The Nordic face. A Glimpse of Iron Age Scandinavia.

[Visigodo]

THE NORDIC FACE: A GLIMPSE OF IRON AGE SCANDINAVIA.

By J.W. Jamieson.

Scandinavia has been of considerable importance as a source of migrants in the peopling of Europe, and Southern Sweden may be said to have constituted the very nucleus of the distinctive Scandinavian as North German breeding population- commonly identified as the “Nordic” peoples – who were involver in the process.
From the times of the Bronze and Iron Ages, the population of Southern and Western Scandinavia and of Northern Germany have comprised a relatively homogeneous and prolific epicentre which has despatched successive waves of men and women into other parts of Europe, and indeed of the world. The outward migrations of these norther peoples frequently assumed a warlike form, and where successful the North European victors of the indigenous population that survived. Such actions tended to give rise to a belief that Nordic physical characteristics might be equated with nobility of social status, and even with an heroic, military or martial spirit. As is well known, this tradition was to acquire a widespread political significance in Germany during the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries, and was subsequently adopted as a political tenet. Since then, because of the events which culminated in the widespread slaughter and destruction of World War II, the study of North European and specifically of Nordic physical anthropology has been somewhat shunned. But now that several decades have passed since the tragic events of the 1940’s, it seems proper that we may once again take an objective and unbiased look at this historically important component of the European anthropological scene.

The Anthropological Background.

Any attempt to describe a specific inbreeding population must necessarily proceed by way of identifying those characteristics, which most commonly distinguish it from other populations. Until relatively recent times, human populations tended to be localized in their mating patterns, and consequently the genetic map of humanity constituted a partially interlocking pattern of Mendelian (largely inbreeding) populations, each comprising a more or less distinctive gene pool, with a tendency fro each population to share most of its genetic markers with neighbouring peoples – except where these were separated by cultural or geographical barriers strong enough to prevent gene flow. Thus, while the mammalian world customarily presents us with sharply defined sub-species or races, local human populations tend to grade into each other. However, even amongst human populations, barriers to gene flow were once very influential, and still persist into the present day, so that not only prehistoric human populations but even living human populations still display a wide variety of divergent genetic qualities. In consequence, anthropologists have justifiably attempted to apply the Linnaean concept of classification to the study of prehistoric and historic racial variation in man, producing a number of schemes of classification all of which seed to divide living hominids into a limited number of major geographical races, each su-divided into regional or local sub-races. For this purpose they employ the Weberian concept of ‘ideal types’ to identify local points of extreme or characteristic variation in what otherwise constitutes a complex pattern of racial or genetic gradients.
In general, it may be said that the main problems which they confront in their attempts to identify living human populations on the basis of a Linnaean scheme of classification arise in the case of those populations wherein substantial generic admixture has taken place as a result of physical migration, or where two major areas of distinctive genetic divergence tend to overlap geographically. So far as Europe is concerned, the rural populations still reflect the sharply Mendelian populations of past centuries. As a result, the survival of a distinctive North European or Nordic type, dating from prehistoric times, has been recognized by most physical anthropologists since the very inception of such studies.

Systems of Classification.

