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dimensions which cannot be distinguished from those of most Dinarics. In their high brachycephaly, however, and in their facial and nasal lengths, as well as in a predominant brunet tendency, they are much closer to the Tyrolese, and especially to the Ladin-speakers, than to the Slovenes among whom they live. They are also very similar to their distant linguistic relatives in the Carpathians.

The Vlachs, a widespread and numerous people in southeastern Europe, are the descendants of Romanized aborigines, and of other peoples whom these latter have absorbed. They have no racial homogeneity, but vary regionally according to the races long seated in the regions where they live. In the northeast, where the Moldavian plain forms a continuation of the Black Earth region of southern Russia, the Neo-Danubian type of the Black Earth region is predominant; in the southeast, where a local Atlanto-Mediterranean type is concentrated, the Vlachs tend to assume that form; west of the Carpathians, and near the crest of that range, they are Dinarics of the first rank, comparable to that other group of mountain- dwelling speakers of Neo-Latin, the Ladiner.

In studying the racial composition of southern Russia, there was evidence of a moderately tall, long-headed, brunet Mediterranean form, which is concentrated along the northern shore of the Black Sea, but which also appears sporadically in the entire Russian population. To western Europeans and Americans, it is better known than its frequency would warrant, for it is exemplified by several world famous ballerinas and opera singers. This is the Mediterranean racial division which the Russian anthropologists call Pontic¹³⁹ and which the Poles recognize as a very minor element in their own population. It is with little doubt of Neolithic date in southern Russia, Rumania, Bulgaria, and the Hellespont region, and probably in Greece and the Aegean. In most of Thrace it seems more basic than the Danubian, or at least more common. What its relationship may be to the introduction of the Neolithic economy into Europe by land or by sea, cannot be determined without more data.

11. The osmanli turks

The best known and most numerous of the living Turkish peoples, the Osmanlis, today form the principal element in the population of Asia Minor, while colonies of them, left behind by the recession of Turkish power from southeastern Europe, are to be found here and there in Yugo­slavia, Albania, Greece, Bulgaria, and Rumania. Only in the present Turkish territory west of the Bosporus do they form at the present day a majority in any European area which is a political entity. Individual Turks still occupy positions of importance in some of the former Turkish

» Bunak, V., ZFMA, vol. 30, 1932, pp. 441-503.

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THE RACES OF EUROPE

provinces outside of Europe, as in the Yemen; Turkish families form the nucleus of the aristocracy in others, as in Egypt.

The first Turks to concern themselves with Asia Minor were the Seljuks, a nation of Turks or Turkomans called at that time Ghuzz, who were converted to Islam in what is now Russian Turkestan about the year 1000 a.d. After conquering Persia, they entered Armenia in 1048 a.d. and during the rest of the eleventh century gradually took over Asia Minor, although they were more interested in the civilized Moslem centers of Syria and Iraq. Starting about 1070 a.d., tribe after tribe of Turkish nomads from central Asia and Turkestan entered Asia Minor across northern Persia, in search of fresh pastures. Many of the Christian peasants of the peninsula abandoned their farms, turned to the cities, or became nomadic themselves; this movement was further fostered by the great destruction of property consummated by the Mongols.

The Osmanli Turks, later comers than the others, did not arrive in Asia Minor until 1227 a.d., and numbered but a few thousands. About 1300 a.d., under their leader Osman, they obtained control of the Seljuk empire, and the Ottoman rule began at that time. They converted many of the Christian natives, left alone by the Seljuks, to Islam, and the name of the nation as a whole became that of the founder of the Ottoman dynasty.

It cannot be denied that the present-day Turks of Asia Minor have absorbed much of the pre-Turkish population, but that their ancestors came in great numbers from central Asia is equally true. The Turkish invasion was not a simple, connected event, but a long succession of immi­grations of different kinds of Turks over a long period of time. The hetero­geneity of these movements is seen by the retention in the present Turkish population of Anatolia of old distinctions; the Yiiruks, for example, who still pasture their flocks on the hills of Cappadocia and Cilicia, retained their old central Asiatic manner of life with little change until the rise of the Turkish Republic, and the Kizilbashes, in eastern Anatolia, who are Shiite Turks from Persia, are recognized as a separate group.

The Christian population of Turkey, or that remnant of it which has remained unabsorbed, had until recent years always been numerous; it consists mostly of Greeks, many thousands of whom have been sent back to Greek soil, and of Armenians, a large proportion of whom have emi­grated during the present century to all quarters of the earth, and in especially large numbers to America. Jews as well as Christians survived centuries of Turkish rule; throughout mediaeval and modern history Moslems have behaved with greater consistency and with less violence toward Jews than have Christians.

The modern Turks of Anatolia differ little in most of their metrical characters from peoples whom we have already encountered in central

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and southeastern Europe, as the following r6sume will make clear.¹⁴⁰ The mean stature for Anatolia is 167 cm.; this varies from 169 cm. in the Smyrna district and 168 cm. in the Dardanelles-Marmora Sea region, and in Kastamuni on the Black Sea shore, to 166 cm. in the eastern prov­inces, on the flank of Armenia. The bodily build is often thick-set or lateral; this is shown by a relative sitting height of 54. The relative span, 104, is moderate, and varies from 103 in the west, to nearly 105 in the east. The same is true of bodily proportions in general; the lateral form is much more typical of the eastern provinces than of the Aegean and Pontine shores.

