Question about Caucasian morphological variation

[Útrám]

I don't know if any anthropologist has properly accounted for this, if so then please provide citations. The ancient Cromagnon is arguably the archetype of the modern Caucasoid man but where do the contrastive leptoprosopic and leptomorphic types with a stronger tendecy towards dolichocephaly originate at? this elongated, narrow and thin frame seems less fitted to tough environments and hence trivial to survival.

My question is this: Is this a product of sexual selection which happens to be parallel to each other(such as the case of the Mediterranean and the classic Nordic types)? Coon's Mediterranean hypothesis appeared plausible for it's time but advances in genetics divulged it's shortcomings. Both of the aforementioned types are remotely separated but coexist and share territory with related more ancestor-like individuals; in the north it's Phalian, Borreby and Bruen and in the south it is the southern-Cromagnid varieties and Alpine, it appears likely that these slender and more fine-featured races are unrelated ramifications that have underwent stronger sexual selection than it's counterparts, and the paucity of metrically pure Halstatt Nordics could suggest that it's a more recent development in northern Europe. Maybe someone who knows more about this could enlighten me.

[Psychonaut]

I don't think this issue is by any means settled. So far, the only attempts that I've seen to reconcile the morphological approach of Coon with contemporary population genetics has been on internet fora, nothing from any actual anthropologists. Right now it doesn't look like Coon's migration theories are correct, so until anthropologists return to taxonomy, we might not get an answer. :shrug:

[Lenny]

The ancient Cromagnon is arguably the archetype of the modern Caucasoid man but where do the contrastive leptoprosopic and leptomorphic types with a stronger tendecy towards dolichocephaly originate at?
The answer to that question [location of the first proto-Nordics] is inevitably "somewhere" in western-Asia.

That's also - broadly - where Cro-Magnon itself evolved. Caucasoids entered Europe in numerous waves after the continent was opened up following the end of the Neanderthal. Some of these waves were Nordic or proto-Nordic. The idea that Nordic evolved purely from local CMs is not plausible, IMO.

[We think of ourselves as "raciallyEuropean", but the real raciallyEuropean humans were Neanderthal (in the sense of having evolved there). The Urheimat of all Caucasoids is western-Asia. The deep-origins of the bulk of Caucasoid genetics are the human types in western-Asia two million years ago, e.g. Homo-georgicus. IMO. (Clearly I do not believe Out-of-Africa).]


nothing from any actual anthropologists.It is strange. I don't think ANY work on the kind of physical anthropology discussed on this site and others has been published by anyone born after 1935 or so. (Those who entered the Academy from ca.1960 onward).

Once the guys born before 1935 started dying off, actual work in the field dropped off a cliff. It's sad.

[Psychonaut]

It is strange. I don't think ANY work on the kind of physical anthropology discussed on this site and others has been published by anyone born after 1935 or so. (Those who entered the Academy from ca.1960 onward).

Once the guys born before 1935 started dying off, actual work in the field dropped off a cliff. It's sad.

This is definitely true. There's a great account of taxonomy's decline in anthropology (mostly as a result of the Boazian revolution) in the most recent (Vol. 8, Num. 3) issue of The Occidental Quarterly called "Taxonomic Approaches to Race."

[Útrám]

IMO this polymorphism among Europeans is a product of microevolution through sexual selection. None of these phenotypes are isolated they all inhabit the same territory. In biology it has often been observed that ancestors can live simultaneously with their descendants, on a far far more wider scale you see the same for human beings and chimpanzees; Not only just primates but a lot creatures, the same applied to dinosaurs[ link (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/20/tech/main3079845.shtml) ] I have made some simple charts to put things into perspective:

Northern Europe

http://i39.tinypic.com/1zxvdvo.jpg

Southern Europe

http://i42.tinypic.com/r8b4tu.jpg

[Jarl]

I don't know if any anthropologist has properly accounted for this, if so then please provide citations. The ancient Cromagnon is arguably the archetype of the modern Caucasoid man but where do the contrastive leptoprosopic and leptomorphic types with a stronger tendecy towards dolichocephaly originate at? this elongated, narrow and thin frame seems less fitted to tough environments and hence trivial to survival.

Leptoprosopic and Leptomorphic types of Paleolithic Europe were arguably even older than Cro-Magnons. I do not think there is any good reason to believe they were not contemporary to Cro-Magnons, or even, members of the same population. Even Coon acknowledged that all UP skulls lumped together are nearly as homogenous as a set of Inuit skulls. Combe-Capelle, Cheddar Man, Siemonia Man, Predmost, Brno - all these fossils were once lumped into the so called proto-Mediterranean type by old anthropologists (in contrast to UP types).


My question is this: Is this a product of sexual selection which happens to be parallel to each other(such as the case of the Mediterranean and the classic Nordic types)? Coon's Mediterranean hypothesis appeared plausible for it's time but advances in genetics divulged it's shortcomings. Both of the aforementioned types are remotely separated but coexist and share territory with related more ancestor-like individuals; in the north it's Phalian, Borreby and Bruen and in the south it is the southern-Cromagnid varieties and Alpine, it appears likely that these slender and more fine-featured races are unrelated ramifications that have underwent stronger sexual selection than it's counterparts, and the paucity of metrically pure Halstatt Nordics could suggest that it's a more recent development in northern Europe. Maybe someone who knows more about this could enlighten me.

Because relatively gracile forms existed in Europe for quite a long time, I do not think that it is plausible to ascribe all the gracilisation that took place in Europe in the past 30, 000 years or so, solely to the Med influx and Neolithic revolution.


metrically pure Halstatt Nordics could suggest that it's a more recent development in northern Europe. Maybe someone who knows more about this could enlighten me.

These are myths born out of XIX cen beliefs in "pure races" and convergent evolution from different species (which Coon professed himself)... What is a metrically pure HN? It is a statistical fiction with no grounding in biology, genetics or evolutionary history. Metrically "pure" HN is no purer than "half Faelid / half HN".

[Lenny]

This is definitely true. There's a great account of taxonomy's decline in anthropology (mostly as a result of the Boazian revolution) in the most recent (Vol. 8, Num. 3) issue of The Occidental Quarterly called "Taxonomic Approaches to Race."
Sounds interesting, Could you post the article?

If it's not online and you have it in print [I was a subscriber a few years back but didn't renew] but lack OCD software, just scan it and toss the imgs my way and I can OCD it. I'm sure they'd be OK with us doing that.

[Lenny]

The idea that Nordic evolved purely from local CMs is not plausible, IMO.


IMO this polymorphism among Europeans is a product of microevolution through sexual selection.

http://i39.tinypic.com/1zxvdvo.jpg
That sexual selection spread the prevalance of gracile and Nordic types is for sure, but it must have spread them from a (small) "parent stock" of protoNordics that evolved elsewhere.

I don't think there was enough time to change head shapes so much, in a totally independent manner. Do we have any examples of this anywhere else? (Of course, in "Out-of-Africa world", all human head shapes evolved in a mere 50,000 years from an original Negroid population.:rolleyes:).

[Agrippa]

We dont know for sure how the Cromagnoid and Aurignacoid form tradition came up prehistorically, thats all we can say about that.

It seems to be more likely however, that the Cromagnoid variants might have came up in a more Northern territory, possibly with a centre in Central Asia, even with a original connection to the Proto-Mongoloids from which they branched off, with Cromagnoid Europids on one side and Northern Mongoloids on the other.

Its suspicious however, that we see a similar pattern in Mongoloids, with rather euryprosopic Tungo-Sibirids in the coldest and leptodolichomorphic Sinoids in the temperate-warm regions.

Anyway, thats just speculative, whats sure is that it would be a lot easier to explain if there wouldnt have been Cromagnoids in North Africa and among the Guanches of the Canary Islands, because they really spoil the cold adaptation theory to a certain degree.

The typical Northern Cromagnid variants however are definitely more cold adapted higher hunter variants originally. That they are so relatively robust and muscular, rather meso- pyknomorphic build, with a great body mass, has a lot to do with cold adaptation.

As soon as the Ice Age is over and the warm period begins, we can see a decline of Cromagnoid variants and a spread of Aurignacoid ones, even in Mesolithic times already.

The biological logic is every investment must meet certain expectations of a positive cost - benefit calculation.