Possibly the first major attempt to classify human populations on a Linnaean basis was made by J. Deniker in the year 1889 (1926). Recognizing some 26 supposed sub-species within sis major races or groupings, he identified a distinctive ‘Northern European’ physical type, which he described as having straight or wavy fair hair, light eyes, and reddish whit skin. These Northern Europeans differed from that he say as a characteristically “Eastern European” population, notably in being longer-headed in contrast to the medium to broad-headedness of the Eastern European type.
A.C. Haddon, in this 1925 publication, concentrated on hair texture, height, cephalic index and nasal index to identify the major races and sub-races of the world. Like Deniker, he identified a distinctive North European physical type, which he called ‘Nordic’, and described this in essentially the same identifying terms as used by Deniker. E.A. Hooton, writing in 1931, produced a system of racial classifications which is still generally accepted. Recognizing three major races (White, Negroid and Mongoloid) and three further major ‘composite races’ or groupings of sub-races resulting from the prehistoric and historic admixture of these major three types, Hooton specified a distinctive Nordic ‘primary sub-race,’ which he saw as most clearly characterising those variants which distinguished the White race from his tow other major races. His remaining primary European sub-races were defined as Mediterranean, Keltic (since re-defined as ‘Atlanto-Mediterranean’ by Coon and later writers), Alpin and East Baltic. W.Z. Ripley (1931) essentially agreed with Hooton, but listed only three major European sub-races: namely, ‘Teutonic’, Alpine and Mediterranean.
E. von Eickstedt advanced and refined the work of earlier writers in 1933. In so doing he likewise identified a ‘Nordic’ sub-race, which he described as a depigmented variation within the major geographical White race. He accepted Hooton’s identification of three major geographical races, but sought to identify 38 regional variants of these three major geographical stocks. In the same year G. Montandon advanced an argument for a Linnaean classification which would identify no less than nine major geographical races (later reduced to five) but still identified a Nordic sub-race amongst the ‘Europids’ as he calls the White or Caucasoid peoples. P. Lester and J. Millot, two French anthropologists, identified the Nordic peoples as a separate, distinctive subspecies within the ‘White’ stock, and the distinguished French anthropologist and archaeologist, H.V. Vallois in 1948 likewise identified four major geographical races (White, Black, Yellow and Australoid), and divided the White race into sub-races, namely, Nordic, East Baltic, Dinaric, Alpine, Mediterranean, Armenoid, Arabic/Semitic, Indo-Afghan and Ainu.
Currently, the most widely accepted classification remains that of Carleton Coon, S.M. Garn and J.B. Birdsell, who adopted a detailed taxonomic approach, and recognized three major geographical stocks or variants, with thirty sub-races, among which the European population was simply divided into Northwest European, Northeast European, Nordic, Mediterranean, Alpine and Lapp. Their work was paralleled among European anthropologists by the detailed and comprehensive work of Renato Biasutti (1959). Biasutti recognized four major race or sub-species among man, divided into sixteen ‘primary races’ and no less that fifty-two ‘secondary’ or mini-races, with a variety of ‘derivative’ or recently produces admixed peoples. The four major stocks were Australoid, Negroid, Mongoloid and Europoid, amongst which latter he identified the Nordic, along with Mediterraneans, Alpines, Baltics, Dinarics and Lapps. Unfortunately, Biasutti’s work is not available in English.
In his Races of Europe (1939), Carleton Coon greatly refined his study of the European peoples in substantial depth. For this purpose he based his analysis on historical and evolutionary principles, and identified the Nordics, he stated, were a Corded-Danubian derivate identical to the Iron Age population of Central Europe. He further distinguished several sub-types of Nordics as follows: 1) A mesocephalic Keltic Iron Age type, with a somewhat low-vaulted cranium, and prominent nose, still commonly reflected today among the populations of the British Isles, Flanders and south-western Germany. 2) the Anglo-saxon type, heavier-boned and rather high-headed, most prevalent in Northern Germany and England. 3) The Trondelagen type, containing some elements of the pre-Nordic broader-headed Brünn population, found in the central coastal provinces of Norway and Iceland, and sometimes in Scotland as a result of Norwegian settlement there. Finally, 4) the Osterdal type, which Coon perceive as representing the early Hallstatt Nordic, being somewhat finer-boned than the Anglo-saxon and Trondelagen types. These were found primarily in Sweden and Norway, but also appear in areas settled during the great Folk Wandering, but also appear in areas settled during the great Folk Wandering period by Germanic (I.E. Goths and Lombards) and Viking peoples who originated in or close to this epicenter.

Prehistoric Scandinavia.

