What is your cephalic index?

[Maciamo]

My vote is void, I want to vote again, the vote that it marks in (hyperdolichocephalic) has to go in (hyperbrachycephalic)

I can delete your vote, but I don't think that the forum will let you vote again.

 

[Carlos]

Ivan
If I understood well, you have measured circumference not width. Since nobody's head is more wide than long all results should fall under 100. W/L would look something like 0,65-0,85 and that is why it is multiplied by 100 first, so the results come out more statistically and visually comparable.
Measuring width of a head without any equipement is not an easy task, and that is probably why original poster sugested using brain scan. You can do it with two larger triangular ruler parallel to each other, with a help of a friend who could measure the distance between them.

Hello, thanks for answering. I have measured the length from the bone of the between eyebrow and eyebrow up to the end of the head and they begin the vertebrae of the neck, the result is a 40 cm and the width 60cm, it does not turn out to be to me difficult to realize the measurement.

Maciamo
I can delete your vote, but I don't think that the forum will let you vote again.

Thank you, really the system does not allow me to vote again.

 

[spongetaro]

Isn't the Borreby type an anthropological category for classifying modern Europeans ?

Borreby is named after a Danish Paleolithic site

 

[Knovas]

¿What about Irish and English people? Not sure of their cephalic index in average, I assume it's quite diverse considering the substantial Mediterranean admixture with different Northern European stock (mostly from European R1b's).

I made some calculations for me, and the thing comes out more or less 71 (dolichocephalic). However, I look very Atlantic and that's why I ask.

 

[Goga]

That makes you dolicocephalic, close to hyperdolicocepahlic. If you measured properly you fit in the minority for Iranian peoples.Here are the scientific studies I know about Iranians :

Morphological Evaluation of Head in Turkman Males in Gorgan-North of Iran, Golalipur et al. (2007)

Out of 198 young Turkman males tested, 8% were dolicocephalic, 40% mesocephalic, 42.5% brachycephalic and 7.5% hyperbrachycephalic.


Cephalometry in 14-18 Years Old Girls and Boys of Shiraz-Iran High School, Vojdani et al. (2009)

They measured the head shape of 867 girls and 960 boys. Among the boys there were 7.5% of dolicocephalic, 28.5% of mesocephalic, 30% of brachycephalic and 34.5% of hyperbrachycephalic. The girls only had 4.8% of dolicocephalic types.


In both studies (North and South Iran), the brachycephalic type is overwhelming. So perhaps your ancestry is not purely Iranic.

It's hard for me to believe that I do belong to a minority of my own folks, because as far as I know all my close relatives have the same shape of the head. Uncles, their children etc. So I do consider myself as an average.

Turcomans are a different ethnic group and the original 'unmixed' Turcomans have nothing to do with Kurds. Turcomans are descendants of the Seljuks from East Asia and Seljucts were Turkic tribes close to the Mongols. The real Turks are more broad headed folks.

 

[Goga]

This message has been deleted by the poster

 

[Carlos]

18.5 cm of breadth and 23cm of length. My final score is 80,43 so that I am brachycephalic.

Thanks to Iván for sending to me a small graphic example, which is what had to make the creator of the post and not to give for fact that anyone has the duty to know how the head has to measure itself to know the encephalic index.

 

[Maciamo]

18.5 cm of breadth and 23cm of length. My final score is 80,43 so that I am brachycephalic.

Thanks to Iván for sending to me a small graphic example, which is what had to make the creator of the post and not to give for fact that anyone has the duty to know how the head has to measure itself to know the encephalic index.

I don't think you measured properly. 18.5 cm of head breadth seems quite high (unless you are hydrocephalic). The average is usually comprised between 13 and 16 cm. Did you use callipers ? What you could also try is to put two rigid rulers vertically against each side of your head (in front of the ears) and ask someone to take a third ruler and place it perfectly perpendicularly on top of your head. This should give you a more accurate width. The length is more difficult to measure due to the curvature of the head. Try standing head against a wall, place a ruler (or any flat, hard and inflexible object) horizontally against your forehead, and ask someone to measure the distance between the wall and the ruler (on both sides simultaneously if possible to make sure that it's perpendicular).