The head form of the Turks as a whole is only moderately brachy­cephalic; 84.2 is the mean for Anatolia, and this varies from 81.8 in Brussa, between Smyrna and the Hellespont, to 85.4 in the eastern prov­inces, and 86.6 in Kastamuni, on the southern shore of the Black Sea. The western and southern Turks are low brachycephals, the eastern and northern ones high. In the regions of Brussa, Smyrna, and Konia, there is, therefore, an important long-headed minority. For the most part the heads of Turks are not large; the mean length for Anatolia is 181.6 mm., the breadth 152.6 mm., while the auricular height mean is 126.1. These dimensions could easily be matched among Yugoslavs or Macedonians. In Smyrna, the longest-headed province, the mean head length rises to nearly 184 mm., in Kastamuni it falls to 180 mm. The breadth similarly varies between 150 mm. and 156 mm.; even the roundest-headed region has a relatively small head breadth. It is interesting to note that the Greeks of the north shore of Asia Minor have the same head form as the Turks, but to a more exaggerated degree; with a length mean of 180.7 mm., breadth of 157.6 mm., and cephalic index of 87.2.

The faces of the Osmanli Turks of Anatolia, as well as their head vaults, have dimensions reminiscent of southeastern Europe. The total face height mean for the whole is 122 mm., and this varies little throughout the region. The bizygomatic mean/ 140 mm., is also relatively constant, but narrowest in the Smyrna district. The minimum frontal, about 105 mm., is not excessive, nor is the bigonial, 108 mm. In these dimensions the Turks resemble Balkan Mediterraneans and Alpines; their faces are

140. The principal work on the physical anthropology of modern Turkey is Wagen- seil, F., ZFMA, vol. 29, 1931, pp. 193-260.

Other references consulted are:

Crowfoot, J. W.₅ JRAI, vol. 30, 1900, pp. 305-320.

Elisiev, A., IILE, vol. 68, 1890, col. 219 ff.; 1891, vol. 71, col. 62 ff. R6sum6 in Anth, vol. 3, 1892, pp. 477-481.

Kansu, S. A., TAM, vol. 7, 1931, pp. 3-15, 17-19.

Luschan, F. von, JRAI, vol. 41, 1911, pp. 221-244; AFA, vol. 19, 1890, pp. 31-54.

Luschan, F. von, and Petersen, E., Reisen in Lykien, Milyas, und Kibyratis.

2upani£, N., Etnolog, 1927, pp. 87-130. R6sum£ in AnthPr, vol. 6, 1928, pp. 95-96.

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THE RACES OF EUROPE

not long enough for exaggerated Dinarics. Like the Greeks and the peoples to the west of the Black Sea, they preserve a forehead-jaw ratio which emphasizes the width of the mandible. The nose, with a mean height of 57 mm. and a breadth of 35.3 mm., is, however, fully Dinaric. It is largest (59 mm. by 36 mm.) in the eastern provinces, smallest (56 mm. by 35 mm.) in Smyrna. The nasal index of 62.4 is leptorrhine, but not as much so as that of Albanians.

The unexposed skin color of the Turks is mostly brunet-white or swarthy, (von Luschan #11-16), the head hair color, in 90 per cent of cases, dark brown. Black hair, however, is found in less than 5 per cent, and blondism is rare. The ratio of dark brown hair is constant, except in the eastern provinces, where it is nearly 100 per cent. The beard hair is often lighter than the head hair; only 70 per cent are black or dark brown, while reddish shades are found among nearly 10 per cent. Reddish and blondish beards are by far commoner in the western and northern provinces than elsewhere, and are in these places found in one-third of the group observed.

Pure dark eyes are found in about 40 per cent of the total, while another 40 per cent possesses dark-mixed eyes, many of which would appear brunet upon casual observation. The remaining 20 per cent is almost entirely composed of men who possess evenly mixed or light-mixed irises, with but less than 2 per cent of pure lights. On the whole, the Anatolian Turks are prevailingly brunet in pigmentation, but brunet in a condition in which the skin is brunet-white, the hair dark brown, and the eyes brown or dark-mixed. There are several shades of brown in the eye color, and it is apparent that more than one brunet strain is present. The virtual absence of black hair, however, the presence of rufosity, and the high ratio of mixed eyes, when combined with the metrical data, indicate that the principal brunet strain is some form of Alpine.

Fifty-four per cent of the Turks have some occipital flattening, and this ratio rises to 80 per cent in the province of Kastamuni. In the west, it falls to 38 per cent, and in the eastern provinces is only 42 per cent. The associated Dinaric character of a convex nasal profile is found among 58 per cent of the total; the ratio is slightly higher in the north and east than in the west. The nasal wings are usually compressed to medium; flaring forms, such as one associates with mongoloids, are very rare, as are concave nasal profiles. An excessive development of the malars is uncom­mon, but more frequent in the east than in the west. The epicanthic eye­fold, typical of Mongols, is almost unknown in Turkey. The beard is often heavy, and the body hair on the heavy side of medium.

On the basis of the metrical and morphological data outlined above, we may dismiss the theory that the Anatolian Turks are in any sense mongoloid. It may be possible to find individuals with some recognizable

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mongoloid features, but no more frequently than in most countries of Europe. The Anatolian Turks are for the most part Cappadocian Mediter­raneans, with a mixture of Alpines in sufficient quantity to produce the Dinaric transformation. Only in Kastamuni, on the shore of the Black Sea, and in the provinces which contain large populations of Armenians and other non-Turks, does the brachycephaly of the Osmanlis reach full Dinaric proportions. In the west and south, there are enough unassimilated dolichocephalic factors left to form a considerable minority.