If you have to invest more energy and material into a huge body, which produces more heat and is very effective, you get troubles if there is not as much food around as the higher hunters of colder Europe could get, especially rich in proteins.

The advantages the Cromagnoid variants had, were equally matched by the robust Aurignacoids, in some respects they were even outcompeted, so their only real advantage was cold resistence and absolute strength. If those two dont balance the higher investment out, which wasnt the case after the Ice Age in most temperate European areas, you have to expect a decline of the Cromagnoid forms. Thats just what happened.

In Neolithic times the nutrition became even worse, while the climate became even warmer and at the same time the high level individual and group selection more intensive. So it depended a lot on how intensive the high level selection was and how good the nutrition, as well as how the climate was, whether Cromagnids could stand a chance.

In that time more and more progressive Aurignacoid forms, of which we often can't say for sure whether they were Nordoid or Mediterranoid, spread throughout Europe, while the progressive Cromagnoid forms kept ground where it was possible, in some cases they even expanded again over time, mostly among herder-warriors, as one has to expect, since among poor tillers they were just a phase out model. The progressive and rather robust Aurignacoids were particularly common among herder-warriors of the flat-fertile land, among those populations which lived in favourable areas, but had to fight on an individual and collective level with high level selective pressures. Especially along rivers and coasts they spread, but soon overtook the grasslands, while leaving unfavourable, inland, forested and colder areas largely alone.

This position being overtaken by derivatives of Cromagnoids, partly of older and more archaic Cromagnoid lines. These derivatives are the result of an adaptation to a cheaper version, which saves energy and storages it, while keeping up a minimum physical standard and better psychic adaptation to the sedentary life of a poor farmer in the temperate and cold area. This tendencies were Alpinisation and Baltisation.

So one could say many Cromagnoid lines of Europe simply adapted to the new conditions of low energy, high epidemic and social pressures, negative selection in many respects, by becoming Alpinised and Baltised, reduced, more pyknomorphic, brachycephalic and somewhat more infantile quite often.

Only in those regions they could keep their original form, which allowed this to survive with higher energy levels and more challenges. Since this Cromagnoid derivatives are even more efficient as an adaptation to a poor peasant existence, from the Middle Ages on in particular, they even substituted the Aurignacoid forms, which were as well less cost effective if you switch off the higher level individual and group selection, together with a worsening of climate and living conditions. Especially in those areas, which were further away from the coast and rivers, in which fully dependent tillers suffered from malnutrition, plagues and social pressures, the smaller-reduced Cromagnoid derivatives could win ground.

At the same time in the South-East a new specialised form of progressive-mature variants came up as an adaptation to the life of a herder-warrior in the mountains, the end result of a process we call Dinarisation. From these centres of Dinarisation the new type spread and quite often we see side by side Alpinoid tillers and Dinaroid herders in the Alpine habitat, as two rather complementary forms of the brachycephalic Europid spectrum.

In some Mediterranoid areas further South and along the coasts, we can see partial Alpinisation or further Gracilisation among the farmers. The Aurignacoid reduction is no fundamental change as with the Cromagnoid derivatives, but just "a smaller sized version", which makes sense primarily in the warmer climate, because of the Bergmann's Rule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergmann's_Rule).

The Allen's Rule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen's_rule) is quite clear too, with extremities becoming shorter, the body more compact and rounded, because of the relation of maximum volume : minimum surface in the cold and minimum volume : maximum surface in the hot areas.
A larger body can generally create more heat with a relatively lower volume, so usually larger bodies are preferred in the cold, in humans in combination of these rules, primarily a larger trunk in the extreme cold.

If we combine the effects of energy intake and climate, we can say:
Extremely cold: Reduced and borealised, Eastbaltid, Lappid and Northern Mongoloid, on the fringes of the Europoid spectrum, usually out of the classic Europid variation.

Cold with high energy and general physical demands: Cromagnid (Dalofaelid)
Cold with low energy: Cromagnoid derivatives.

Temperate cold: Cromagnid, Cromagnoid derivatives, large-robust (Bergmann's Rule!) Aurignacoid (Nordid, Atlantomediterranid, Iranid etc.)

Temperate warm: The same plus gracile Mediterranid

Hot dry: Primarily Aurignacoid, stronger tendency towards gracile leptomorphic and shorter trunk.

Hot-moisty: Usually outside of the Europid spectrum, only Gracilindid made it partly, but even they prefer the less extreme areas and avoid all tropical forests of course, spread with cultural techniques, original hunter-gatherers didnt had while clearing the forests with the axe and fire...

Compare with the climate-race map I made:
http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/3758/klimata2.th.jpg (http://img198.imageshack.us/my.php?image=klimata2.jpg)

and consider the fact that we had warmer (spread of Nordoid and Mediterranoid from Mesolithi/Neolithic-Iron Age, but with a peak in the Bronze Age) as well as colder (Little Ice Age, Alpinisation, Baltisation) phases in which things were different from today.

Lundman's racial body types:
http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/6749/krperbautypenc.th.jpg (http://img198.imageshack.us/my.php?image=krperbautypenc.jpg)

Note the progressive-balanced trias from the temperate zones of juvenile, virile and mature, with all these three being widespread among Mediterranoid, Nordoid, Dinaroid and Cromagnoid, but according to Lundman juvenile more common among Gracilmediterranids, virile in Nordeuropids and mature in Dinaroids.

The Borealised body is one sided cold adapted (Eastbaltid, Lappid), as is Polar-Protomorphic (Northern Mongoloid), while the infantile being fully reduced with earlier ontogenetic determination. Afro-Negrid and Tropic-Protomorph represent the (very) dry-hot adaptation.

If the basic climate rules are not met in the distribution of traits in living populations, we can assume different selective (f.e. high level individual and group selection due to social dominance and warlike etc.) trends or migrations. Therefore the Nordoid type is definitely and in no way cold adapted, but only more so in comparison to gracile Mediterranoid, simply because of size (volume). To assume its greatest spread either from inside the present variation in Northern hunter-gatherers or from outside (most likely both!) of it in the warm period is therefore logical.

So for the Cromagnid biohistory, we can say as long as very effective, heavy build hunters were advantageous in a cold environment, it was their time, because they could beat the Bergmann's Rule to a certain degree, by becoming only somewhat shorter ranged, because of their sheer body mass, which made them physically superior in comparison to reduced-short ranged Borealised variants.

But this body mass is cost intensive and has to be justified in evolutionary terms, so when it became warmer, only in the better and best areas with high level selective pressures they were really favoured and even there they always had to compete with the equally effective robust Aurignacoids of more leptomorphic habitus, which were comparably cheaper.

The sexual selection might indeed have played a role, but overall I dont think a primary one. The main sexual selection effect might have to do with the lower effective selection for high level males in sedentary farmer societies and more compliant individuals of both sexes. Possibly we can say that mesomorphic Cromagnids were/are oftentimes even more introverted and less social than the average Aurignacoid (though those have a certain proportion of very schizothymic-introverted individuals), which didnt really help in the larger communities which came up from Neolithic times neither. But thats again very speculative.

[Jarl]

I would to like to once again touch upon the subject of Caucasian morholopgical variation. There are several significant points I would like to emphasise.


We dont know for sure how the Cromagnoid and Aurignacoid form tradition came up prehistorically, thats all we can say about that.

What I was always concerned with were the broad inferences made on a very narrow basis. Specifically – the European UP skulls. There are several dozens of them – and as Coon stressed himself they constitute a very homogenous group. Now, the real question is – what’s Aurignacid and what’s Cromagnid? Is there any credible foundation which would allow us to divide the European UP skulls into two separate groups – possibly indicating their different origins?

To me (and, I am afraid, to most modern anthropologists) such an assertion seems totally unfounded. We might as well be looking at extreme specimens from the same population. And indeed the famous Cro Magnon 1 skull is such an extreme specimen among other UP Euro skulls. How can we then assume there were two different UP groups with different evolutionary history if we do not know anything about the size, number of migrations into Paleolithic Europe nor the variance of the traits within these population? There could have been not just 2, but 3,4 or 5 different migration waves – each with its own specific morphological character. Although I understand some modern individuals are more dolichocephalic and euryprosopic, while others are more leptoprosopic, and, consequently, some resemble more Cro Magnon 1, while others resemble more the Cheddar Man, I see no reason to treat these “Cromagnids” and “Aurignacids” as real entities... in the way we treat “Nordics” and “Meds” today. Can we assume anything at all - particularly if modern genetics and inheritance studies defy the existence of strict morphological types?