 

[Maciamo]

Due to privacy I made my face unrecognizable. But this is my head were we can see the shape of it and also my heavy jaw and a characteristic chin. I've got a very 'Kurdish (Iranic) look' if you ask me. My ancestors are from Northwest Kurdistan!

It shows you face shape but not your head shape (profile). Just to be sure, what length did you measure ? Face length or head length (forehead to back of the head) ?

 

[Carlos]

I don't think you measured properly. 18.5 cm of head breadth seems quite high (unless you are hydrocephalic). The average is usually comprised between 13 and 16 cm. Did you use callipers ? What you could also try is to put two rigid rulers vertically against each side of your head (in front of the ears) and ask someone to take a third ruler and place it perfectly perpendicularly on top of your head. This should give you a more accurate width. The length is more difficult to measure due to the curvature of the head. Try standing head against a wall, place a ruler (or any flat, hard and inflexible object) horizontally against your forehead, and ask someone to measure the distance between the wall and the ruler (on both sides simultaneously if possible to make sure that it's perpendicular).

If it had taken badly the measurements, Ivan was wrong with the graph that he sent to me.
From here I am grateful to Ivan for the inconveniences that one has taken. Ivan has sent to me another graph that I believe it is the correct one.

My breadth is 18cm and the length 18´5cm therefore the result is 97´29

I am again hyperbrachycephalic

 

[Goga]

It shows you face shape but not your head shape (profile). Just to be sure, what length did you measure ? Face length or head length (forehead to back of the head) ?

Hmm, thanks. I measured my face lenght. I looked at the mirror and it is almost the same as my face lenght, but I can't measure it by myself properly. Tonight I will ask somebody to measure my head, from "g." to ".op"

 

[Goga]

If it had taken badly the measurements, Ivan was wrong with the graph that he sent to me.
From here I am grateful to Ivan for the inconveniences that one has taken. Ivan has sent to me another graph that I believe it is the correct one.

My breadth is 18cm and the length 18´5cm therefore the result is 97´29

I am again hyperbrachycephalic

Lol, this is actually very funny. But why are you fooling around? Aren't you interested in the measurements of your own body? How tall you're etc.

I know it's useless but I'm very curious and I want to know everything about myself.

 

[Carlos]

Lol, this is actually very funny. But why are you fooling around? Aren't you interested in the measurements of your own body? How tall you're etc.

I know it's useless but I'm very curious and I want to know everything about myself.

Notice if I am interested that took the whole weekend measuring my head. I measure 1m 80cm. With the years probably I will be diminishing as all, by that time I already will not measure anything, until the last day, then they will be other peoples those who measure me.

It seems to me entertaining to measure my head, but one would bore to measure a shelves.

 

[Goga]

My head is 19.5 - 19.6 cm 'deep', lol. And between 14.2 - 14.4 cm wide.

So my cephalic index = 14.5 : 19.5 x 100 = 74.36.

So I've got a more average head than I thought.

Btw, I'm going to delete my picture above, because it is useless now.

 

[himagain]

I find my head to be at the juncture between dolichocephalic and mesocephalic. My Y-DNA Haplotype is I1.

 

[julia90]

I'm mesocephalic.. or slightly dolichocephalic.. even if in my family we have very different skull shapes (both dolicho and flat)

 

[MOESAN]