If the Turks are for the most part Cappadocians Dinaricized through Alpine mixture, this simply means that the zone of reduced Upper Palaeolithic survivors extends into Anatolia; the skeletal types found among the meager remains from Alishar Hiiyiik have mingled, with a result parallel to that experienced throughout the entire Alpine racial zone in Europe. This conclusion would mean that the Turks are not Turks at all, except in speech and tradition, except for one thing: the remnants of the pre-Turkish population are more brachycephalic, more typical members of this Near Eastern Dinaric race than are the Turks themselves. We have already seen that the Asia Minor Greeks are even rounder-headed than the Turks of Kastamuni; they are also 2 cm. shorter in stature. As we shall presently see, the Armenians themselves likewise exceed the Turks in their Dinaric or Armenoid character. Furthermore, the Takhtadshy and Bektashi, members of heretical sects in Asia Minor who are supposed to have little Turkish blood, are rounder and shorter- headed, and more Alpine and Armenoid in every way, than the Turks as a whole.¹⁴¹ The Turks, therefore, while to a large extent descended from the pre-Turkish population, are perceptibly different as a group from its most fully authentic survivors.

With this directional lead, we may proceed to examine the most fully Turkish people in Turkey, the Yuriiks, pastoral nomads of Cappadocia and Cilicia, who are supposed to have mixed little with non-Turks or other kinds of Turks since their arrival. A small but apparently repre­sentative series ¹⁴² shows them to be tall, with a mean stature of 169 cm., mesocephalic, with a mean cephalic index of 79, and largely brunet. Their faces are moderately long (124.6 mm.) and moderately wide (144 mm.). In facial features they are not at all mongoloid. If the early Turk­ish invaders of Asia Minor belonged largely to this type, then the racial position of the modern Osmanlis in reference to that of the previous Ana­tolians is easily comprehended.

In the early history of the Turkish invasions, there was some question

¹⁴¹ Crowfoot, JRAI, 1900.

Luschan F. von, AFA, 1890.

¹⁴² Luschan, F. von, in Petersen and von Luschan.

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as to whether the ancestors of the Seljuks and Osmanlis were to be con­sidered Turks in the sense of Kirghiz and Uzbegs, or Turkomans, a general name meaning Turk-like people. In view of the present evidence, it is likely that they were actually Turkomans, or at any rate Turks similar to living Turkomans and Azerbaijanis (see Chapter XI, section 5), and were thus non-mongoloid whites of a tall, long-faced, high-headed, brunet Mediterranean variety. The Turks who invaded eastern Russia, on the other hand, belonged rather to the Kirghiz type, which is a Mongol- Turkoman-Nordic mixture, and the Tatars of eastern Europe and of the Caucasus are for that reason primarily brachycephalic and partially mongoloid.

The determination of the physical type of the Osmanli and Seljuk Turks, through directional leads and the study of the Yuriiks, furnish a reasonable explanation of the racial characters of the modern Anatolian Turks. If one places the contribution of the Turkish ancestors in Anatolia at about 25 per cent, and that of the previous inhabitants at about 75 per cent, the racial situation in that peninsula assumes a position in accord­ance with history. The indigenous 75 per cent is composed of a Cappa- docian-Alpine blend, in which the latter element must have reemerged in a manner similar to that which can be chronologically established in central Europe.

Data on the Turkish inhabitants of the present southeastern European states are very conflicting. A series of 200 from Macedonia¹⁴³ is hyper- Anatolian, with a mean cephalic index of 87, and pigmentation comparable to that of Turks in Asia Minor; another series, presumably from a different part of Macedonia,¹⁴⁴ is dolichocephalic, with a mean index of 77.7. Turks in Rumelia,¹⁴⁶ that is southern Bulgaria, and Turks in the Dobruja,¹⁴⁶ have cephalic indices of 82-83, and metrical and morphological features which relate them to the body of Turks in general. Owing to the fact that the Osmanli Turks of the Balkans have preferred emigration rather than assimilation since the disappearance of their European empire, it is unlikely that they have contributed much in a racial sense to populations which are now Christian, or to Moslem groups which are not Turkish in speech.

11. NEAR EASTERN BRACHYCEPHALS; SYRIA, ARMENIA, AND THE CAUCASUS

The object of the present section is to deal with the general group of brachycephalic peoples, other than the Osmanli Turks, who live in the regions lying between Syria and the Caucasus, and including both. These

^l48Hasluck, M., and Morant, G. M., Biometrika, vol. 21, 1929, pp. 322-336.

w* Lebzelter, V., MAGW, vol. 63, 1933, pp. 233-251.

Kansu, S. A., TAM, vol. 7, 1931, pp. 13-15, 17-19.

¹⁴⁶ Pittard, E., Les Peuples des Balkans.

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peoples include the various groups of Syrians, the Druses, the Armenians, the Assyrians, and the Caucasic peoples proper.