We also face a different problem – the notorious ascribing of modern phenotypes to 30,000 year old fossils. As if modern robust individuals descended directly from “Cro- Magnids”, while gracile from “Aurignacids”. First of all, by doing so we already pre-assume the real character of these racial groups, which is highly disputable. Secondly, family inheritance studies indicate that there is no clear-cut distinction between dominant-recessive inheritance of robust and gracile forms. Genomes work together. As a matter of fact all genes form a dense network of interactions, and so each one has some effect. New combinations often produce new phenotypes, sometimes quite different to parental ones. Dolichocephalic individuals can have brachycephalic offspring and vice-versa. Likewise, there is no general rule for the inheritance of absolute measurements. Nordics can be bred from “Alpines” and robust Cro-Magnids… just like Cheddar-Man or Combe-Capelle Man could have been bred from Cro-Magnon-like parents (or vice versa). Coon wrote:


It is amazing to find that the Upper Palaeolithic men were less variable, on the whole, than the inhabitants of London who were buried in plague pits during the seventeenth century. They were less variable than the modern rural population of a small section of Carinthia, and only a little more so than the skulls of the extremely isolated Greenland Eskimo, whose time span covered at most a few centuries, or the Egyptians who were buried at Gizeh between the twenty-sixth and thirtieth dynasties.
The great complexity of race in modern Europe is largely due to post-Pleistocene migrations from other continents, and the retention of local types in modern populations reflects the greater isolability in smaii regions of farmers than of hunters. But the Upper Pleistocene people were by no means completely homogeneous, as will be shown later by an examination of individual crania, in their chronological and geographical contexts.


But, in response to Coons argument, which population is “completely homogenous” if even monozygotic twins are not identical? So where is the distinction, then? Coon's un-homogenity is arbitrary! On one hand he says these skulls are like inhabitants of XVII cen London or Greenland - on the other he personally sees them as "not completely homogenous"... This Aurignacid vs Cromagnid system seems to be an echo of the XIX century Nordic vs Alpine system. The only problem here is that:

1. The roots of the Nordic-Alpine-Med lie in studies of whole European populations and ethnicities. Using meaned measurements from thousands of individuals, inferences were made about the “average” character. And so Nordic populations gave rise to Nordic race, populations from Alpine France and Germany to Alpine race. Now, it is quite blatant that these studies were originally aimed at local, modern racial trends – using data derived from very large samples. These means were naturally arranged according to a village, province, country etc. (different anthropometric studies had different “resolution”). But European UP skulls cannot be divided according to nation or province and, what is more, they do not constitute a large sample - there are no more than a hundred. We cannot divide them so easily as we do not know what populations they originally belonged to. Were they part of the same breeding units? Was there any continuity between them in time and space??? These questions are crucial in racial studies, but, in case of Euro UP skulls, we cannot give here any concrete answer. These skulls are separated sometimes by several millennia and hundreds of miles… We cannot establish the variance of the breeding populations they were part of. In many cases we’ve got only SINGLE findings - therefore we have to treat these UP means with great care. Particularly any lumping into discrete groups should be treated with caution. Such experiments and “groupings” they produce are suitable for variation studies, but cannot establish the real character of the breeding groups and determine how many major races/populations existed in UP Europe. What is more – being skulls - they lack soft parts and pigmentation, and’ve been resting in the soil for a long time. Consequently their measurements cannot be directly compared to modern living means. Now, in every population, even Scandinavian, we can see Nordics, Alpines and, arguably, even some Med-like individuals. Broad types breed gracile types and gracile types breed robust. Chromosomes recombine in meiosis, genes are re-shuffled, and new combinations arise… The whole process is stochastic and governed by the rules of probability. There is thus no ultimate universal law of inheritance (like that for instance broad types can breed graciles, but not the other way round). The claim that modern robust individuals descend from robust UP forms, while modern gracile individuals descend more from gracile UP forms is thus absurd. One might have in his family tree a whole lot of pure Nordics and appear more Dalo-Falid... Populations are never "completely homogenous" and this claim cannot constitute evidence nor give any credit to the purely arbitrary "Cromagnid-Aurignacid" division.

Because of the problems described above - I cannot see how we can, without violating the principles of scientific method, bestow a status of real race-like entities (like "Alpine" or "Nordic" populations) upon CroMagnid-Aurginacid or any other arbitrary grouping of European UP skulls.



2. While we can evaluate and study current trends in Caucasian morphology, in case of UP, we can’t. We are talking about a very limited cranial series, scattered across Europe in time (10,000 to max 45 - 50,000 years ago) and space. To split them or divide them into discrete groups and claim these groups existed for real and had different evolutionary history is a folly with no backing. Personally, I cannot see the logic behind attempts to derive modern Euro variation directly from a single UP skull – like Cro Magnon 1 or Combe-Capelle. It is like claiming that Nordics can only breed Nordics, or Cro-magnids cant breed Nordics etc… and these “pure lines” have proliferated and perpetuated themselves throughout centuries… In other words - it is a nonsense.


It seems to be more likely however, that the Cromagnoid variants might have came up in a more Northern territory, possibly with a centre in Central Asia, even with a original connection to the Proto-Mongoloids from which they branched off, with Cromagnoid Europids on one side and Northern Mongoloids on the other. Its suspicious however, that we see a similar pattern in Mongoloids, with rather euryprosopic Tungo-Sibirids in the coldest and leptodolichomorphic Sinoids in the temperate-warm regions. Anyway, thats just speculative, whats sure is that it would be a lot easier to explain if there wouldnt have been Cromagnoids in North Africa and among the Guanches of the Canary Islands, because they really spoil the cold adaptation theory to a certain degree. The typical Northern Cromagnid variants however are definitely more cold adapted higher hunter variants originally. That they are so relatively robust and muscular, rather meso- pyknomorphic build, with a great body mass, has a lot to do with cold adaptation.

I think it’s rather the opposite. Cro-Magnon skeletons were rather tall. Taller than Combe-Capelle. Their noses were prominent and relatively broad, their bones were long and gracile indicating they came from a place with a warm, possibly arid, climate. At least that is what I read. Good evidence for this is that very similar types were common all around the Mediterranean - from Morocco and Atlas Mountans down to the Nile valley and Nubia...


Besides, how can we know if a skeleton, or for that matter – a skull, is pyknomorphic if that term strictly describes the soft tissue composition??? The old man from Cro-Magnon could as well have been a skinny astenic.

[Jarl]

As soon as the Ice Age is over and the warm period begins, we can see a decline of Cromagnoid variants and a spread of Aurignacoid ones, even in Mesolithic times already. The biological logic is every investment must meet certain expectations of a positive cost - benefit calculation. If you have to invest more energy and material into a huge body, which produces more heat and is very effective, you get troubles if there is not as much food around as the higher hunters of colder Europe could get, especially rich in proteins. The advantages the Cromagnoid variants had, were equally matched by the robust Aurignacoids, in some respects they were even outcompeted, so their only real advantage was cold resistence and absolute strength. If those two dont balance the higher investment out, which wasnt the case after the Ice Age in most temperate European areas, you have to expect a decline of the Cromagnoid forms. Thats just what happened. In Neolithic times the nutrition became even worse, while the climate became even warmer and at the same time the high level individual and group selection more intensive. So it depended a lot on how intensive the high level selection was and how good the nutrition, as well as how the climate was, whether Cromagnids could stand a chance.


Like previously… we pre-suppose the existence of these Cro-Magnids and Aurignacids without enough evidence.

There is evidence for gracilisation, particularly after Neolithic revolution and population boom. And no wonder, sedentary lifestyle of a farmer is by no means as energy-consuming as that of a hunter-gatherer. I agree that Cromagnid vs Aurignacid (or proto-Med) can be used to describe here some evolutionary trends. Gracilisation co-incides with the spread of agriculture and influx of farming populations…

So, in short, the robust hunter-gatherer UP populations were gradually gracilised due to: climate change, change of lifestyle and genetic admix (farmers from Asia Minor and ME)… Their original character was, arguably, most well preserved in remote areas - Scandinavia, Jutland, Ireland and the hunter-gatherer communities of the Finnic-speaking family. Why add the unfounded, dubious Cromagnid-Aurignacid bullshit into the equation???

