THE RACES OF EUROPE

40 per cent of British; in Goring’s criminal series it is linked with dark hair color. Among the British browridges of all normal European degrees are found, and on the whole the development is medium, with a large minority of prominent forms.

The slope of the forehead is frequently pronounced, as is typical of the Keltic Iron Age crania, and as may be seen from the composite silhouettes of English men and women shown in Fig. 32. The nasion depression is

Fig. 32. Composite Silhouettes of English Men and Women.

After McLearn, Morant, and Pearson, Biometrika, vol. 20b, 1928-1929, Plates 2 and 3.

characteristically slight, and the root of the nose high and narrow. The bridge is as a rule also high, and of narrow to moderate breadth. Straight nasal profiles are found in from 50 per cent to 80 per cent of cases, and the second most numerous category is wavy or concavo-convex, which runs as high as 40 per cent and averages 25 per cent of the whole. This type of profile is produced by a prominence of the nasal bones, the forma­tion of a slight angle between their extremities and the cartilage, and an elevation of the tip lobes slightly above the cartilage level. From the Nordic standpoint, this type of nose is closer to the Tr^ndelagen type in Norway than to the classic Nordic of the eastern valleys; it is also asso­ciated in antique sculpture with representations of the Kelts. The Dying Gaul, for example, has a nose of this type. Concave noses are much rarer than in Ireland, and of the large convex minority, the angular or humped variety is the usual type, and the smoothly convex form is infrequent.

Lips seem to be thin to medium and little everted, chins strongly de­veloped, but not to the degree found in western Ireland. Temples, malars, and gonial angles are as a rule compressed. All in all the scanty picture which our material gives us substantiates the impressions drawn from

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life. Although the British are quite variable in facial form, the features by which a foreigner would remember them would be a longness and narrowness of head and face, floridity, and a pinched prominence of the nose.

It is possible to make a number of correlations within some of the numer­ous series upon which our knowledge of British physical anthropology is based.³² Brunet hair and eye color uniformly go with a lower cephalic index than does light pigmentation. This reflects the fact that the Neo­lithic peoples had a cranial index of 72 and lower, while both varieties of Nordic have cranial means of 75. There is no evidence of a brunet round- headed type except in one series from the Ghiltern Hills, in Oxfordshire, where dark complexion is positively associated with great head breadth. In Caithness and Sutherland, in the Scottish Highlands, pure light com­plexion is linked with great head breadth, indicating that the broad­headed factor is in this case probably Borreby in origin. In western Ireland four correlations indicate the same linkage, confirming the supposition that a broad head is borne by the Palaeolithic element.

In Cardiganshire in west central Wales, a selected group of 520 men with black or dark brown hair had a mean cephalic index of 74.6, and a stature of 167 cm. The index would be about 72 on the skull, which is the mean for the Long Barrow type of the Neolithic, and furthermore, the stat­ure is comparable. Similarly in a Scottish Highland series ³³ dark haired men have a mean cephalic index of 77.7, fair-haired ones of 78.1. The brunets have a mean head length of 196.7 mm., the blonds of 193.9 mm. In Elgin and Nairn, similarly, absolutely greater head lengths go with mixed and dark complexion.

These correlations on the whole show that a brunet racial type char­acterized by an extremely long cranial vault and moderately tall stature has retained its identity in the peripheries of Great Britain, notably in Wales and the Scotch Highlands, while the more numerous Nordic ele­ments are characterized by a more moderate head length and mesoceph- aly. They also show that brachycephalic strains which have entered into the British racial composition must have been largely blond, although there is evidence of a minor element of brunet brachycephaly in one local instance.

If specific data for racial description is scanty in Great Britain, both the author and the reader can largely supply that deficiency from common observation. The most frequent type is a Nordic variety, as described

80. Scheidt, in a lengthy and thorough survey of the published series, made 2 racially significant correlations in England, 2 in Wales, 6 in Scotland, and 4 in Ireland.

Scheidt, W., ZFMA, vol. 28, 1930, pp. 1-1 ?8.

80. Gray, J., and Tocher, J. F., The Ethnology of Buchan.

THE RACES OF EUROPE

above; but it is well known that other types are by no means rare. The thick-set, wide-faced, and large-nosed type, so common in caricature under the guise of John Bull, must be derived from the larger brachy­cephalic element brought in by the Bronze Age invasions; it is a British form of the continental Borreby race. In the fishing villages of the York­shire coast, where local dialects are spoken in which much Scandinavian still remains, and where the older fishermen still wear T-shaped amulets around their necks reminiscent of Thor’s hammer, pure Norwegian and Danish physical types are common, and the same is true in the Orkneys and Shetlands.