Syria, an Arabic-speaking country, is bounded by the northern Arabian desert on the east, by Palestine on the south, and by Ottoman Turkish territory on the north. It is divided into the coastal mountain sections of Lebanon on the south and the Alawiya country on the north, and the inland portions administered from Damascus and Aleppo, respectively. In the very south is the Jebel Druz, some fifty miles east of the Lake of Tiberias. The majority of the inhabitants of the Lebanon region are Christians, of both Maronite and Orthodox sects; the Druses practice a secret religion of their own which arose from a Fatemid heresy in Egypt in the eleventh century; the Alawiya or Nosairi are also Moslem heretics, being the most extremely schismatic of the Shiites.¹⁴⁷

For anthropometric purposes, the Syrians may be divided into (1) the Syrian Bedawin, including the Ruwala, Akeydat, and Maualy, (2) the desert border groups, including the towns of Homs, Hama, and Aleppo, and the districts of Mharda, Hafar, and Hijana, (3) the mountain groups, including the Druse, the Lebanese, the Mitwali (Lebanese Moslems), and the Alawiya (Alouites). The Syrian Bedawin are dolichocephalic Arabs of pure Mediterranean race; the desert border groups are intermediate between the former and the mountain people, with mean cephalic indices of 77-79 for the country people, and 81-82 for the city dwellers. It is the third group, which is fully brachycephalic, that deserves special attention here. Both the Lebanese and the Druses have mean cephalic indices of 86, and the Mitwali of 87, while the mean of the Alawiya is 83.¹⁴⁸

The mountain peoples, Lebanese, Alawiya, Mitwali, and Druse, are all racially very much alike, whatever their differences in religion, and a study of one will suffice for the whole. The Lebanese will serve as an example. They are of a little more than moderate European stature, with a mean of 167 cm.; their bodily proportions are medium, from the metrical stand­point; they are thicker set as a rule than Bedawin, and are built more often like the Anatolian Turks; some, who follow sedentary occupations, incline to corpulence.

¹⁴⁷ Lammens, H., Islam, Beliefs and Institutions.

¹⁴⁸ Principal sources on Syria are:

Kappers, C. U. A., and Parr, L. W., An Introduction to the Anthropology of the Near East.

Seltzer, C. C., The Racial Characteristics of Syrians and Armenians.

Shanklin, W. M., JRAI, vol. 65, 1935, pp. 375-390.

Shanklin, W. M., and Izzeddin, N., AJPA, vol. 21, 1936, pp. 217-252; vol. 22, 1937, pp. 381-415.

Also other material in preparation by W. M. Shanklin, and a series of over 600 adult male Druses by Miss Izzeddin. Part of Miss Izzeddin’s series, the Matn sub-group, has already been published by Kappers and Parr. Any reference to her work here is through the medium of this publication.

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In their head and face measurements, they are virtually identical with the more brachycephalic groups of Anatolian Turks studied in the last section; they likewise fall extremely close to the total means for Ghegs in northern Albania, in all characters studied except the nasal dimensions; the Lebanese being shorter and slightly broader-nosed. The nasal dimen­sions of the Lebanese are 55 mm. by 35 mm., with a nasal index of 63.

Most of the Lebanese have brunet-white unexposed skin color, although some 20 per cent have pinkish-white skin, as light as that of most northern Europeans. About 50 per cent have black hair, a higher incidence than was found among Turks, while most of the rest have dark brown. Eighty- three per cent have pure brown eyes, with dark brown in the majority; the principal mixed color scheme is green-brown. Some 5 per cent have eyes which are either pure or nearly pure blue. The hair is usually wavy, and often fine in texture; it is often heavy on the beard and body, while the eyebrows are frequently thick, and in 77 per cent, concurrent.

The noses of the Lebanese, convex in profile in 53 per cent of the group, have usually a slight to medium nasion depression, a high, medium to broad root, and a high, broad bridge; the tip is of moderate thickness in most cases, and usually elevated; the wings are seldom compressed. Their foreheads usually have little slope, their browridges are of moderate development; occipital flattening of some degree is present in almost all who were born in Syria.

The Lebanese are Mediterraneans of the same type found in Palestine and northern Arabia, brachycephalized through the agency of the Alpine race. They differ from the brachycephals of Anatolia, who antedate the Osmanli Turks in origin, in very few characters; one is the possession of black hair, as opposed to dark brown, in half the group; another is a greater incidence of pure brown eyes. The difference between the two is largely due to the fact that the Arabian type of Mediterranean is natu­rally more brunet than the principal element in Anatolia. Among the Lebanese, dark brown-eyed, black-haired individuals tend to be shorter, longer-headed, and narrower-faced than the group as a whole, and thus lean in a Mediterranean direction; the blonds or near-blonds are the tallest, longest-faced, and narrowest-nosed. They thus assume the Noric form typical of a Nordic strain in this type of mixture. The Lebanese on the whole are Dinaricized Mediterraneans, but do not entirely merit the term Armenoid, any more than do the Osmanli Turks.

We cannot date the brachycephalization of the Syrians exactly, but we know that brachycephals began travelling from that part of the world by sea as early as approximately 2200 b.c. Cyprus, an early center of maritime Bronze Age activity, is today inhabited by a Graeco-Turkish population, in which the Greeks, both linguistically and in religion, are

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the preponderant element.¹⁴⁹ The living Cypriots are, like their Dinaric forebears, moderately tall, with a mean stature of 169 cm.; they are moderately brachycephalic, with a mean cephalic index of 82.5, and their anthropometric character in general is fully Dinaric. Slightly more than half of the Cypriots have brown eyes, and of the others the majority are greenish-brown. Thirty-five per cent have black hair, most of the others, dark brown. On the basis of available information, it is possible to admit both Greek and Turkish influences in a physical sense, while the major inheritance must be from the Cypriots of the Bronze Age.