The population of Mesolithic Scandinavia appears to have been a hunting and gathering population of pre-Indo-European (but still Europoids) stock, evidence of which still survives in parts of neighbouring Finland. At this early time, current opinion supposes that the ancestors of the Scandinavian Nordics were residing in the area of the Upper Danube, or even further east in the grasslands to the north of the Black Sea and the Caspian. The Lapps, who today occupy the northern portion of Scandinavia, are not believe to be indigenous to the area, any more than are the Nordic Scandinavians, but are more likely to represent a people of partially Mongoloid character, who developed their reindeer-herding culture in northwester Eurasia, and migrated with it into northern Scandinavia only during the past few thousand years.
The first of the Nordic Scandinavians to immigrate into their present homeland presumably arrived as a cultivating people bringing with them a Neolithic culture from the warmer, more southerly, fertile lands of the Danube, Rhine and Elbe valleys. Horticultural societies are most usually capable of supporting larger populations than hunting and gathering cultures, and the in coming Neolithic peoples appear to have displaced the Mesolithic population very thoroughly, so that these latter, who probably spoke Finno-Uralic languages, were displaced from almost all the lands around the Baltic except for Finland and Estonia. However, in some of the more remote mountain valleys of Norway and western Sweden, a broader-headed component still survives among the rural peoples, and this identifiable variant could possibly represent a genetic contribution from elements of the pre-Nordic population (not widely contrasted in physical type) which were permitted to retain control of the poorer, marginal land, less suitable for cultivation by the simple farming techniques known to the invaders.

The Danubian Heritage.

Physically the main population of East Norway and of the rich farm lands of central and southern Sweden is typically that ot the Iron Age Hallstatt Nordic. This fits well with the very reasonable theory that further waves of Nordic invaders entered Scandinavia during the Bronze and Iron Ages. Indeed, the language of modern Scandinavia is closely related to that of North Germany, and archaeological evidence indicates a unity of many artefacts with thos common to the Germanic and Keltic peoples of the Bronze and Iron Ages. Earlier in this century many scholars took the view that Northern Germany and Scandinavia were the original center from which the main expansion of a warlike, horse-riding Indo-European or Aryan peoples expended, not only southwards to the Mediterranean, but south-eastwards to Anatolia, Iran and even to India, but this opinion is no longer dominant. While it is true that northern Germany and Scandinavia, largely protected from subsequent immigration and population admixture by the presence of highly developed and powerful, closely-related Indo-European populations to the south, southeast and east, displayed a continuity of cultural development and a distinctive homogeneity of genetic heritage unmodified by subsequent immigrations of any size, the prime center of Bronze and Iron Age cultural developments appears to have been amongst the related Indo-European peoples of Central Europe and the Upper Danube, from whom the North Germans and Scandinavians were originally themselves derived.

The Nordic Physiognomy.

The Osterdal or Hallstatt Nordic is generally dolicocephalic with facial index of over 90 and a cephalic index around 75. The greater length of the head in relation to the breadth is partly due to the back of the head jutting out over the back of the neck. The forehead is always high, and sometimes this is accentuated in appearance by the impression of being pressed in somewhat from the sides. In the male there are frequently traces of light brow ridges above the eyes. The forehead also usually slopes slightly backwards. The nose is either straight or convex, and narrow, and the chin likewise tends to be narrow, sharp and firm. The face characteristically reveals a threefold break at the line of the profile – the first at the base of the high, sloping forehead, the second at the high-bridged nose, and the third at the chin.
The fleshy parts of the face also contribute to the clear-cut, angular appearance. The nose is sharply defined, the lips are thin, particularly so in the case of the upper lip, and there is frequently a deep groove in the upper lip, stretching from the nose to the mouth.
The colouring of skin, eyes and hair is generally light. Most characteristically the skin is very lightly pigmented, so that the blood shows through with a rosy hue, and the veins show through with a blue lustre (giving rise in Spain to the expression “blue blood in his veins,” in reference to the lighter skin color of the Gothic-descended aristocracy in contrast to the more heavily pigmented skins of the indigenous Mediterranean population). The iris of the Nordic eye is blue, blue-grey or grey, and never brown or black. Hair colour similarity ranges from a golden-blond (as distinct from the flaxen blond of the East Baltic area) to light brown, and in adulthood, even dark brown – though the latter usually indicates some degree of Atlanto-Mediterranean genetic admixture. Such admixture, common in the British Isles, seldom modifies the facial features to any marked degree, because there is little skeletal difference between the Mediterranean and Nordic types. Pigmentation of hair color always increases in adulthood, so that individuals who are fair-headed in childhood may become considerably darker in hair color on reaching adulthood.

To continue...

[Señor Malo]

Hi, Mr Visigodo.
Your article lokks most interesting. I'll read it carefully as I've been longer for long ago which was the most common concensus on the origin of Nordics.i hope this will bring any clue to my personal curiosioty

[Visigodo]

The Work of Ivar Kamke.

