Because similar questions being raised by some in this forum, I thought it might make sense to re-post something I already posted in other fora as an introduction to the discussion of what racial typology in Europe is about.
What does a basic racial typology describe in Europe?
I think a 5-7 race scheme is enough to describe the basic variation inside of Europe, the most important evolutionary tendencies, specialisations, races are mainly that and can change over time.
My explanation would be as follows, there are basically 6-7 tendencies in Europe and we just see varying degrees and intermediate forms of them. But there can be more than one reason for that pattern, just to mention some:
a) the simplest is (sub-)racial mixture.
b) an evolutionary tendency can occur in various areas, but with a different specific direction, just parts of a type could have been realised for various reasons:
-) the selective pressure in the direction of a type was there but not strong enough, so certain features were never selected or it would have need more time
-) the pressure became too weak or changed before the type was fully realised
-) the direction of the selective pressure changed after the type was realised - a typical form existed but was altered by changing conditions afterwards
etc.
So the types represent the "ideal goal" of a typical European evolutionary tendency which can be realised fully, partly, can be intermediate between two or more forms. In that way those which represent the typical or even extreme form of a tendency are "pure" phenotypically, those which deviate for whatever reason in another direction are "mixed" - crucial are those inherited features which are important for the specialisation and therefore the definiton of a type, an evolutionary tendency.
About which influences might have played a role in forming the various subracial tendencies in Europe I already wrote various posts on this board, so I dont want to repeat it know, but just to discuss about the basic tendencies and relations.
I made a rather rough and simplified graphic to illustrate what I mean, I didnt mentioned all variants I know of and some positions had to be a compromise - simply because of the limits of this simple 2dimensional graphic. As European I consider the basic circles of Nordid, Cromagnid, Dinarid, Mediterranid, Osteuropid and Alpinoid. The best representative form in the centre of the subrace is in brackets. Again this scheme is not meant to be perfect, but just a good illustration of some basic relations in Europe which I have in mind:
http://www.theapricity.com/forum/att...1&d=1259938119