[Agrippa]

What I was always concerned with were the broad inferences made on a very narrow basis. Specifically – the European UP skulls. There are several dozens of them – and as Coon stressed himself they constitute a very homogenous group.

Well, Coon also stressed the "Mediterranean" group and called some Arabids "pure Mediterranean" and even believed that some Europid forms are primarily the result of Neandertal admixture.

He also mixed up things with his idiotic terms, like "Bruenn", while all other anthropologists used the prehistoric Bruenn variant as an Aurignacoid specimen, even gave Aurignacid the alternative name "Bruennid", like Lundman, whereas Coon lumped oversized Nordoids with Cromagnids together in his terms. If just size matters, they were somewhat close to each other...

They were homogenous in some respects, but not in others. If you compare the skull from Combe Capelle and the one from Cro Magnon its clear you deal with two very different extremes, phenotypes at least, thats obvious.

Schematic comparison of a typical Aurignacid and Cromagnid skull:
http://img397.imageshack.us/img397/3182/aurcro4be.jpg

The differences are too big to be considered negligible, no matter how you explain it or if you consider it just two extremes in one population which was never split and in the end various modern racial forms being more or less AurignacOID and CromagnOID, follow the basic variation of that time if one or the other form variant was favoured by selection, like explained.


I see no reason to treat these “Cromagnids” and “Aurignacids” as real entities... in the way we treat “Nordics” and “Meds”

Probably, but whats more important is if looking at the current variation, that some variants have almost exclusively Aurignacoid or Cromagnoid form and proportional traits. They are based on that form tradition which existed even then and out of which modern racial forms being bred.


As if modern robust individuals descended directly from “Cro- Magnids”, while gracile from “Aurignacids”.

Thats not correct in any case, because there were highly robust Aurignacid skulls, like that of Bruenn. You can never equate Aurignacid with gracile, you can also not equate Aurignacoid in later times, f.e. the Neolithics with gracile, because there were highly robust leptodolichomorphic groups and individuals.


Nordics can be bred from “Alpines” and robust Cro-Magnids… just like Cheddar-Man or Combe-Capelle Man could have been bred from Cro-Magnon-like parents

But only from a genpool or genome in which the respective traits were present, so they had to be introduced somehow at some time. If you have a "pure bred" line, you dont get such results, but parents producing the same/similar offspring with minimal variation, like in most small and pure bred, f.e. tribal, populations.

I highlight that from Coon:

But the Upper Pleistocene people were by no means completely homogeneous, as will be shown later by an examination of individual crania, in their chronological and geographical contexts.

It always depends on what you are looking at. F.e. all classic Europid forms of Aurignacoid and Cromagnoid character were dolichocephalic, or just mesocephalic. Now if you use that as a primary trait, they are for sure more homogeneous than any European population, because there cranium was not as different as those of modern variable populations.

If you look for other traits, you get other results. Just compare with the schematic comparison again...

Actually, in the end its more about the following racial forms rather than the Upper Palaeolithic ones about which we dont even know exactly where they came from and when. But if looking at the extreme differences, you can easily see that we deal with groups of people which must have had a regional-isolated development before mixing up again.

The alternative would be that they were f.e. by body type less different than later Cromagnoid and Aurignacoid forms, f.e. some Cromagnoid skeletons seem to have been rather very rangy, like Southern forms. If thats true on average, it would mean we deal with craniofacial variants which were still not the same as the latter Dalofaelids and Balto-Cromagnoids f.e., but out of this branch of the Upper Palaeolithics the first came up over time, by selective forces mainly during the colder periods, while the Aurignacoid form became the dominant and more leptomorphic build in the warmer areas.

So, following one perspective, out of a highly heterogenous Upper Palaeolithic population with these two extreme form variants of more modern character, namely Aurignacoid and Cromagnoid, came the modern racial forms in the same craniofacial tradition up. There were other more primitive or racially foreign strains in Europe, some Negriform/Sanoid, which were later bred out, but these two traditions survived with some modifications to these day and are, if adding the Cromagnoid derivatives and Dinarised intermediate, the backbone of the Europid variation.


2. While we can evaluate and study current trends in Caucasian morphology, in case of UP, we can’t. We are talking about a very limited cranial series, scattered across Europe in time (10,000 to max 45 - 50,000 years ago) and space. To split them or divide them into discrete groups and claim these groups existed for real and had different evolutionary history is a folly with no backing. Personally, I cannot see the logic behind attempts to derive modern Euro variation directly from a single UP skull – like Cro Magnon 1 or Combe-Capelle. It is like claiming that Nordics can only breed Nordics, or Cro-magnids cant breed Nordics etc… and these “pure lines” have proliferated and perpetuated themselves throughout centuries… In other words - it is a nonsense.

Well, rather see it like a pool and again two extreme form variants, no matter how they came up, now out of this pool selectice forces form a racial form, an adaptive specialisation. So the Balto-Cromagnoid spectrum is clearly based on the blueprint of the Cromagnoid variants of the past, it follows in many respects the same basic features, as do Nordid and Mediterranid for the Aurignacoid one.

A jump from an Aurignacoid form to a typical Alpinid skull is much bigger, needs much more changes than from the Cromagnoid, especially brachycephalised ones like the Borreby-variants. So its much more likely that f.e. if you have a pred. Nordoid population and it becomes Alpinised that this process started from already Cromagnoid variants. Aurignacoid reduced variants just become gracile, like the Gracilmediterranid, but dont change their whole proportional characteristics.

I dont know if you get what I mean, but its about the genetic trait combination from which certain developments and specialisations are more likely or easier to make.

As I wrote elsewhere:
What various authors and I described with Aurignacoid/Capellid and Cromagnoid was just a proportional trait combination. That trait combination is inherited and appears in different proportions in various populations, so its a biological category of importance both as a form of intra- as well as interpopulational variation.

I suspect the main reason for your emotionalised style on that matter is that you know very well, that neither you nor the majority of Polish people are Nordid and feel therefore inferiour in comparison to other people, since you follow the logic of "Nordic racism". So your position has a lot to do with your Polish nationalism and personal approach.

Its quite funny that you always try to make the Polish people appear more Nordid, while at the same time refusing the term and proper definition in detail. The whole game is meaningless and we all know that racial types are an artificial construct, like most biological categories we use for animals as well. The real question is just if there is a real and biologically meaningful relation between this construct and the biological reality and the answer has to be, if that concept being applied correctly, yes.

So far I know we can say for certain whether there existed at a certain time two distinct Proto-Europoid groups of Aurignacoid and Cromagnoid populations. The terms are valid insofar as the first known good representatives of the Aurignacoid (leptodolichomorphic) and Cromagnoid (eurydolichomorphic) Europoids are from those ancient remains, Combe Capelle/Aurignac and Cro Magnon respectively.

The more typical variants of either are distinguished by variety of traits, mainly of proportional nature, but not only so.

For the later time and modern context even more so, we can define lineages of form tradition to put it that way, but of course most larger Europoid populations show both types, but at varying proportions.

So there are clear form traditions, f.e. for the Dalofaelid and Berberid, as well as derivatives like Osteuropid, Alpinoid and Indobrachid etc. if its about the Cromagnoid branch, and Nordid, Mediterranid, Orientalid, Nordindid-Gracilindid etc.

The first early Europoids showed practically those two categories only, later more and others, like the Cromagnoid derivatives and Taurids.

We dont deal with pure surviving lineages, but if one want so, surviving genvariants which influence skull proportions and a variety of other traits.

Its like a genpool in which along the lines of those old variants genetic variation exists and can build upon. So modern Aurignacoid and Cromagnoid racial types might went through various changes population wise and by their genetic background depending on the selective regime working on it. F.e. Aurignacoid vs. Cromagnoid at different times 10 : 5, 2 : 10, 10 : 2 etc.

Its like it is with skin color, if you put a dark type in a low UV environment and vice versa, so what we describe with those terms is the characteristic form tradition and proportional as well as other traits for either category.

