Percentage of "Pure Nordic Type" in Swedish Provinces and Immigration.

[Weisthor]

pages 29-32 of The Swedish Nation and Racial Types by Herman Lundborg, 1921.

(Taken from International Center of Photography).

Even from the most ancient times our country has been exposed more or less to the immigration of foreign peoples and races. If, for example, one examines the composition and origin of our Swedish nobility one often finds families of German, Baltic, English or Scotch descent. Ever since the Middle Ages a not inconsiderable immigration has been taking place of Danes, Norwegians, Germans, Dutchmen, Englishmen and many other nations, who have settled principally in the towns. But these nearly related peoples have not caused essential alterations in the Swedish race-type.

The Finns and the Lapps on the contrary, two races who are considerably different to the Swedes of Nordic type have created a marked difference, for they are to be found in such numbers that they have had a strong influence in certain parts of the country, especially in Norrland and the middle of Sweden.

A very considerable immigration of Finns took place at the end of the sixteenth century and at the beginning of the seventeenth. Altogether at that time from twelve to thirteen thousands of Finns settled in the middle of Sweden or in the South of Norrland, especially in Warmland and the counties of Kopparberg and Gafleborg. Long before this however, a slower more disconnected immigration of Finns had begun to take place, and continued to do so afterwards. They have gradually become incorporated in the Swedish nation. A great many of the serfs to be found in Sweden in olden times belonged almost certainly to the Finnish race. In the most northerly parts of Sweden are to be found about 25,000 so-called Finns, who speak the Finnish language. In spite of this they are for the most part of very mixed descent, which can be ascertained not only by means of genealogical investigation, but also manifests itself in the varying types which appear among them. Part of them is of Finnish, Swedish and Lappish descent, another part of Swedish and Finnish or of Finnish and Lappish descent, etc. The number of persons living in Sweden having more or less decided Finnish racial characteristics is of considerable importance. They include in all probability some hundreds of thousands of people.

The Finnish races, that in olden times were especially numerous and who were divided into many different branches, living in a territory stretching from the most northerly part of Scandinavia through Finland and North Russia a good way into Siberia, have by degrees lost their own national peculiarities and have to a large extent become absorbed by other nations, especially by Slavonic races in Russia. The Tavastlandish is considered to be one of the most pure of the Finnish races. Such types are not so unusual even among us. A Finn of this type is short in stature, thick-set and strongly built. He is fair and, as a rule, has light eyes, his hair is straight and coarse, his complexion is fair and often of a somewhat dirty grey colour; his head is short and fairly broad, as is also his face. This has a square appearance caused by the broadness of the cheeks which extend downwards even to the angle of the lower jaw. The nose is very clumsy with a concave brigde. Figs. 4 to 6 show us some Finnish types in Sweden, as do also the pictures on Plates XI-XIII, mixed types on Plate XIV.

Although they all have certain features in common, Karelians Savolaxians, Esthonians with other, Finnish races of more adulterated blood, deviate from the type described above in a more or less degree. These races are also represented in our own country. But this is not the right place to consider these differences.

The Lapps have come to Sweden from the east, certainly before the beginning of the Christian Era, and have since spread out gradually towards the south as far as to the northern part of Dalcarlia. Probably the Lapps have never, at any time, been a numerous nation. At the present time their numbers hardly reach to 30,000 of which about 7,000 are found in Sweden, about 20,000 in Norway and the remaining few thousands in Finland and the Kola peninsula in Russia. The greatest number of the Swedish Lapps, about 3,500 live in the most northern province of Sweden (Norrbotten). The Lappish race differs very considerably from both the Finnish and the North European Race.

The Lapp is of very low stature (the men measure about 155 cm. in height) his hair is dark, most often black or blackish-brown, lank and coarse; his beard is of very weak growth, his eyes are brown, his complexion has a tint of yellow-brown in it; he has a short skull with an index number of about 86; his face is broad and short, with projecting eyebrows and a small lower jaw narrowing off downwards; his nose is often concave. Figures 7 to 9 represent typical Lapps from North Bothnia, as do also Plates XV-XVII. Mixed types occur, and not so seldom, among the Lapps which seem to indicate that they have received an infusion of both Swedish and Finnish blood. (See Plate XVIII).

The colour of the eyes as well as the index number of the skull is an important race-mark. One knows that it is inherited and that the possession of blue eyes is of a recessive nature.

The diagram on side 32 shows the division of different colors of the eye into three shades, light, dark-medleys (= mixed) and brown, among Swedish, Finnish, and Lappish speaking populations, according to my own, not yet published investigations. The light eyes appear in predominating numbers among the Swedish population and even among the Finnish in Norrbotten. Among the Lapps on the contrary they appear seldom. The brown colour of the eyes is usual and appears most often among the Lapps and comparatively seldom among the Swedes and Finns.
The mixed eyes are not frequent among the Lapps and in a still smaller degree among the Finns and least of all the Swedes. For more particulars see the diagram itself.

Smaller groups of other races besides these chief components, the Nordic, the Finnish and the Lappish races, appear also in Sweden; they may be summarized briefly.

Walloons came from Belgium during the seventeenth century to improve the Swedish iron industry. They settled near the great ironworks in East Gothaland (Ostergotland), Uppland, Varmland and Bergslagen. They are represented mostly by a dark type.

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Sweden (landskap / provinces).

[Gil]

Actually there is no such thing as a "pure Nordic" like there are no pure "Atlantid" or pure "Mediterranid". These (Nordic, Mediterranid,etc) are concepts created by 19th and 20th century physical anthropologists who had no or just a slight idea of what are gene flow, genetic drift, mutations, haplogroups, haplotypes, etc. These are metrical concepts, based on metrical approach to the human being: definitions can only be traced thru morphological diferentiation and phenotype observance, both very inneficient means.
Nevertheless, within the physical anthropology area, it's a study a bit outdated (1921) but interesting nonetheless.

[Nadvojvoda Janez Kranjski]

Well, Nordids were mostly mesocephalic, hence the 2nd chart applies. However, they should have takein into account facial measurements (leptoprosopy, nasal index, etc.), since the charts now also include Cro-Mags.