It has long been believed by physical anthropologists that the quintes­sence of Near Eastern brachycephaly is to be found in the Armenians; the racial term Armenoid being named for them. The Armenians have long been established in the territory which is now only partly theirs; they had, before the arrival of the Turks, a powerful kingdom, which covered most of the territory between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Caucasus. Their kingdom had its roots in the Early Iron Age, and a possi­ble derivation, in part at least, from that of the Hittites. The endogamy of the Armenians in modern times is well known, and there is every reason to suppose that they have preserved a pre-Turkish racial complex with some fidelity. Endogamy, however, functions best under adversity, and there is reason to believe that in the time of their greatest power the Armenians absorbed other Near Eastern peoples into their linguistic and cultural body. There was, furthermore, a strong social division into military aristocrats and peasantry.

The present Armenians are greatly scattered, and so great has been the exodus from their own country that series measured elsewhere should show little influence of selection. A series of 1100 men, measured in America but adult at the time of immigration, furnishes ample material for the study of this people.¹⁵⁰ They belong, as is well known, to the

u# p_{or an} excellent account of the modern Cypriots, and a survey of the history of Cy­prus, see The Memoirs of Sir Ronald Storrs.

For the anthropometry of the island, see: Buxton, L. H., JRAI, vol. 50, 1920, pp. 183— 235.

¹⁶⁰ I am relying almost entirely upon an unpublished work: Hughes, B. O., The Physical Anthropology of Native Born Armenians. Accepted as a PhD. thesis at Harvard University, 1938.

Other sources include:

Bunak, V., Crania Armenica.

Chantre, E., Recherches anthropologiques dans VAsie Occidentale; BSAL, vol. 13, 1895, pp. 49-101.

Erckert, R. von, AFA, vol. 18, 1889, pp. 263-281; vol. 19, 1890, pp. 55-84, 211-249, 332-356.

Seltzer, C. C., The Racial Characteristics of Syrians and Armenians.

Twarjanowitsch, J. K., Materialen zur Anthropologie der Armenier. R6sum6 in AFA, vol. 26, 1899, pp. 178-184.

Weissenberg, S., AFA, vol. 13, 1915, pp. 383-387.

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planoccipital brachycephalic division of the white race, a division which, as we have seen, possesses only such unity as that which results from a common principle of heredity.

They are men of medium stature, with a mean of 166 cm.; this varies extensively in accordance with geography; the eastern Armenians, from Van, Erivan, Bitlis, and Erzerum, are considerably taller than those in the west, who come from Sivas, Kaisarie, and Marash, while those geographically intermediate, from Kharput and Diarbekr, are inter­mediate in stature as well. The extremes are the Van people, with a mean of 169 cm., and those from Kaisarie and Marash, with means of 164 cm. They are, for their weight, very heavy people, with a mean of 160 lbs.; the lateral bodily habitus which the foregoing weight-stature ratio indicates is predominant in all regional groups, except Van. Mem­bers of the western groups, on the whole, are more lateral than those from the east. The relative span, 104, and the relative sitting height, 53.2, fall into the general Alpine category.

The mean cephalic index for Armenians is 85.4; this varies from 84 in Van and Erivan, to 86 in Sivas and 87 in Erzerum. The mean head length, 185 mm. for the total, reaches 188 mm. in the east, and 183 mm. in the west. The breadth mean, 158 mm., is relatively constant. The auric­ular height, with a mean of 126 mm., is also subject to this east-west differ­entiation; local means reach 129 mm. in the east, 124 mm. in the west. The lateral dimensions of the face, 108 mm. for the minimum frontal,

144. mm. for the bizygomatic, and 110 mm. for the bigonial, show no geo­graphical variation; they are comparable to the breadth dimensions found among moderate-sized Dinarics in Europe, although the jaw width is more reminiscent of Asia Minor and Greece. The inverse jaw-forehead ratio is the opposite from that of Albanian Dinarics.

Vertical diameters of the face are again divided geographically, the total face height mean is 128 mm., ranging from 130 mm. in the east to 125 mm. in the west; the upper face height similarly varies from 78 mm. to 75 mm., with a mean for the whole of 77 mm.; the facial and upper facial indices vary in consequence. The group as a whole is on the upper border of mesoprosopy, and mesene. Only Van is leptoprosopic and leptene.

The Armenian nose is extremely long, with a mean height of 60 mm., and quite wide, with a mean breadth of 38 mm. The nasal index, 64, is leptorrhine, but by no means as leptorrhine as the noses of European Dinarics. The difference between Albanian Dinaric and Armenian nasal indices lies entirely in the breadth. Like all other vertical dimensions, the nose height among Armenians is subject to geographical variation, but this is slighter than with most other characters, since a long nose is an

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essential Armenoid feature. The width also varies, from 37.4 mm. in Van, to 38.4 mm. in Kaisarie.

Taking these measurements as a whole, there is seen to be a strong east- west division within Armenia; this division is especially prominent in weight, stature, segments of stature, head length, the cephalic index, the auricular height, the face heights, and to a lesser extent in both nasal dimensions. Linear traits of the head and face as well as of the body are greater in the east, while the lateral dimensions are much the same every­where.

The Armenians are metrically very much like the northern Albanians in most characters; the chief differences are the greater face length and greater nasal breadth of the Armenians. Although the differences between Arme­nians and Albanians are no greater than those between a number of Euro­pean groups which collectively enjoy the designation Dinaric, the Ar­menians do stand at one extreme of the Armenoid-Dinaric combination, while the Osmanli Turks and the Syrian brachycephals fall much closer to the European end.