While statistics relating to cranial measurements, blood groups and similarly measurable data speak to us clearly in mathematical terms, visual representation of the facial and head forms of individuals are also of interest. In particular while human population vary in almost every aspect of human physiology, the human face is perhaps the most readily observable and characteristic marker whose specific and significant variants are immediately recognizable by the layman as identifying and classifying individuals according to the specific breeding populations from which they derive their ancestry. There is nothing surprising about this. Facial and head forms are as much the product of genetic determinants as are blood groups, fingerprints, color of skin, eyes and hair.
Anthropologically, the head is particularly important as the product of the latest advances in human evolution. It has been observed that the Australopithecines were essentially human up to the waist, that Homo erectus had become essentially modern up to the neck, bus was still most clearly non-sapiens as far as the head and face were concerned. It is in differences in the development of the head and face that post erectus hominids have made most progress – and differ the most obviously.
Photography can be authoritatively used to record physiological characteristics, but photographic images can also be misleading unless produces under laboratory conditions, with regular and consistent lighting, and appropriate care is taken to delineate characteristics accurately. By contrast, the eye of the artist is capable of estimating and recording the most complex variety of physiological characteristics, which do not lend themselves readily to objective measurements and statistical interpretation. The Swedish artist Ivar Kamke, working in cooperation with the anthropologist Herman Lundborg, produced a unique collection of portraits which record the physiognomy of his subjects with substantial clarity. The results of his work provide us with a visual impression of what we may assume (based on historical knowledge and cranial consistencies with measured skulls) to be accurate indications of the appearance of the Hallstatt Nordids of Iron Age Sweden, the progenitors of so many migrant waves of the Folk Wandering period, who consequently contributed their genes to the populations of extensive parts of the European continent. A selection of these are here reproduced for the information of archaeologists and historians

[Visigodo]

More pictures.

[Visigodo]

Last pictures.

[Waarnemer]

information on J.w. Jamieson aka roger pearson reveals in a somewhat painful manner the legacy of racism in physical anthropology

But now that several decades have passed since the tragic events of the 1940’s, it seems proper that we may once again take an objective and unbiased look at this historically important component of the European anthropological scene.

he is the man behind the northern league his statement from above is to be taken with a huge amount of criticism

[Señor Malo]

Originally Posted by Waarnemer

information on J.w. Jamieson aka roger pearson reveals in a somewhat painful manner the legacy of racism in physical anthropology



he is the man behind the northern league his statement from above is to be taken with a huge amount of criticism

Well at least this Pearson has a merit; the map he displays is about german Wolkerwanderung (is it correctly written?)
Would he have been "meaner" he would had displayed a map with hypothetical "aryan" migrations from the Scandinavian penninsula

PS: Isn't he the same author of the "Greek Face"?

[Weltschmerz]

MisterSinister, I just deleted the duplicate that you deliberately posted. Please don't do that. Try to contribute, instead of posting the same content again.

[Amorsite]

Basically he seems to be just parroting Coon, I fail to see anything significantly new in this text. He also gives the idea of not knowing what he is talking about.

Photography can be authoritatively used to record physiological characteristics, but photographic images can also be misleading unless produces under laboratory conditions, with regular and consistent lighting, and appropriate care is taken to delineate characteristics accurately. By contrast, the eye of the artist is capable of estimating and recording the most complex variety of physiological characteristics, which do not lend themselves readily to objective measurements and statistical interpretation.

Portraits better than photography?

The Swedish artist Ivar Kamke, working in cooperation with the anthropologist Herman Lundborg, produced a unique collection of portraits which record the physiognomy of his subjects with substantial clarity. The results of his work provide us with a visual impression of what we may assume (based on historical knowledge and cranial consistencies with measured skulls) to be accurate indications of the appearance of the Hallstatt Nordids of Iron Age Sweden, the progenitors of so many migrant waves of the Folk Wandering period, who consequently contributed their genes to the populations of extensive parts of the European continent. A selection of these are here reproduced for the information of archaeologists and historians

Most of these people (all?) are no Hallstatt Nordics, as far as one can see from these portraits.

[PeterThaGreat]

Nordid lips,.

,the lips are thin, particularly so in the case of the upper lip, and there is frequently a deep groove in the upper lip, stretching from the nose to the mouth.