Thanks to Drac and Angela:
I red a survey abstract about the Netherlands; yet, the affirmation Dutch people were the shortest people in Europe in the 1880's seems to me a bit hazardous.
here a part of my point.
Hereunder I post about stature, not for the pleasure because it is not myfocus but only to gain some « credibility » after someremarks, and to show things are not always evident even for somethingas simple as stature.
Humanstature : about the confidence we can have in the diverse data :
Humanstature put someones to fight about figures. In fact the official orpseudo « scientific » data are not always so reliable.It's why I prefer keep in mind general trends over long periods thanto put too much confidence into spotty states. Surely some changes inthe rank of regions have some weight if confirmed over long time.More often I observed that the ancient higher and lower staturedcountries and regions found again their rank after some temporarychanges. The greater encreases in human stature are the case ofcountries stayed back outside economical progress a long time beforequick improvement (Japan).
Somestates spoke of general 'mean' stature at some point of time, othersof generation stature (year of birth) or of a more or less short spanof time.
Hereunder 2 states of Wikipedia, showing the modestly reliableconclusions we can take from them :
« about1960 » (« vers 1960 ») about2007 (not all of them, unprecised)
Montenegro 178cm Montenegro 185,6 cm
Scandinaves(!) 178 Dutchs 184,0 (21 years)
Cheyennes 174 « 183,8
Foulbe 174 « 180,8
Englishmen 173 Finns 182,6
Turkestan 171 Germans 182,3
Belgians 171 « 179,8
Frenchpeople 170 ? (too high?) Danes 182,1
Germans 168 !(too low) Croatians 182,0
Russians 168 Swedes 181,1 (16/24 years)
Italians 166 !(too low) « 177,2
Hungarians 163 !(too low) Norvegians 179,7 (18/19 years)
Mongols 163 Belgians 179,5
Spanyards 162 !(too low) Luxemburg 179,1
Ainoos 158 Spanyards 178,5 !
Inuits 158 Swiss 178,4
Saami 153 Greeks 178,0
M'buti 137 Czechs 178,0
Canadians 177,0 (18/24 years)
« 174,0
USA 177,7 (15/25 years)
« 176,5 (adults)
Australians 178,4 (18/24 years)
New-Zealand 177,0 (19-45 years!!!)
Ukrainians 176,5
France 176,1 (16/25 years)
« 175,0
Italians 175,2
Turks 175,0
Portugueses 173,7
Romanians 172,0 (adults)
Tonga 169,4 !
& :I can say Romanians are far to be so low statured – but the statehere cannot be compared to others because it covers a very longerspan of time ! Tonga are surely not so short ! Therelatively low statures means in USA and Canada seem showing everyethny is taken in account without mentioning origin (East-Asians,« Latinos » and so on?) - other point for method: ifI take the same sample number in every region of a country and I makea national mean based on it, I don't take in account the populationdensity in it and my national mean is false...
Youcan read a relatively recent work about Europe :
L'évolutionrécente de la stature en Europe occidentale (période 1960-1980) byMC. CHAMLA (Persée).
Even this serious work isbased upon states made in different countries with very bigvariations of samples : from 2000 to over 400000 !Apparently, these states do not take the origin of people in account.I found in another survey by Jaume GARCIA (a Catalan?) for PrincetownUniversity about women statures from 1950 to 1980 by groups of 5years spans of birthdates that some periods results were based uponless than 60 people when othiers were based upon more than 660people ! Scientific by the way to analyse, but not tooscientific concerning some data !
Froma serious enough work (CHAMLA's as mentioned above)
variationsbetween 1970 and 1980 (years ofbirth : the only serious way)concerning Spain, Ireland and Greece :
Spain 175.8/ 174.4 / 176.7 / 176.3 / 175.2 / 175.9 / 176.4 / 176.4 / 172.7/ 176.8 / 178.0
Ireland 177.7/ 179.2 / 175.9 / 175.5 / 178.0 / 176.2 / 176.6 / 179.3 / 175.4 /178.2 / 177.5
Greece 177.5/ 179.5 / 176.8 / 177.7 / 180.0 / 178.0 / 177.8 / 178.4 / 179.5 /179.3 / 178.3
& :means over 11 years of birth : Spain : 175.9 – Ireland : 177.2 – Greece : 178.4
sovariations which could prove insufficiant samples according toyears ? The mean upon a longer period seems more accurate evenif a too long span of time could mask some trends. By the way theSpanyards statures seem having known an increase in the late 1970'sat the opposite to Ireland. Portugal stays still the lowest staturedcountry as a whole (Saami lands are not considered a country, likeKurdistan) spite local variations.
Asa whole some southern regions of Europe, stayed maybe longer timewith a worst economy, show a bit higher coefficient of statureincrease. Exception : The Netherlands with big increase andPortugal with little increase. That said, as a whole, the old ranksbetween populations in Europe have not been put upside down for themost. The highest ones : Scandinavians lands (except Saami) andYougoslavs plus some Carpathians regions, the lowest ones :regions of Portugal, Spain, Southern Italy. In old times, somelocal spots in Brittany and Poland had very low statures too.
Onlysome phantasms like the high stature of Irish people have to berevised ; already in the 1930/1940's when Irish people weregiven about 172 cm as a mean some local states were about 166 only !I red on fora that the lowest statured folks in UK were the Englishpeople ! It's just the contrary, taken as a whole !Irishmen, Scotmen and Welshmen show a bit lower statured thanEnglishmen. When the England mean was supposed to be 171 cm Wales had169 cm. Some years later, after the 1950's, Scotland and Wales showedboth about 170,5 : at this time I can suppose England hadsomething like more than 172...(new blogs/fora science : I redtoo the Irish people were lighter pigmented than English people !But it's the subject of another thread...)
Eventhe ranks between internal regions have not been modified too much,spite some changes, the most of them on the way to osmosis andleveling. Italy has been an exception between 1960-80 seeing theregional means accentuated by time : I don't know if it is trueafter the 2000's ?
Toconclude I can say that except for regions where statures are closeone to the other, your eyes can verify without too huge states whichregions have the higher or lowest statured populations, at least atthe moment you visit these regions.
some "scientific" works made compilation of heterogenous data the only reliable being the ones with big samples sampled by dates of birth and regions
Thegenetic, mesologic and cultural basis of stature (vaste subject) canbe discussed in another thread.
ouf! the battle is over!