The skin color of the Armenians has been designated as pinkish-white, brunet, swarthy, and light brown. The two middle categories share almost equally over 85 per cent of the total. Pink skin, which includes 8 per cent, is far commonest at Van, light brown at Kaisarie. The east- west division holds in skin color as in other features. The hair color is mostly dark brown; 58 per cent belongs to this category while black and medium brown account for 18 per cent each. The remaining 6 per cent is almost entirely reddish brown. The men with black and dark brown head hair have, as a rule, beards of the same color; but the brown-haired men have reddish brown or red beards, in most cases. Thus, at least 75 per cent of the group may be considered completely brunet in hair color tendencies. The brown and reddish hair shades are commonest in the Lake Van region, the black in the south and west, nearest Syria.

To match the ratio of pure brunet hair, one finds 73 per cent of brown eye color; this is divided almost evenly between dark brown, light brown, and mixed-brown classes, the latter implying an iris form in which more than one brown shade is present. The high ratio of this class, one-fourth of the total series and one-third of the pure dark eyes, is due to the accu­racy of the observer rather than to any peculiar condition. It means that more than one brunet strain is present among Armenians, a fact which other evidence confirms. Dark brown eyes are most numerous in the west, where they form 36 per cent of the whole, and rare in the Lake Van region, where they form 13 per cent. Mixed and light eyes, mostly green- brown, but including 2 per cent of pure blue, total 34 per cent in Van, and but 11 per cent in Kaisarie.

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THE RACES OF EUROPE

The hair form of the Armenians is mostly low waves; their pilosity is abundant. Beards are usually very heavy, and body hair as well; hairiness is an outstanding Armenian feature. As with most hairy people, many of the Armenians grow bald with advancing age. The eyebrows are usually thick, and in 73 per cent of cases, concurrent. The foreheads of the Armenians, unlike those of Syrians and Turks, and of many European Dinarics, are as a rule quite sloping, more so than is found in the majority of white racial groups. The browridges, however, are seldom very heavy; the heaviest are found in the east.

The Armenian nasal features are extreme and consistent; the nasion depression is usually slight, but almost always present; both the root and the bridge are very high and quite broad. It is this breadth of the nose, from root to tip, that differentiates it most from those of European Dinarics. The profile is convex in 62 per cent of cases, and very few are concave. The tip is thick in over 50 per cent of cases, and depressed in about 70 per cent. The wings are usually medium or flaring, compressed in only 20 per cent. Thinner roots and bridges and more compressed wings are characteristic of Armenians from the Lake Van country, thicker and more flaring in those from the south and west.

The Armenian orbit, high on the skull, does not permit frequent eyefolds; these are usually external or median, and are found mostly in the east. The eye opening is usually great, and there is, in nearly half the group, some obliquity of axis, although this is usually slight. The Armenians are as a rule thin-lipped, with medium to great chin prominence, a palpable bilateral cleft in the chin, and flaring gonial angles. *Mid-facial progna­thism is found in about one-fourth of the group, but it is seldom great; alveolar prognathism is very rare.

The occipital region is seldom protuberant, but more so among eastern than western Armenians; occipital flattening is found among 75 per cent, and its absence is commoner in the east than in the west. There can be little doubt that its intensity is partly due to unintentional cradling defor­mation, especially since the cradle was more commonly used in the west than in the east at the time that the men studied were infants. As in Albania, pronounced cranial asymmetry, a concomitant of unbound oc­cipital flattening, is frequent.

In the characters of the nose, in the form of the skull, especially of the occipital region, in pilosity and in the prevalence of brunet pigmentation, the Armenians from all regions form a definite whole. Yet the variability of the different characters is so linked that the component factors in the blend may be seen upon analysis, and the composition of the Armenoid racial type revealed. The partially blond element, as best designated by eye color, is quite different from the group as a whole; persons with mixed

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or light eyes are much more linear in build, taller, longer and higher­headed, longer- and narrower-faced, and longer- and narrower-nosed. The brunet skin color is associated, on the other hand, with a whole com­bination of characters, especially those concerned with bodily, cranial, and facial breadths; whereas the first type is Nordic, the second is Alpine in directional implication. The most brunet group, on the basis of skin color, is bimodal; it includes a long-faced, long-nosed, heavily bearded Irano-Afghan strain, and a smaller Mediterranean type, which is also a factor in the composition of the Syrian brachycephals.

The Armenoid type is a stable hybrid between two principal elements, the Alpine race and the Irano-Afghan division of the Mediterranean stock, mixed at the ratio of 2 of the latter to 1 of the former. The combination has produced a greater laterality than either parent stock, an excess of brachycephaly, and an excess of facial length and nasality. In northern and eastern Armenia, a strong Nordic infusion has altered the blend in a linear direction, and has infused a minority with partial blondism; in southern and western Armenia, a parallel infusion of Mediterranean factors, comparable to those found in Syria and Arabia, has reduced the stature and other linear dimensions, while increasing the brunet character of the pigmentation.

Thus the Armenoid race is a product of the same principle of hybridiza­tion which has produced Dinarics in Europe,¹⁵¹ the chief difference being that among the Armenians the Mediterranean factor involved is Irano- Afghan, while in countries farther east it is one of several varieties more familiar to Europeans. In tracing relationships between Dinarics and Armenoids, as between groups of Dinarics, it is futile to look for historic associations, since the relationship is parallel rather than derivative. Racial analysis has indicated something that archaeology has only begun to reveal; that Anatolia, the Syrian highlands, and the Armenian plateau are not, in all likelihood, basic Mediterranean racial territory, but the former homelands of a population similar to that living in Europe during late glacial times. The Alpine race, here as in central Europe, from France to Albania, has reemerged, and in so doing has blended with Mediter­ranean forms in a characteristic way. Another conclusion which one may make from this study is that Anatolia was never, until the time of the Ottoman Empire, an important highroad of racial movements; its main r61e has been that of a refuge area, and the same is true of the Syrian mountains and those of Armenia.

