating Nordics from UP.
Kossinna states in Ursprung und Verbreitung der Germanen in vor -und fruehgeschichtlicher Zeit (1936) that the emergence of the Nordic race and its subtypes lies in an UP phase to which three distinct UP races have contributed: Cro Magnon, Combe Capelle and Chancelade.
Basically,hee adopts a stance in favour of a Paleolithic continuity from UP to Nordics.
From Cro Magnon the Nordic inherited its dolichoid strong projection of the skull nape, assuming the like of a bulging dome, the jutting chin and nasal beakiness, while Combe Capelle is seen in a long face with recession of the forehead and marked browridges, Chancelade's skull rounded to an ellipsoid shape surfaces among the Battle Axt/Corded Ware/East Nordic type, although another anthropologist, Georges Montandon in his 1943 publication L'Homme préhistorique et les préhumains observes that the Cromagnids generally don't differ extremely fron the Magdalenian Chancelade type as the pentagonoid contour of the so-called Old Man of Cro Magnon was rather exception than the rule.
The hipsicephaly of Combe Capelle and Chancelade will eventually find its analogy in the Corded type, however, both the Elb-Saale group in Thueringen as in Bohemia and the Oder group in Central Schlesia are flat-topped and much more moderate in height. These populations also stood under influence of short-headed Beaker Folk and the shallow-built Danubians.
Anyhow, about the fourth to third millenium BC three nordiform skull types are found among various North Europeans:
1. a dolichoid with dome-like occiput, low or medium long face with in dimensions matching upper facial parts, steep forehead, with beaky nose, angular slant-like orbits, but unlike Cro Magnon the browridges are considerably marked (finds: Mysinge,Öland, Swedish megalithic burials, Hunnebo in West Sweden).
2. a dolichoid type with receding forehead and marked browridges, long-faced but with more globular occiput (finds: Visby, Gotland).
3. the Avigny type: like the previous but with steep-rising forehead and no brow eminences
(finds: Denmark, North France).
The typical Nordic long-headed skull was in pre-WWII literature from Denmark associated with the Cro Magnon race on behave of the flattened skull top; further the stricture of the shull shape towards the lower rear leading to a dome-like jutting appendage, the nasal prowness as a degree of alveolar prognathy (while seen in the Old Man of Cro Magnon, in general the Cromagnids were orthognatious, though!) gave some sustenance to such relationship, if not the fleeting forehead behind well-developed
browridges, malars which don't protrude but retract, don't hold very well with the classic typology of Cro Magnon.
The narrowness and medium long face is neither seen in Combe Capelle and Chancelade (except in their mutual higher face) nor does it match to the euryprosopic Cro Magnon (FI 83!), the narrow bizygomatic breadth consorts with the possibility of absorbing a Predmost (Central European Cro Magnons) element into the Nordic race, albeit that Predmost was generally mesoprosopic, euryene to mesene, while his face width was broad down to narrow, coalescing in this last aspect with the Nordic average of 135mm. The forehead is wide, smooth and sideways slightly bowed; in combination with the tapering backhead a Keilform (keeling) is attained.
For Central Germany, South Germany and Austria the ellipsoid form is dominant and identical to the condition seen in the Corded Ware people. Kossinna juxtapositions them against the Mediterrenean (Ibero-Insular?) race with its ovoid skull, narrow forehead and larger occiput. Viewed from behind the Nordic skull appears "fünfeckig", Predmost and Mladec (another CE Cromagnid) are in this respect one in kind, another indication that in these Pleistocene inhabitants of Central Europe the putative ancestors of the Nordic race should be searched for (oddly, Kossinna misses those bearings out, the assumption is established by me).
The North German skulls resemble closely the Denmark finds but differ in size as they're smaller, while in Northeast Germany the vault height is higher, its orbits, face and nose broader and therefore untypical for Nordics. The Northwestern Germanic or Megalithic type are typified by 14 skulls dug up in Warburg (Brandenburg). Overall, these skulls are long to medium in lenght, notably smaller compared to the Northern and Northeastern types, but as the former low vaulted; the occiput appears restrained it its outward curvature. Only three individuals show a strong protrusion of the skull.The keeled shape is sustained in three slightly deviating skull types: 1. seven individuals with a steeply climbing foreheads and the occiput achieves the Kegelform, 2. four have receding foreheads with Kegelform, 3. The last three have a steep orehead with rounded occiput. In all finds, the narrow and medium lenght facial configuration is the rule.
H.F.K. Günther adheres in Beknopte Rassenkunde der Germaansche Volken(1942) Otto Reche's hypothesis that the Nordic race stems from a Chancelade connection and refers thereby to the finds at the Pritzerber Lake in Brandenburg, Oberehausen in the Rhineland and near Hochlarmarck in Recklinghausen. In his outline of racial history Central and Northwest Germany is the cradle of the Nordic race. Though the contribution by the high-skulled and small-set Chancelade is perhaps overrated insofar that its traits show more a tendency into attenuation of protomorphic traits in the Pre-Nordics and Proto-Nordics.
In any case, the thesis proposed by the German school of racial anthropology refutes a Mediterrenean or Southeastern origin of the Nordic race and smoothens the rigid dividing line seperating Nordics from UP.