Anthropological observations from my latest trip to Corfu Island and Puglia

[aherne]

In time-honored traditions, I'll share here my anthropological observations of people I've seen in my latest trip to Corfu Island (GR) and Puglia/Basilicata (IT), comparing them with kindred South European people such as Spaniards, Portuguese and Albanians. Let's start with a disclaimer first: all of these are my personal impressions based on the limited samples I saw, which means observations are liable to become more exact if I'll see people again...

Corfu Island: a surprisingly high number of blondes among native Greeks, belonging both Aryan and indigenous CM elements. Med with secondary Alpine mix dominates while Dinaric (very dominant among Albanians, who are only Dinaro-Alpine-Med) is less significant. People are quite tall and very good looking: men in particular, but many women are super beautiful especially in their late teens. In one week I stayed there I saw more 8/10-10/10 looking women than I've seen in Bucharest for an entire YEAR (same in Spain).

Puglia/Basilicata: locals don't look similar to Greeks or Spaniards at all. First of all they are lighter skinned and Alpine is dominant in the mix with Med, there is more Dinaric, people are a lot shorter. Like in other Italian regions I visited, there is almost no indigenous CM, which is confirmed by genetic oracles but hard to explain historically (since IT was inhabited before ENF came). Women look better than in other regions of Italy due to a more gracile phenotype: short but beautifully formed on average while truly beautiful ones aren't much more common than here in Bucharest. A minority has "exotic" Middle Eastern look, as elsewhere in Southern Italy.

Conclusions:
- Corfu Greeks look most similar to Iberians, even more so than to Albanians nearby
- Puglian Italians look most similar to Southern Albanians

[Oliver109]

Interesting observations, about the lack of CM in Puglia i do think that before the ENF people came the population of that region was thinly populated, didn't most robust and pale folk live in the Balkans?

[aherne]

Interesting observations, about the lack of CM in Puglia i do think that before the ENF people came the population of that region was thinly populated, didn't most robust and pale folk live in the Balkans?

I have no logical explanation for this fact, but Italy has the lowest percentage of native CM looking people in Europe, so much that if you're having (robust) "baltoid" features, you are almost certainly a foreigner. Possibilities:

1. they were wiped out by diseases brought by anatolian farmers
2. they were exterminated / bred out
3. they looked different from other CMs in Europe (unlikely: how come they look so similar from Portugal to Russia)

There is no reason to believe they had lower population densities in Italy than elsewhere: if anything, Italy had good opportunities for hunting/gathering/fishing...

Italy does have Anatolian CM elements (especially in the South), brought by the farmers along with Med/Alpine/Dinaric, characterized by overwhelmingly dark hair/eyes pigmentation and less angular features. Alpine phenotype is actually the result of gracilization of Anatolian CM...