Cornwall, which is the darkest county in England and an ancient Keltic linguistic stronghold, contains, like Wales, strong vestiges of a pre-Keltic population. That this is not a short Mediterranean variety, on the whole, is shown by the fact that the stature of Cornwall is relatively tall, and the mean cephalic index of the duchy not particularly low. A large-bodied, muscular type, with a head which is frequently brachycephalic, is common here, and must be attributed to the Bronze Age invasions. It has been claimed, without statistical evidence,³⁴ that there is a special racial type among the fishermen and sailors who live in the seaports of Cornwall, Devonshire, Somerset, and South Wales, but especially in Cornwall. Be­sides having medium or tall stature, and a tendency to brachycephaly, they are said to be heavy-bodied, lateral in build, thick-necked, with features of a somewhat Armenoid cast, dark, curly hair, thick eyebrows, and eyes which are frequently brown.

This type is recognized in local Keltic tradition, and according to one legend, is said to have been brought from Troy. It may also be associated with the strong local belief that the Cornish are descended from Phoeni­cians. That there is such a type cannot be proved without metrical evi­dence, but it will be recognized by most persons familiar with this part of England. It can also be found in Massachusetts among old Cape Cod fam­ilies whose ancestors came from Cornwall and Devon.

The most difficult local British type to study, with present materials, is the long-headed brunet population of the remoter districts of Wales.³⁶ It is evident, however, that under the category of brunet dolichocephals there are actually several racial types of different origins which have been preserved by the marginal geographical nature of this country, as have the more easily identified Beaker types of more recent arrival.

In the first place, the work of Fleure and James on the Plynlimon moor­s' Andrews, T. H., Man, vol. 21, 1921, pp. 137-139. •

• Eickstedt, E. von, ZFRK, vol. 1, 1935, pp. 19-64.

Fleure, H. J., The Races of Britain and Wales.

Fleure, H. J., and James, T. C., JRAI, vol. 46, NS. 19, 1916, pp. 35-153.

Peate, L C., JRAI, vol. 40, 1925, pp. 58-72.

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lands people of Cardiganshire, an isolated group who live for the most part as shepherds, shows that this region is the center for all Wales of the greatest concentration of brunet dolichocephaly; their work also indicates that a primitive human type, with large browridges, a low vault, a projecting occiput, sloping forehead, a broad face, and prognathism survives here, and is to be found in solution throughout most of Wales. That this type is a survival from pre-Neolithic times seems reasonable. The head lengths associated with it run well over 200 mm., in many cases over 210 mm., and the stature is usually under 170 cm. The moderate stature, the narrow vault breadth, and the brunet pigmentation, as well as the general mor­phological character, prevent this type from being closely associated with the large-headed northern Palaeolithic sub-stratum in Ireland; one is re­minded rather of the early Combe Capelle skull, and to a lesser extent, of the Mesolithic men of Teviec in Brittany.

The majority of the brunet dolichocephals, however, belong rather to the Long Barrow race of Megalithic introduction from the eastern Mediter­ranean shorelands. A selected group of 46 men from all parts of Wales, but in many cases from the neighborhood of the Plynlimon district, with cephalic indices under 73.0, have a mean head length of 201 mm., a breadth of 144.2 mm., and a stature of 168.0 cm. If this dolichocephalic element were predominantly a small Mediterranean, one would expect both the head length and stature to be much less than they are. Many other series from other parts of Wales confirm the general head form char­acter of this predominant dolichocephalic brunet element. That it has absorbed the earlier Mesolithic or Palaeolithic type is likely, for there is nothing in the English Long Barrow crania to indicate the importation of such a primitive variety as an end type.

If we consider that the Long Barrow type was in original form almost purely brown eyed, then it must be less important in the racial structure of Wales than the Keltic Iron Age Nordic, for in but few districts are brown eyes in the majority. It is possible, however, here as in Ireland, that there was an incipient blue-eyed condition among the Long Barrow people, as among living North Africans who belong to a closely similar type, and that in northwestern Europe this condition was increased through stimuli similar to those which produced blondism among other races.³⁸

Among individual Welshmen it is possible to pick out individuals of a smaller Mediterranean type, similar to that of Spain and Portugal, and suggesting a survival from the Neolithic peoples of Windmill Hill cultural affiliation who entered southern Britain from the continent. This type is also easily isolated in the Midland factory districts, and among the Glasgow population. In Wales, however, it is difficult to separate it from the Long

³⁸ Eickstedt, E. von, ZFRK, vol. 1, 1935, pp. 19-64.