I red a lot of funny things on this topic
so (sorry for my english):
1- physical features can be disconnected very quickly from Y-HGs a) in a small ancient population b) in a big population but with running males classes mating with female vanquished populations
2- autsomal genes do not change too quickly, even compared to SNPs - it is the beings that change of autosomals (more seriously the répartition of autosomals can change from father and mother to children!)
3- brachycephaly for caucasoids seams ahve appeared in mesolithic (about 8000/10000 years fago) - it was preceded by a slight tendency to mesocephaly during the last paleolithic if I do not mistake
4- typical brachycéphaly is a genetic trait and if linked to life conditions it is a response of nature by mutated gene selection (pomotion) and not an "illness" or something like that - ancient anthropologists had proposed a theory based on a lack of 'iodine' selecting men or women that had this gene (or THESE geneS) - it is still to be explained for what I know - but nowaday (1950's) the brachycephalic or sub-brachycephalic populations are found also on the sea coasts and some mountainous inlands are very rich of dolichocéphalic people...
5- the today populations of Europe had almost sure lost 2% in their cranial index compared to the 1930's - it seams to be linked to the increasing of stature
6- I am not sure at all that Y-R1b rich populations are brachycephalic as a majority (even if A PART of Y-R1b bearers can have underwent this evolution (I think to the Alps) but it would signify that Y-R1b is much older in Western Europe that think a lot of people now ?-
7- some scientists have proposed Cro-Magnon type as a possible ancestor to the 'alpine' type, it is not to say that all 'cromagnon' descendants have turned into bracycephalic people - evolution in times of small groups can go very fast for some traits (not for all of them)
8- In Europe, there are some dolichocéphalic regions but they are a few number: (1930-40's):
parts of Corsica (73-74), of Portugal (73-74-75), of Sardinia (73-74) but there is no big region under 76 - only Pathans, and some Arab tribes run about 72-73-74 - Irish people: 76-77 to 80-81 according to the regions, Wales 74-75 to 79-80 (-id-), Scotland 76-77 to 80-81, England 76-77 to 80-81 (last %: Bristol:Celts and Frenchies from Aquitania in the Middle Ages)
means : Eire: 79-80, Scotland 78-79, Wales 78-79, England 77-78 - Spain 77-78, Portugal 76-77, Sweden 77-78 compared to Albania 87-88 and Saami 88-89 (they are very mixed nowaday: 83-84?), french Auvergne (86-87-88)

in late French Mesolithic the IC index was running about 74-75, with some indiviuals about 78 - and it seams that the Neolithic mediterranean new incomers brought IC about 72, that was the rule previoulsy during the Paleolithic... in Central and North Europe 'brünn' type individually well determined was about 71-72 too, when 'cro-magnon' types was about 74-75

 

[MOESAN]

I add that the limit of brachycephaly in the 1930's in an anthropological sense ("racial" phenotypes controlled on live people), on live, was between 84,9 and 85, hyperbrachycephaly after 90,0 ...
the criteria here are for 'brachycrania' on skeletons (brachy: more than 80) but it indicates nothing about types: for I know, the most of the true intermediate crossings between 'alpine' types and dolichocephalic types was between 78 & 80 for skeletons, 80 & 82 on live (78-80 nowadays) - so CI 80 is more ondicative of mesocephaly than brachycephaly - yet in Iron Age Brittany (Western Aremorica) the means FOR CRANIA was 83 (85 live) and more for so called 'alpine' people (newcomers from Parisian Bassin) and they were not pure nevertheless -
I put here a little post I did not long ago:

Brachycephaly, bones metrics and evocations of environmental conditions :

after a very too confident classical anthropology relying entirely or almost on cranial measures and funny interpretations, we know nowaday the domination of adaptative magic interpretations whose goal is to evacuate any worth of metrics. Science knows apparently the same mods as fashion trade...