The genetic background is of zero importance from the position of evolutionary biology if there is no selective advantage/disadvantage, no adaptive character of the genes in question.

Today many geneticists still concentrate on lineages and even try to eliminate variables which can be assigned to selective pressures. This changes slowly and has a lot to do with the limited means of early genetic research. But in the end, we will end up with those genes being responsible for the phenotype because those are the really interesting ones, they tell us something about the advantages/disadvantages of a variant, of the adaptive qualities and limits, which is what really matters.

Who cares about a clear cut racial type having two different origins if the actual result is of the same kind and vice versa? Thats only interesting for a comparison and evolutionary tree, but tells us nothing about biodynamic processes. Even the great v. Eickstedt said "Race is a Process" - one could also say, like I do, an evolutionary tendency.
And if 1 percent of foreign admixture introduced traits which spread up to 80 percent in a population, that we just see 1 percent admixture tells us nothing about the racial and adaptive change which happened! An adaptive advantage can spread from even just one person to the rest of the population if the selective pressures are strong and last long enough.

Populations are if being homogenous the result of a dominant process of adaptation, racial form or mixture, heterogenous ones, like most European larger populations are, point to different evolutionary tendencies and basic adaptations.
The most basic system is that of the 6 to 7 (if Lappid being included) adaptive categories which must be defined typologically, as they are the most important one.

I once made up this graph to illustrate the evolutionary relations over time in a simplified way:
http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/4333/ractree1yo9.jpg (http://img338.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ractree1yo9.jpg)
http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/ractree1yo9.jpg/1/w728.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img338/ractree1yo9.jpg/1/)

And for the more important racial, evolutionary tendencies in Europe and how they overlap, by pointing to the most important relations, ignoring others which can't be shown in a 2D graphic of this kind in a proper way:
http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/7496/races2jx6.jpg (http://img338.imageshack.us/my.php?image=races2jx6.jpg)
http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/races2jx6.jpg/1/w709.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img338/races2jx6.jpg/1/)
The basic tendencies are just those pointed out, all other forms are just intermediate in one way or another, or point to second order typological categories of lower significance and distinction in the context of the European racial variation.

If its about genes we still deal in most researches more with quantity - sometimes not even that, but thats the approach at least - and not quality, namely adaptive qualities. This is the way to go and what races are about. They are not about random genetic differences by drift, even though we can distinguish the big races that way, but about adaptive qualities and evolutionary pathways.


I think it’s rather the opposite. Cro-Magnon skeletons were rather tall. Taller than Combe-Capelle. Their noses were prominent and relatively broad, their bones were long and gracile indicating they came from a place with a warm, possibly arid, climate. At least that is what I read. Good evidence for this is that very similar types were common all around the Mediterranean - from Morocco and Atlas Mountans down to the Nile valley and Nubia...


Besides, how can we know if a skeleton, or for that matter – a skull, is pyknomorphic if that term strictly describes the soft tissue composition??? The old man from Cro-Magnon could as well have been a skinny astenic.

I answered that above before reading this, but I might add that there are proportional traits and markers which are as important for the definition of leptomorphic vs. pyknomorphic as are soft tissue, fat proportion.


There is evidence for gracilisation, particularly after Neolithic revolution and population boom. And no wonder, sedentary lifestyle of a farmer is by no means as energy-consuming as that of a hunter-gatherer. I agree that Cromagnid vs Aurignacid (or proto-Med) can be used to describe here some evolutionary trends. Gracilisation co-incides with the spread of agriculture and influx of farming populations…

There were two ways of reduction:
Aurignacoid - just gracile like Gracilmediterranid, otherwise the same "like the big"
Cromagnoid - infantile-reduced with shortened and more childlike proportions.

Probably not just because of the energy consumption and climate, but also the unergonomic hard work of dependent peasantry and the sufferings related to this very bad lifestyle for humans, especially carrying great weighs rather than moving fast and fighting effective like in most tribal organisations of Europes more favourable areas - so shorter lower extremities and broader body because of that too.

So there is no and never was an equation of "gracile = Aurginacoid/leptodolichomorphic.

[Jarl]

Well, Coon also stressed the "Mediterranean" group and called some Arabids "pure Mediterranean" and even believed that some Europid forms are primarily the result of Neandertal admixture.

:) Indeed! He believed... I am glad you see his assumptions are far from being a definite, true image of the evolutionary history of "Caucasian" races.


He also mixed up things with his idiotic terms, like "Bruenn", while all other anthropologists used the prehistoric Bruenn variant as an Aurignacoid specimen, even gave Aurignacid the alternative name "Bruennid", like Lundman, whereas Coon lumped oversized Nordoids with Cromagnids together in his terms. If just size matters, they were somewhat close to each other...

They were homogenous in some respects, but not in others. If you compare the skull from Combe Capelle and the one from Cro Magnon its clear you deal with two very different extremes, phenotypes at least, thats obvious.

I do not deny there exist certain differences between these UP skulls. However common sense and everyday observations tell me that children do not always look like exact copies of their parents, and, in each population, you get considerably much individual-to-individual variation. For this very reason, I cannot see how any division of the European UP skull set can be regarded as "racial" - a term which, by its modern scientific definition, concerns whole living human populations, not single cranial specimens. To me that is typology revisitied. Why it is safe to classify a skull to this or that population - basing on logical deductive reasoning, which preserves truth, it is completely unsafe to re-construct whole human races from a few UP skulls... What are the criteria? There are no objective criteria which would allow for such a classification/division system as we cannot study the populations and families which these UP individuals belonged to in situ. We do not konow their history and variance. They are gone. All we have now is a set of measurements and moder populations - complex products of several migrations waves of equally complex ancestor populations.

However we try to split this single set of UP skulls, it is always a purely arbitrary decision... based on net metrical differences, which in turn depend on how many measurements we take, how we prioritise them etc... There is nothing objective about this procedure. To be clear with you, Agrippa - I simply do not see how we can and why we should take Coon Aurignacid-Cromagnis division seriously. He states whats obvious - the skulls are different. Cro Magnon 1 looks robust, yet, in some ways its more modern than Combe-Capelle. Fair enough! I can see that with my own eyes - but I just do not buy the whole half-Neanderthal, Nordid-Med bs...I do not see on what grounds they should be classified into two mutually exclusive sets - two completely different populations with very different histories of evolution. Do you? Neither can I infer how exactly did Coon link the modern populations to these UP specimens by splitting most European populations into "modern CMs" and "modern Capellids"... Obviously, following the suit of modern science grounded in genetics, I discard the metrical reasons. Coon's statements that one race can have only 145mm there, but never, say 150mm, appear completely abstract to me... devoid of reality.


Consequently, the whole Cromagnid-Aurignacid (or Capellid) division appears simply as one more typological system, not much better than Deniker's. The only difference here is that Coon tried to make it more credible by not very convincingly linking it to the UP human fossils...






The differences are too big to be considered negligible, no matter how you explain it or if you consider it just two extremes in one population which was never split and in the end various modern racial forms being more or less AurignacOID and CromagnOID, follow the basic variation of that time if one or the other form variant was favoured by selection, like explained.

Probably, but whats more important is if looking at the current variation, that some variants have almost exclusively Aurignacoid or Cromagnoid form and proportional traits. They are based on that form tradition which existed even then and out of which modern racial forms being bred.

I do agree with this. There are more robust and more gracile populations in Europe. In this respect some do resemble more the Capelle specimen and others the CroMagnon... But thats how far it goes. There is no immediate link in ancestry here, no clear, objective bounduary. Some people are broader than others - so they are mor like the Old Man of Cro-Magnon but thats it. They by no means have to descend from him or the population he belonged to... and most certainly they do not as all modern Euro genepools are products of several population booms, bottlenecks and migrations (like the Neolithic one).

To clarify, I accept the Aurignacid-Cromagnid system as a typological one, re-capturing some evultionary/morphological trends and symbolically named after certain human fossils. However, I totally reject the whole Coon's fantastic history of evolution of modern Euro races. The modern Neanderthals, the Med Nords etc. The whole two distinct lineages - CM and Aurignacid... This stuff was simply made up by Coon to expalin his visual impressions. Nowhere else have I found a scholar who would voice an opinion in favour of a similar hypothesis.


