303

except where much Nordic blood is apparent, is very scanty, consisting of a few widely separated hairs. The body hair again is largely deficient, for there is seldom any on the chest or abdomen; even the pubic hair is scanty, and on men as well as on women its area of growth is sharply out­lined at its upper border. The external genitalia which this hair partly conceals are as a rule small.

Thirty different series give the stature of the Lapps over a span of 130 years. Eleven series published between 1870 and 1900, give means of 138 to 156 cm., which could be averaged at 151 cm. Twenty-seven others, measured between 1905 and 1934, and including several thousand Lapps, range from 155 to 164 cm.; ¹⁷ during this period the Lapps grew, apparently, seven or eight centimeters. This may be accounted for either as evidence of continuous progressive mixture, or the influence of the stature increase tendency in northwestern Europe, or both.

A study of Lapp bodily proportions shows that the trunk is long in proportion to the legs, which are especially short in the tibial segment, and often bowed; the arms are relatively long, especially in the humeral segment. The hands and feet are as a rule small and delicate. Despite the great relative arm length, both shoulders and hips are narrow, and these peculiarities are especially accentuated in the more brunet, shorter, and presumably less mixed segment of the Lapp population.¹⁸

The head of the Lapps, while large in proportion to the body size, is absolutely small. The length ranges in the low 180’s, and the breadth in the 150’s, while the height is probably about 122 mm. The cephalic index means range from 80 to 88; and a large list of series shows no change during the last century. There are, however, regional differences; the center of extreme round headedness lies among the inland groups in northern Norway, while the Swedish, Finnish, and Kola Peninsula Lapps become progressively narrower headed. The mean for the purest Rein­deer Lapps of Norway is 87; for the easternmost Lapps, 80 to 83.

The forehead of the Lapps is narrow in proportion to the parietal breadth; the profile of the head from above is a short ovoid. The occiput is flat-curved, with some flattening at lambda. Browridges, as a rule, are absent, and the forehead is usually steep, and frequently equipped with frontal bosses. The faces of the Lapps are extraordinarily short, with well- substantiated means of 112 mm. for nasion-menton height. These may be compared with the means of 124-126 mm. usual among either Norwegians or Finns. In this the Lapps differ from known whites or mongoloids to an extraordinary degree, and an extreme absolute facial shortness must

17 For a complete bibliography of early Lappish series, see the lists of Bryn, the two Schreiners, Geyer, Kajava, and Zolotarev.

» Geyer, MAGW, 1932.

THE RACES OF EUROPE

be considered a distinctive Lapp feature. Upon further examination, it may be seen that this shortness lies almost entirely in the masticatory segment of the face height; the alveolar borders of the maxillae are extra­ordinarily shallow, and the mandible is very low, weak, and feebly de­veloped.¹⁹ The jaw is not, however, narrow at the rear, for the bigonial diameter is as great as 108 mm. on Norwegian Lapps, and greater even among “pure” Nomads.²⁰ The jaw converges rapidly toward the chin, which is small, pointed, and frequently receding. The teeth are very small, and their roots short. Thus the Lapp face is distinguished by a reduction of jaw size and an oral shallowness extreme and perhaps unique among mankind. It must be considered as a Lapp specialization coincident with their extremely short stature, and especially with the shortening of the distal leg segment.

Otherwise the Lapp face takes a position midway, in many respects, between whites and mongoloids. The bizygomatic diameter, of 140 mm., or thereabouts, is in the white range; it is narrow in proportion to the vault, but it seems wide in relationship to jaw and forehead. The malars, while not notable for lateral jut, project forward prominently. The nose is on the whole low and flattish; with a straight or concave bridge, low root, and a peculiar snubbed or pointed, up-turned tip. This prominence of the tip is retained characteristically in mixture. On the whole the nose is mesorrhine, and is in this respect not unlike those of many of the Finnish and Slavic peoples in eastern Europe. The eyes are widely separated, set in low orbits, and overhung in some instances with median or external folds, rarely with the mongoloid epicanthus.

On the whole, the Lapp crania, as the Lapp soft parts, take an inter­mediate position between mongoloid and white standard forms. In some special characters the Lapps are unique, as in the masticatory develop­ment, and in the orbit, where Hisinger-Jagerskiold has found a curiously primitive bony conformation.²¹ The possession of these peculiar special­izations and primitive traits should prevent the Lapps from being con­sidered a hybrid mongoloid-white racial form. Compared to central Asiatic mongoloids, the Lapps are little specialized. The soft and often fine head hair, the absence of the blue-black hair pigment shade, the infrequency of the mongoloid eyefold, and the absence of an excessive lateral malar development or of great facial width, are evidence of this lack of specialization in a mongoloid direction.

There are many features which give the Lapps an infantile appearance which cannot be accidental; these include the body and limb proportions,

19. Schreiner, k. E., Zur Osteologie der Lappen.

20. Bryn, H., MAGW, 1932.

21. Kajava, Y., Beitrdge zur Kenntnis der Rasseneigenscha/ten der Lappen Finnlands, p. 35, after Hisinger-Jagerskiold, E., FFVS, vol. 55, 1913.