¹⁸¹ The general application of this principle was suggested by Dr. Hughes’s analysis of his Armenian material. For the conclusions as to the hybrid character of the Armenians and as to their component elements, and for the principle involved, I am indebted to Dr. Hughes, whose work on the living confirms the conclusions of Bunak derived from his study of Armenian crania. See Bunak, V. V., Crania Armenica,

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A separate group of brachycephalic Near Eastern people living until recently in the neighborhood of the eastern Armenians is that of the Aissores, or Assyrians, Christians who still speak the old Syriac language, now used in Syria in a ritual sense only, but once widespread also in Mesopotamia. These Assyrians, Christians in Mesopotamia since their conversion in 70 a.d., were, at the time of the Arab conquest of their country, granted a firman issued by the Prophet himself permitting them to practice their religion without hindrance. Under this sanction they flourished greatly, sent missionaries to China, and founded a colony, which still exists, in India.¹⁵² At the time of the Mongol invasions, between 1230 and 1400 a.d., their country was laid waste, and those who survived the calamity fled northward into Turkey, settling in the mountain district of Hakkiari, in Kurdish country, south of Lake Van and west of Lake Urmia. In 1914, 80,000 of them were still established there, while another 35,000 lived in Iran, near Lake Urmia, and 10,000 more had returned to the lowlands of Iraq, near Mosul. During the World War and in the two decades since, the Assyrians have suffered further political disasters which have left them homeless and have greatly reduced their numbers.

These Assyrians, whose ancestors, presumably plainsmen from Iraq, may have been no different in a physical sense from the other inhabitants of that valley, are now, after some six hundred years of living in the mountains, more brachycephalic than the Armenians.¹⁵³ Their mean stature is about 167 cm., their cephalic index mean about 87, with series by different authors varying from 85 to 90. They are almost purely brunet, and characteristically aquiline in nasal profile. Their total resemblance to Armenians, however, is not close; the faces of the Assyrians are both shorter and narrower than those of the Armenians, and their noses are likewise smaller. It is possible that mixture with Armenians produced the initial stimulus toward hyperbrachycephaly, but whatever its immediate origin, the facial dimensions show that the basic Mediterranean type involved is western, and not Irano-Afghan.

Even more of a refuge area than Asia Minor, the Caucasus mountain range and the valleys to either side provide shelter to an extremely varied conglomeration of peoples. Besides the Armenians, the Aissores, the Kurds, the Tats, who are Iranians living near Baku, and the Azerbaijani Turks, and some Tatars and Mongols, the Caucasus contains the Cau­casians proper, who are the speakers of Caucasic languages, and the

162. Browne, Brig.-Gen., J. G., GM, vol. 4, #6, April, 1937, pp. 431-448.

163. Aruntinow, A., AFA, vol. 30, 1904, pp. 222-224.

Chantre, E., BSAL, 1891, vol. 10, pp. 103-126; Recherches anthropologiqu.es dans VAsie Occidentale.

Djawachischwili, A., AFA, vol. 48, 1925, pp. 77-89.

Kappers, C. U. A., KAWA, vol. 36, 1933, pp. 3-11.

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Ossetes, whose language is Iranian and for whom descent is claimed from the Alans, the last ethnic survivors of the Sarmatians recorded in history.¹⁵⁴

The Caucasic speakers are divided into four main branches, each of which has many subdivisions; these branches are the Lesghians, the Chechens, the Cherkesses or Circassians, and the Georgians. Map 16 will show the distribution of these peoples. The various subdivisions of

Peoples of the Caucasus The Caucasic-speaking peoples have been shown by unbroken lines and cross hatch­ings; Indo-European and Altaic speaking peoples by other symbols. Russians, Ossetes, Armenians, Tats, and Kurds are Indo-European speakers; Kalmucks are Mongolic- speakers, while Kirghiz, Nogai, and Kumyk Tatars are all Turkic-speakers. Small settlements of Russians, Germans, and Jews in this region have been left unrepresented, to avoid confusion. (After Jochelson, W., Peoples of Asiatic Russia, Map 6, with alter­ations and additions.)

these peoples, living in their separate valleys, follow different forms of Christianity and of Islam, while the presence of Jewish villages complicates the religious pattern. The Georgians, however, are mostly Christian, the Cherkesses mostly Moslems; with the Russian conquest of the northern slopes of the Caucasus, many of the latter emigrated to Ottoman Turkish

¹⁶⁴ The bibliography dealing with the Caucasic peoples is exhaustive; for a brief, lucid, and accessible exposition, however, Jochelson, W., Peoples of Asiatic Russia, is

recommended.

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THE RACES OF EUROPE

territory, including Syria and the Balkans. Most of the Lesghians are also Moslems, while the Chechen are for the most part Christians, as is the majority of the Indo-European-speaking Ossetes. The Tats are Moslems.