some basic facts : Europe SEAMS having known a trend towards brachycephaly since the Middle Ages until the 1900's ; someones saw the origin of brachycephaly in highlands (poor for 'iode'), in Great Europe at least, others saw in this process a general trend without any selective charactere (and without any explication too!) - in the last years, the debrachycephalization seams linked to stature encrease, as brachycephalization seamed linked to a decrease of stature*
--*(Celts of La Tène Period : 1m67 (France Marne) to 1m 70 (Ireland), but Romans (nobility or not?): 1m62 – Germanic tribes of the Great Wanderings period : 1m72 to 1m74 – Bretons of Brittany and Frank or Norman riders from Normandy in the X°C., 1m70, Bretons of Brittain at the time 1m68 to 1m70 – French people around 1880 AC : 1m60-1m62, Swede Recrues same date : 1m68 only (1930 : France people : 1m65, Sweden 1m73)...
Others facts : in an homogenous population for metric measures that could evolve not by mutations but by modifications linked to environment, we can expect a « bell » form for the statistic curve : for, say, a Cephal-Index of 82 in a population, we may expect a curve summit between the 81 and 83 indexes, the curve going down almost regularly on the two sides of it – but when we compare curves obtained for different populations showing very different C-I means, we see that the summit of the curve is excentred to the lowest indexes in the more dolichocephalic populations, and to the highest indexes in the more brachycephalic ones, whatever the period and the evolution of the means. We can see some secondary summits corresponding apparently to other expressions of the crossings and maybe to some « homozygotic pure » indexes...
concerning environment+selection, Western Norway shows always more brachycephalic means than Eastern Norway, though it is in a sea coastal area. The context is mountainous but the population is as a whole living on the shores, so... ? As a whole too, the highest regions of Spain showed (in the XX°C.) the most dolichocephalic populations, the lowest the contrary ;
One can say the acquisition and the lost of brachycephaly can require some time, and it is sure ! And I add that the first apparition of a trend towards meso-brachycephaly in Europe is old enough, dating from the Offnet-Solutré findings (10000BC-8000BC), and the Mugem findings (fewer brachycephalic men and when?) -
concerning the increasing of brachycephalic between Antiquity and Middle-Ages, we have to rely on burying places studies : It is very hard to get a complete figure of Europe on this basis : I add that I am almost sure that the sepultures examined for barbarian Bronze Age or Iron Ages are for the most the sepultures of ruling castes, not the basic population ones : yet the Pompei population (near Napoli) of Roman times was sub-brachycephalic (big frequence of 'alpinid' types) and surely enough was more representative of the whole population of this country;
some scientists seam taking the modifications of means in a same place according to times as a genuine purely local evolution : this bias is found very often ; I read in an Eupedia thread (old enough) a linked old scholar's text that explained with a very striking certitude that the diverses tribes living at antique times in Venetia was showing no modification with time (!), at the exception of a « modest » 75 to a nowaday (1930's?) 85 C-I change explained as a normal common all-european brachycephalic phenomenon !!! Very easy indeed ! No use in searching some historical fact (emigration, colonization, invasion, plague...) to explain modification... when some historic facts can trouble this kind of idyllic picture some authors sweap them as a fly on the table corner... (too few invaders, indapted invaders, 100% endogamy for centuries and centuries...) -
When we look at the cranial evolution in France from Paleolithic to our era, we see different directions and different regional evolutions at different times : a seamingly genuine trend towards mesocephaly 74 >> 76 (everywhere in occident) and after brachycephaly >> + > 82 (in Alps for the most) among cromagnoids descendants, at the Mesolithic period and in Neolithic, the apparition of small light boned « mediterraneans » of more than a type more dolichocephalic (72) intruding among the previous population – in Brittany, stayed at the tail concerning brachycephalization, we see a set of different sub-dolichocephals taking one on another at Megalithic times, beginning the true brachycephalization by the wives mediation at the Eneolithic/Chalcolithic ages, the bulk of men-women brachycephalization taking place at the Iron Ages ; everytime, the propagation (in no mountains zones!!!) appears as coming from East (Parisian Bassin) ; no internal local brachycephalization here ; the rural folk of 1950's Brittany still showed cantons oppositions for C-I as for other phenotypical traits (running from 79 to 86, the most brachycephalic in the eastern « gallo(roman » cantons as a whole – GIOT) -
I do not eliminate the way-of-living-environment aspect at all but I know it can not offer us all the keys of brachy-debrachycephalization ; by instance, a survey on the same(???) departements (cantons are parts of departments, these last ones being more unprecise for surveys) some 15 years later show a debrachycephalization more or less tiny in Brittany, Poitou, Anjou, Maine and Normandy (10 departements of a region that contains 16 but Brittany complete here) with a decrease of C-I running from 0,5 to 2,0 according to the places (someones can be suspected of strong immigration of other french people, others having a faster or slower life-level evolution due to economic orientations and rural emigration) – Here yet, debrachycephalization was associated to stature increase – so the last Middle Ages « mechanical » and not genetic part of brachycephalization until the industrial revolution in Europe could be seen like stature decrease as the result of (agricultural) sedentarization associated with « worst » feeding (less meat?), harder works in pre-adolescence times before the skeleton would have been formed, more short inbreeding... But do not forget that brachycephals was already numerous at bronze-Iron Ages in some parts of Europe, and that civil cemeteries of these periods showed certainly more level folks than the cheftains sepultures of previous times. Keep in mind too that even in an ancient population of 35 Frisian of Leeuwarden showing a mean C-I of 78,26 you find 1 indiviual with the C-I of 88, and 1 of 85 and 2 of 84 compared to 10 under 77 ! Poor bad feed brachycephals or mountain climbers ? In the same family you can find a dolicho and a brachy so : evident genetic background too.
So without any proof, how can we imagine brachycephaly could take place ? The adaptative aspect
can have two aspects : a personal during-life adaptation by plastical adaptative variability furnished by the genome, not genetically acquired and not transmittable to following generations and a collective genetic long term adaptation by selection keeping the most adapted genes : the ones that improve survival in some natural conditions and that are linked to some cranial features, either creating them or indirectly linked to them in the genome ; I see this evolution as acquired and dificult to loose, only by an other selective factor -