Thats not correct in any case, because there were highly robust Aurignacid skulls, like that of Bruenn. You can never equate Aurignacid with gracile, you can also not equate Aurignacoid in later times, f.e. the Neolithics with gracile, because there were highly robust leptodolichomorphic groups and individuals.

I cannot but agree. First of all, that would be idem per idem as we did not establish the credibility of the Aurignacoid-Cromagnid system in the first place! I should clarify that I do not see any need to equate "Aurigancoids" with anything else, as I simply do not regard them as a real entity. Rather a statistical fantasy by Carletin Stevens Coon. I discard the whole talk about some "modern CMs" and "modern Aurignacids"... I will put it into two points:

1. We might assume that modern populations partially descend from the UP populations which the Old Man of Cro Magnon and the Combe Capelle Man belonged to. But we cannot make any inferences as to the actual process of trait inheritance, evolution and race-formation becasue...

2. ...we do not know much about UP Euro populations. How many there were, how related, how big etc. We do not know how many Cro-Magnon-like individuals the Combe Capelle population had, and vice versa. We do not know the means for these populations, their variance, pigmentation, nothing. All we got is several UP skulls separated in time and space. Lastly, we also do not know a lot more about the exact racial impact of the later migration waves. We are only presented with the final product.

[Agrippa]

in each population, you get considerably much individual-to-individual variation.

Yes, but in rather small and isolated groups you usually have, without mixture and in a specific habitat, most of the time very homogenous people in comparison to what you can see in those Upper Palaeolithics or modern European populations.


it is completely unsafe to re-construct whole human races from a few UP skulls

Indeed, but there are these two variants, no matter if you consider them races, I consider them racial types, whats not the same as race/subspecies (like Europid, Mongolid, Negrid).
Even more important, we see here those variants which both have new traits, different from ancestral forms, different from each other and:
- The differences are so big, so significant, that it is rather very unlikely they came up in one small population but rather in, at one time and to a certain degree, isolated groups. The Cromagnid form was in the earlist time very progressive and in its character very extreme, even the later variant one could call Cromagnid usually dont show the very extreme character to the same degree.
- Whereas other early Homo sapiens forms (like Grimaldi etc.) didnt survived, those two phenotypical variants seem to have started a form tradition in the Europid race in particular which continues to this day.

So no matter how you categorise the variants, they were present and they were of great significance. It would make no sense to not distinguish between these two variant in the Upper Palaeolithic racial spectrum. F.e. to make averages of the Cromagnoid AND Aurignacoid variants would give you a false impression without knowing that dichotomy.


They are gone. All we have now is a set of measurements and moder populations

I hope for genetic tests and am quite sure that Combe Capelle and Cro Magnon show significant differences.

I dont think there was any significant Neandertal influence in any Homo sapiens group and that Coons distinction, or better its explanation being simple false.


splitting most European populations into "modern CMs" and "modern Capellids"...

That was done by many European anthropologists, like v. Eickstedt, B. Lundman (he called the Aurignacid element "Bruennid" though!), I. Schwidetzky, R. Knussmann, J.R. Baker etc.


I discard the metrical reasons. Coon's statements that one race can have only 145mm there, but never, say 150mm, appear completely abstract to me... devoid of reality.

Yes, but certain traits, even proportional ones, are much more fixed and heritable. If its about the typical Cromagnid variants, they show the very low and rectangular orbits f.e.


I do agree with this. There are more robust and more gracile populations in Europe. In this respect some do resemble more the Capelle specimen and others the CroMagnon...

Well, but robust vs. gracile doesnt explain the basic Aurignacoid vs. Cromagnoid variation, because there are more gracile Cromagnoids, especially derivatives of course and extremely robust Aurignacoids.


They by no means have to descend from him or the population he belonged to...

Just imagine Europe was populated by various waves of people, among these were Aurignacoid and Cromagnoid variants, probably comeing from different source groups (like Near East vs. Central Asia). Now these group mixed up and produced a new European genpool, in which, depending on chance/gendrift too, but primarily selective pressures, one of these original form traditions prevailed, was more common than the other.

So they repeat the basic variation and can still be described, be it just for practical reasons, as belonging to the Aurignacoid (Nordid, Mediterranid, Orientalid, Indid etc.) or Cromagnoid (Dalofaelid, Palaeatlantid, Berberid and derivatives like Osteuropid and Alpinoid) form tradition.


To clarify, I accept the Aurignacid-Cromagnid system as a typological one, re-capturing some evultionary/morphological trends and symbolically named after certain human fossils. However, I totally reject the whole Coon's fantastic history of evolution of modern Euro races. The modern Neanderthals, the Med Nords etc. The whole two distinct lineages - CM and Aurignacid... This stuff was simply made up by Coon to expalin his visual impressions. Nowhere else have I found a scholar who would voice an opinion in favour of a similar hypothesis.

I think with this view on things you come quite close me. Because I dont think every racial form must descent from any sort of pure line, but lets put it that way:
If there were two very extreme opposites in the past, and these two extremes still exist in populations which might in most cases be direct descendents of similar variants, we can see a relation and at least form tradition, assuming that this is no new variation, but rather an old one.


We are only presented with the final product.

Yes, but we have forms at the start and in between, we also know more or less that this variant had X and the other Y advantages, so we can, in certain cases, make up cost : benefit calculations and relate that to selective pressures, climatic, social, epidemiological etc. factors.

And its not by chance, that the Ice Age Europeans were more Cromagnoid than the post-Ice Age populations and it makes perfect sense to distinguish these two basic forms and name them, no matter how clear the genetic relations are.

[Jarl]

In that time more and more progressive Aurignacoid forms, of which we often can't say for sure whether they were Nordoid or Mediterranoid, spread throughout Europe, while the progressive Cromagnoid forms kept ground where it was possible, in some cases they even expanded again over time, mostly among herder-warriors, as one has to expect, since among poor tillers they were just a phase out model. The progressive and rather robust Aurignacoids were particularly common among herder-warriors of the flat-fertile land, among those populations which lived in favourable areas, but had to fight on an individual and collective level with high level selective pressures. Especially along rivers and coasts they spread, but soon overtook the grasslands, while leaving unfavourable, inland, forested and colder areas largely alone.


There are striking discrepancies in how different scholars approach Combe-Capelle specimen. Majority link it with Cheddar Man, Brno, Predmost and, by extension, Skhul. All of these fossils are in many ways archaic and have some primitive, Neanderthal-like features. They have strong browridges, wide nasal apertures, receding forehead and prognathism. Aleksiejew classified them as early Australoid and proto-Europid.

On the other hand, I recently read an abstract from a French study whose authot linked Combe-Capelle type of crania to the Natufians and ME Meds. In this way "Aurginacids" were most likely Neolithic farmers, rather than herders. Aleksiejew noticed that they too, had often pronounced prognathism and wides noses. He noticed that these Autraloid-like features were still present in certain areas of Europe and in the ME, in solution, up till the Bronze Age. I guess this is credible. Linking Combe-Capelle to Natufians and Middle East seems reasonable, particularly that the earlies Aurignacid-like fossils were found at Skhul, in the ME. Although they were still very robust - however let us bear in mind they can be over 100 000 year old, preceding Combe-Capelle by at least 50 000 years! It is safe to assume that an early migration from Africa to the ME and local processes there were the source of Australoids and the proto-Europids.

Those proto-Europids that remained in the ME were gracilised, possibly because of the influnece of the Afro-Asiatic "gracilisation nucleus" in the Horn, Arabia and Nile valley. Conesequently, they eventually reached the Natufian or Neolithic Med form. Those that migrated further to the North and to the West, gave rise to the Cro-Magnon type, possibly also linked to proto-Mongoloids (before their migration and final specialisation in the Far East).

The question is - how progressive they really were? It seems reasonable to assume that the Cro-Magnon type was a loceal specialisation and evolved in Europe and West Asia. In this, respect its presence in North Africa has to be treated as an intrusion or back-migration. However, Cro-Magnons seem more progressive than early "Aurignacids" and much more like modern humans, particularly Euros. In some respects they also resemble Amerinds - skulls like Laugerie-Basse or Chancelade indicate a clear Asian, proto-Mongoloid link here.