As is frequently the case in regions of great ethnic complexity, the racial situation is simpler than the linguistic or cultural. The Tats, to begin with, are tall and mesocephalic, and resemble the Persians of Iran, to whom they are related.¹⁵⁵ The Ossetes,¹⁶⁶ who live in the middle of the Caucasus, mostly on the southern side of the watershed, are tall people, with a mean stature of 169 cm., sub-brachycephalic, with a mean cephalic index of 82, and of medium head size, a head length of 189 mm., and a breadth of 155 mm.; they are only moderately leptorrhine, with a mean nasal index of 65, and somewhat broad-faced, with a mean bizygomatic diameter of

144. mm. About half have pinkish-white skins, the other half, brunet- white; similarly over half have black or dark brown head hair, the rest, brown, light brown, or light. Some 54 per cent are said also to be brown­eyed, the rest, mixed and light. Over 60 per cent are considered definitely brunet in general pigmentation, some 10 per cent definitely blond. It is of course the latter minority, and a comparison with the other Caucasic peoples, which has given the Ossetes a reputation for blondism.

As far as one can tell from present material, the Ossetes do possess a Nordic strain, which has, however, been partly altered by local admixture into Noric; other elements are one or more forms of Mediterranean, not all of which were high-headed or long-faced, and Alpine. On the whole, the result might be called incipiently Dinaric. That the Ossetes are the result of a mixture of Scytho-Sarmatian refugees from the plains to the north with indigenous peoples is, on the basis of the physical data, quite possible.

The Caucasic-speaking peoples ¹⁵⁷ differ from their Ossete neighbors in a

¹⁶⁶ Chantre, E., BSAL, vol. 10, 1891, pp. 103-126; Recherches anthropologiques dans VAsie Occidentcde.

^lw Gil’chenko, N. V., TVMA, 1890. K€&nm€ in BZL, vol. 11, #9-10, 1891.

Djawachischwili, A., AFA, vol. 48, 1925, pp. 77-89.

Erckert, R. von, AFA, vol. 18, 1889, pp. 262-281, 297-335; vol. 19, 1890, pp. 55-84, 211-249, 331-356.

The last two are general works on Caucasian anthropometry; the first a separate source on the Ossetes.

¹⁶⁷ An exhaustive bibliography of the physical anthropology of the Caucasus will be found in Djawachischwili, A., AFA, vol. 48, 1925, pp. 77-89. Besides the comprehen­sive works of Chantre and of von Erckert previously cited, these include both special and general studies by the following; Aruntinow, A.; Dirr, A.; Erikson, E.; Kurdov, K.; Malinin, K.; Pantuchov, J.; Schwidersky, N.; Stshukin, J.; Vishogrod, J.; and Voro- biev, V. To this list should be added Djavakhov, A., RAJ, vol. 7, 1907, pp. 127-167, and Sommier, S., APA, vol. 21, 1901, pp. 413-457. Most of the Russian authors have published in the RAJ, but the works of some are to be found in the publications of the

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number of respects, one of which is that they are nearly all shorter in stature. The mean stature for Georgians is 165 cm., and most of the Cherkess groups fall at the same level, although the Kabardians have a mean 2 cm. higher. The Lesghians vary by tribal groups from 164 cm. to 168 cm., while the Chechen mean is about 168 cm.

Nearly all are brachycephalic or sub-brachycephalic; the Georgian means stand consistently at about 84, as do those of the Chechens, while the Lesghians are more brachycephalic, with means of 86 and 87, and the Cherkess less so, with means of 81 and 82 on the northern side of the Caucasus, and 83 and 84 on the south of it. As a rule the faces of the Caucasic-speaking peoples are of moderate height, in the low or middle 120’s, and in the middle 140’s in breadth; facial indices are all meso­cephalic; the noses, too, lack the great size of those of the Armenians or of the long-headed Kurds and Azerbaijanis; nasal indices are moderately lep­torrhine only, with indices of approximately 65.

The Caucasian peoples are, as a whole, dark-mixed in pigmentation. In most of the tribal series, dark hair and dark eyes total well over 50 per cent, while the presence of a little more than a third of light-mixed individuals in each group is sufficient to create the impression, fostered by the Turks, that they are fair. Light skin is commoner than light hair or eyes, and it is for their skin color more than for their blondism that Circassian beauties, among others, are famous.

Aside from the Ossetes, the Georgians are the blondest, as well as the shortest, of the peoples of the Caucasus. The Cherkesses, on the other hand, are the darkest as well as the tallest and least brachycephalic; they seem, in view of their geographical location on the northeastern shore of the Black Sea, to contain much of the brunet Mediterranean or Atlanto- Mediterranean racial strain which we have already studied in Bulgaria, Rumania, and the Ukraine, and which the Russian anthropologists call the Cherkess or Pontic type when found elsewhere in Russia.

The Caucasic-speaking peoples as a whole, from an anthropometric standpoint, represent a blend between a local Alpine racial nucleus and several kinds of Mediterraneans. The Georgians and the Lesghians are the most Alpine, the Cherkesses the least so. The facial dimensions pre­clude, in most groups, the presence of a long-faced Irano-Afghan element in any quantity; except among the Cherkesses, the head size, with mean lengths in the low 180’s, limits the possible Mediterranean elements to the smaller-headed varieties. These are apparently both Danubian and

Anthropological section of the Moscow Natural History Society (IILE, etc.), and of the Military-Medical Academy of St. Petersburg (VMZ, TVMA, etc.), as well as in those of the Georgian State University at Tiflis. In Djawachischwili’s compilation, as well as in that of larkho, A., AZM, 1932, #2, pp. 49-82, the reliable figures from the earlier authors are presented.