What is striking is that in Europe we see a kind of brachycephaly taking place pace by pace (result : 'alpine type') in West and an other type of brachycephalic coming on sight abruptly enough in West and East and Centre, at the Eneolithic-Chalcolithic time :
a Survey about Greece(PANAGIARIS 1993 according to DIENEKE) speaks about apparition of brachycephalic people at the bronze Ages in Greece (Pelopponese), Creta, and in eastern Saka-land (people came from Pamir-Ferghana), excluding a phenomenon by population isolation in Greece proper – some prototypes of a future dinaric type appeared too in central-northwestern Europe about 3000 BC : I am unaware of the precise place of very first apparition of types on this direction ; for some old scientists the first apparition of dinarid types in Anatolia—South-Caucasus is about the 2000 BC or a few centuries before, coming from the Balkans as they thought... I red too that the Kurgan culture of southern Russia showed a majority of dolichocephals, the most of high stature but not all of them (the smallest : some « danubian mediterraneans »?), and too some brachycephals, more on the dinaroid side ; these last types was found also very far, in light proportions, among steppic populations of south Siberia in a considered future I-E population. Whatever people can conclude of it, some of the present day populations of these areas show a majority of Y-R1a (as in ancient times) and Y-I2a1a + some Y-I2a2 not yet detected in ancient Y-DNA (but the story is not closed) : I say we have there an open door, not an answer...
I am still tempted to see in the territory of Cucuteni-Pripolje cultures the place where East Anatolian or Near-Eastern farmers or pastors (Y-G2 + some Y-J2?) mixed with Balkans-Carpathians « autochtones » (Y-I2...? + some Y-E1b « alpha » ?) developping a high standard culture (on material criteria) before getting in touch with steppic tribes (Y-R1a +???).
Whatsoever the conditions that gave birth to the so called « dinaric » phenotype : selection on a certain genetic basis or mixture on an as certain genetic basis, these conditions seam yet to me linked geographically to central-eastern Europe (from mesolithic times ? or is it the admixture with neolithic people ? I have no answer for now... but the metric surveys over the Carpathian Bassin are recent enough : Chalcolithic ? And a survey by R. PINHASI & M. PLUCIENNIK (2004) about mesolithic to neolithic sites in southern Europe and Near-East-Anatolia did not furnish C-I data, telling only that the Khirokitia (Creta) neolithic population showed a peculiar « short-headness and paedomorphic features » - first meso-brachycephals there, but when exactly ???

 

[oreo_cookie]

dolichocephalic, i assume based on what I know about my facial structure.

 

[MOESAN]

if correct, a cephalic index of 80,43 is not brachycephalic but mesocephalic:
you confuse or rather has been mistaken by some imprecise text: 'brachycephalic' is said of CRANIA of over CI 80: two observatios: it doesn' t take in account the true europeoid means and it concerns measures taken on dead man crania (bone only)
alive, a CI of 80 would be rather 81-81,5 and in standards of 1930-50 Europe it's still mesocephalic, subbrachycephaly beginning about 84 -
it's true that the ancient crania means were more around the 77-78 in Europe ON CRANIA, before demic encrease of some already brachyccephalic populations (or encrease of the number of their discovered buryings!!!)
today populations seem having lost 2 to 2,5 in their CI compared to 1950 standards, roughly... but keap in mind Auvergne and some french Alps or Jura regions shew in 20°Cy CIs of 86 to 88, and S-Albania (Tosques) 89!!! that's brachycephaly!
just for precision, not mentioning questions of measures