This position being overtaken by derivatives of Cromagnoids, partly of older and more archaic Cromagnoid lines. These derivatives are the result of an adaptation to a cheaper version, which saves energy and storages it, while keeping up a minimum physical standard and better psychic adaptation to the sedentary life of a poor farmer in the temperate and cold area. This tendencies were Alpinisation and Baltisation.

So one could say many Cromagnoid lines of Europe simply adapted to the new conditions of low energy, high epidemic and social pressures, negative selection in many respects, by becoming Alpinised and Baltised, reduced, more pyknomorphic, brachycephalic and somewhat more infantile quite often.

Only in those regions they could keep their original form, which allowed this to survive with higher energy levels and more challenges. Since this Cromagnoid derivatives are even more efficient as an adaptation to a poor peasant existence, from the Middle Ages on in particular, they even substituted the Aurignacoid forms, which were as well less cost effective if you switch off the higher level individual and group selection, together with a worsening of climate and living conditions. Especially in those areas, which were further away from the coast and rivers, in which fully dependent tillers suffered from malnutrition, plagues and social pressures, the smaller-reduced Cromagnoid derivatives could win ground.

At the same time in the South-East a new specialised form of progressive-mature variants came up as an adaptation to the life of a herder-warrior in the mountains, the end result of a process we call Dinarisation. From these centres of Dinarisation the new type spread and quite often we see side by side Alpinoid tillers and Dinaroid herders in the Alpine habitat, as two rather complementary forms of the brachycephalic Europid spectrum.

In some Mediterranoid areas further South and along the coasts, we can see partial Alpinisation or further Gracilisation among the farmers. The Aurignacoid reduction is no fundamental change as with the Cromagnoid derivatives, but just "a smaller sized version", which makes sense primarily in the warmer climate, because of the Bergmann's Rule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergmann's_Rule).



I would be a little careful with this environmentalist approach. I do not think brachycephaly is a target for strong environmental selection. Quite the opposite, it seems to be a relatively neutral trait, prone to drift. Brachycephaly seems to have been present in Europe since the UP. Magdalenians were usually brachycephalic. Its the frequencies that changed over time.

Ultimate source of brachycephaly had to be the same one as that of the "Cro-Magnon" type. That is most likely West Asia (Europe, Cacasus, Asia Minor and the vicinity of the Caspian Sea). Some modern Euro barchycephaly (like Dinaricism) might be a result of more recent influx from Asia Minor.

However, I would not link this or that type of cranium to a particular somatotype. It does not seem to be well-evidenced. Definitely gracilisation took place. That is why we get more Subnordids, Baltids, Alpinids and God knows what else instead of a typical Old Cro-Magnon Men. However I woud ascribe it mostly to the ME gene influx during the Neolithic revolution and switch to farming, which reduced environmental selection. I reckon climate changes had a secondary importance - they allowed for agriculture so they reduced the selection adn enabled the admixture of farmers.



The Allen's Rule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen's_rule) is quite clear too, with extremities becoming shorter, the body more compact and rounded, because of the relation of maximum volume : minimum surface in the cold and minimum volume : maximum surface in the hot areas.
A larger body can generally create more heat with a relatively lower volume, so usually larger bodies are preferred in the cold, in humans in combination of these rules, primarily a larger trunk in the extreme cold.

If we combine the effects of energy intake and climate, we can say:
Extremely cold: Reduced and borealised, Eastbaltid, Lappid and Northern Mongoloid, on the fringes of the Europoid spectrum, usually out of the classic Europid variation.

Cold with high energy and general physical demands: Cromagnid (Dalofaelid)
Cold with low energy: Cromagnoid derivatives.

Temperate cold: Cromagnid, Cromagnoid derivatives, large-robust (Bergmann's Rule!) Aurignacoid (Nordid, Atlantomediterranid, Iranid etc.)

Temperate warm: The same plus gracile Mediterranid

Hot dry: Primarily Aurignacoid, stronger tendency towards gracile leptomorphic and shorter trunk.

Hot-moisty: Usually outside of the Europid spectrum, only Gracilindid made it partly, but even they prefer the less extreme areas and avoid all tropical forests of course, spread with cultural techniques, original hunter-gatherers didnt had while clearing the forests with the axe and fire...

Compare with the climate-race map I made:
http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/3758/klimata2.th.jpg (http://img198.imageshack.us/my.php?image=klimata2.jpg)

and consider the fact that we had warmer (spread of Nordoid and Mediterranoid from Mesolithi/Neolithic-Iron Age, but with a peak in the Bronze Age) as well as colder (Little Ice Age, Alpinisation, Baltisation) phases in which things were different from today.

Lundman's racial body types:
http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/6749/krperbautypenc.th.jpg (http://img198.imageshack.us/my.php?image=krperbautypenc.jpg)

Note the progressive-balanced trias from the temperate zones of juvenile, virile and mature, with all these three being widespread among Mediterranoid, Nordoid, Dinaroid and Cromagnoid, but according to Lundman juvenile more common among Gracilmediterranids, virile in Nordeuropids and mature in Dinaroids.

The Borealised body is one sided cold adapted (Eastbaltid, Lappid), as is Polar-Protomorphic (Northern Mongoloid), while the infantile being fully reduced with earlier ontogenetic determination. Afro-Negrid and Tropic-Protomorph represent the (very) dry-hot adaptation.

If the basic climate rules are not met in the distribution of traits in living populations, we can assume different selective (f.e. high level individual and group selection due to social dominance and warlike etc.) trends or migrations. Therefore the Nordoid type is definitely and in no way cold adapted, but only more so in comparison to gracile Mediterranoid, simply because of size (volume). To assume its greatest spread either from inside the present variation in Northern hunter-gatherers or from outside (most likely both!) of it in the warm period is therefore logical.

So for the Cromagnid biohistory, we can say as long as very effective, heavy build hunters were advantageous in a cold environment, it was their time, because they could beat the Bergmann's Rule to a certain degree, by becoming only somewhat shorter ranged, because of their sheer body mass, which made them physically superior in comparison to reduced-short ranged Borealised variants.

But this body mass is cost intensive and has to be justified in evolutionary terms, so when it became warmer, only in the better and best areas with high level selective pressures they were really favoured and even there they always had to compete with the equally effective robust Aurignacoids of more leptomorphic habitus, which were comparably cheaper.

The sexual selection might indeed have played a role, but overall I dont think a primary one. The main sexual selection effect might have to do with the lower effective selection for high level males in sedentary farmer societies and more compliant individuals of both sexes. Possibly we can say that mesomorphic Cromagnids were/are oftentimes even more introverted and less social than the average Aurignacoid (though those have a certain proportion of very schizothymic-introverted individuals), which didnt really help in the larger communities which came up from Neolithic times neither. But thats again very speculative.


I definitely agree that graciliastion took place because of the influx of gene from more Southern genepools and transition from the hunter-gatherer to a farming community. Once the migrations stopped, the ME and UP genes reached equilibrium. Neolithic revolutions could not wipe out the UP genepool. Most Euros, although nowhere near to the old Cro-Magnon 1, are still more "CroMagnid" in appearance and robust than Arabids, Horners or other Afro-Asiatics. Besides, the high frequency of blondism and blue-eyes in modern North Euro populations could only arise in the UP, in small drift-prone, hunter-gatherer populations. This had to preserved by the population boom after farming was introduced. It is very unlikely that blondism arose after ME-influx and agriculture.



Let us focus on the North now.


Gracilisation took place steadily. If there is any place where the UP genepools remained relatively well-preserved its in the North. In Europe, there is a visible South to North and East to West transition. Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Northern Germany plus Ireland and Scotland have to most robust types in Europe. No wonder - islands, and peninsulas are always isolated and tend to preserve older forms, than the mainland. Coon noticed that Northern Germans, Danes and Norwegians have the biggest crania in Europe. It takes one look at his "head size" map to notice that. If you look at the Scandinavian means given by Coon, only the Swedes do stand out in one respect. Their bizyg seems relatively narrower than that of other Scandinavians. However, I do not know how credible Coon's sources were. How big the sample size was. Most Swedes I have known personally, had large heads and were tall, robust, wide-spanned and wide framed, like most other Scandinavians. Even if leptoprosopic, their head and face dimensions were remarkably large.


Danes with their mean head length of 194 mm, head breadth of 154.7 mm to 158.8 mm (averaged!), and bizygomatic of 139.5 mm to 142.5 mm, are in all respects absolutely massive! Their dimensions by far exceed those of mainland Euros. They are unmatched.

Norwegians are a mystery. Coon used mostly Bryn as his source here. However, he himself noticed several times that Bryn's measurements seemed incorrect and uncredible. The head lenght of 195 length seems credible and close to the average Danish means. However, head breadth of 149 mm and bizygomatic mean of 135 mm is nowhere near to the Danish ones. This blatantly contradicts Coon's own conlusions and his map, where Norway's population has a remarkably large head size. One thing which might explain this discrepancy is that the means above are given for young recruits from the valleys. The sample size, I believe, was also small and did not exceed several dozen individuals.

However, Norway is a coastal country, and a small sample of recruits from the valleys cannot be, by any means, representative of the whole population. And indeed where it comes to other coastal and mountaineous regions, like Trondheim or Valle, the difference is striking and means start to grow rapidly. But perhaps, as I later explaine, it is more of a difference between Byrn's and Schreiner's measuring skills, than an actual biometrical difference between Osterdal and the rest of the country. Coon gives the means for one such region - Valle. Head length of the Valle males reaches 198 mm, breadth 154.9 mm, and a bizygomatic breadth, 142.9 mm. These dimensions are in all ways absolutely tremendous! They exceed even the Danish means!


And it seems that this type holds truth for most of Norway. Coon's description of other provinces looks remarkably different to that of Osterdal:


Western Norway, low next section under consideration, includes the provinces Telemark, Aust-Agder, Vest-Agder, Rogaland, Hordaland, Sogn og Fjordane, Bergen, and Mřre.
(...)
In the province of Rogaland low brachycephalic element reaches its maximum and here, in fact, is located its center of greatest concentration in all Norway. The inner nucleus of this brachycephalic area is Jćren,37 a flat coastal plain, locally uniform in race, but regionally distinct.
(...)
In Jćren, Arbo found 82 per cent of brachycephals,38 a ratio as high as that usual in southern Germany, and a mean cephalic index of 83.2. The three other districts of Rogaland, by comparison, have mean indices of 81-82. The Jćren people form, as a whole, a very definite and easily observed type which has been most fully described by Larsen.39 This type is most concentrated in low parishes of Haaland, Hřiland, Klepp, and Time. It has a large cranial vault of medium height, very broad, and of considerable length. The forehead is broad, only slightly curved, and quite high, and usually of but little slope. The browridges are, on the whole, of moderate size. The head exhibits from above a roundish, oval form; it is not an evolved planoccipital skull, although individual crania have a tendency in this direction. The face is notable for its breadth, both between the zygomata and in the mandible, which is frequently heavy and deep.
(...)
Correlations within the Rogaland population prove little. (...) Red hair and brown hair are associated with the highest cephalic index level, and the roundheads tend to have longer and heavier bodies, and broader and heavier faces, than the long heads.
(...)
In Hordaland, north of Rogaland, one finds a continuation of the same contrast between coast and inland valleys which occurs farther south. The brachycephaly of Jaeren, which extends southwards into the two Agders, also stretches northward in an attenuated form into Mid-Hordaland.
(...)
The western Norwegian mesocephals are taller, blonder, and larger headed than either of the two types mentioned. In these and in other respects, they form a special population of their own.
(...)
Mme. Schreiner, in order to study this special group in greater detail than the recruit material permits, selected the high mountain district of Valle in Setesdal, in the northern part of Aust-Agder; and also two isolated districts of Hordaland, Hĺlandsdal and Eidfjord.

Then follows the description of Trondlagen:


The third section of Norway, usually designated as a racial center, is the north central group of three provinces, Mřre, South Trřndelag, and North Trřndelag, with especial emphasis upon the two latter. The two Trřndelags include several great valleys: Namdal, Orkdal, Meldal Galdal, and Tydal, and a number of large islands as well. (...)
The modern population of the Trřndelag region is notable in that it exceeds the rest of Norway in a number of important features. One is in stature, for the tallest provincial means are found here; another is in the height of the cranial vault, which reaches a mean of 128 mm.; a third is in the percentage of blue eyes, for this is the lightest-eyed region of Norway. The hair, by contrast, is by no means the blondest, but there are significant deficiencies of ash-blond, and excesses of golden and of brown. This type is also characterized by a considerable face length, with narrower bizygomatic and bigonial diameters than are found in Norway as a whole. The type which possesses the characters enumerated above is especially concentrated in South Trřndelag, and most strongly in the valley of Orkdal. The other districts of the two Trřndelags show a tendency for this special Nordic type to blend into the mesocephalic western form which reaches its culmination in Valle.

...which pretty much seems to be a variation of the Valle type. It is also interesting that the Valle man, depicted by Coon in UP section, was used as a textbook example of Nordic in many pre-WWII German and Polish anthro publications - including Eickstedt, Czekanowski and Mydlarski.

Now the remaining question is - why is Byrn's Osterdal series so much different to other series by Schreiner??? There is evidence, that Bryn's measurements are too low. Coon noticed this upon two occasions:


35. It seems likely that Bryn located the nasion a little lower than did A. Schreiner, judging by the comparisons elsewhere. It is also likely that this mean should be nearer 125 or 126 mm.

36. Here again I feel that Bryn´s mean nose height of 54.7 mm. is a little too low, and that his nasal index of 61.8 somewhat high.

Obviosuly suspiciously low head breadth and bizygomatic breadth did not draw his attentions so much - as these were the key dimensions for his Nordic-Med versus CroMagnid theory. These major inaccuracies, however, cast a new light on Bryn's series. If he failed to locate the nasion and measure the nose and face height properly, he would most likely also fail to take other accurate measurements.

Let's move on. Iceland. Heads - very long with a mean of 197.3 mm and broad, 154.1 mm. Means very close to the Danish and Norwegian (by Schreiner). Coon states that they "may be duplicated in size only in Valle, and in Ireland". This is incorrect. It takes one look at Danish means to tell, that Danes are very similar and are even broader.

Coon states that "the Icelanders, with a nasion-menton height of 130.1 mm., are very long faced". Indeed, that's most likely the largest face length mean in Europe. How does this correlate with Norwegian mean of 122 mm (by Bryn)? Coon again accuses Bryn of inaccuracy: "but their excess over the Norwegians in this character
is partly a matter of technique." Here he compares them to Norwegians:


They are actually not much longer in this character than the people of Valle. The breadths of the face, the minimum frontal, bizygomatic, and bigonial (106.5, 140.6, and 108.5 mm.) are all broader than the corresponding dimensions in Norway as a whole, but they are comparable to those found in the provinces from which the Icelandic ancestors came. The excess of the jaw breadth over that of the forehead may indicate an adaption resulting from rigorous dietary conditions,49 as Mme. Schreiner also observed in northern Norway.

Central and Northern Germans:


Members of the second central German group, the Keuperfranken of middle Franconia, are shorter, with a mean stature of 166 cm. Their heads are smaller, and their cephalic index higher (mean C. I. = 84.8). Their faces are shorter and narrower; whereas the bizygomatic mean of the Vogelbergers is 143 mm., a dimension suggestive of northern Germany,

The Fehmarners, from Schleswig: mean length of 194 mm, breadth of 162 mm (!), height of 129 mm (!), and bizygomatic of 145 mm (!).


From the distributional standpoint the most remarkable thing about Germany in a racial sense is the large head size typical of much of the country, and of the north and west in particular.

Now, it becomes clear that Coon's idea of Nordic is extremely rigid. He tried to link it so much with the Meds, Arabids and the Middle East, that he ended up excluding most Northern Euros and Scandinavians from the definition! A paradox! :)

All because he wrongly based his system on some dubious, strict bounduaries in absolute dimensions, which he accepted apriori. This was a historical exception. Best proof of this is that he based his idea NORDIC on Halstatt, Central Euro, Illyrian cranial series. Weird. Why on Earth did he choose to regard these old cranial series from mainlad Europe as his yardstick for modern NORDIC, and not the other way round?

In this way his system cannot be reconciled with any of the old typological Euro systems. Its way different to the ideas represented by European (mainly German, Swedish, Polish and French) anthropologists...


P.S.

Give me some time to reply to your latest post, please ;)

[Dr. Bambo]

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