for the fun, and hoping it will not launch a third mondial war...
a bit late inthis thread, I fear, but I go on:
I red a lot of true and wrong things in this thread, so I cannot give my personal point to every poster; I’ll try to be clear (not always easy with my short English)
Yes: confusion of skull shape with face shape – and sometimes confusion of some basic measures with shapes (which need very more numerous measures). Confusion between crania definitions of dolicho-brachycephaly and on life definitions of dolicho-brachycephaly. In fact, based upon modern means I find better the “on life” ones.Cranial categories were : hyper dolicho under 70, dolicho from 70 to 75, meso 75 > 80, brachy 80 > 85, hyperbrachy> 85; but I find better to postulate mesocephaly around 78-82 (1950 criteria, today the young generations have at least 2 points less), so subdolicho 75 to 78, dolicho 72 > 75, hyperdolicho under that, and subbrachy 82 > 85, brachy 85 > 88, hyperbrachy over that… understood all that is classification of measures, not classification of types, because with the same genetic basis your CI can change a bit according to way of life and nutrition (but not move from 69 to 95 as believe someones!!!)
We cannot base or judgement about a population upon a lonesome skeleton. And WHGs as I said before were not the same everywhere; easy to see when we look at Loschbour compared to La Brana1; let’s keep in mind WHG were Mesolithic people, not Paleolithic one; the very homogenous type of Cro-Magnon (subdolichocranial, brachyfacial (and squarelike), present before LGM, saw the arrival of other types after LGM, seemingly coming from East Europe, dolichocranial and dolichofacial like the “true” ‘nordic’ type and some of the ‘mediterranean’ types of classical anthropology, but with very more ruggish and primitive features, as the close types of Combe-Capelle and some of the Brünn (Brno) types. When I look at the mean measures for different sites in Mesolithic Europe I cannot think otherwise that in everyplace or almost it had been crossings between these two great phyla of men, the first regions concerned being Central Europe. These crossings, in them different proportions of the 2 basic ligneages can produce a lot of different mean regional “types” with unlevel redistributions of peculiar features, without speaking of some details produced by new more local mutations.
I red here and there some affirmation without basis. Concerning CI (index) almost all the Upperpaleo-Mesolithic people of Europe falled in the dolicho-subdolichocephalic indexes from 70 to 75 (NOT dolicho-CRANIAL, let’s remember). But at around the 6000 BC, maybe a bit sooner (8000 BC in Solutré?), appeared first subbrachy+brachycephals in the Alps regions and surroundings (Burgundy, Baviera); this new type of crania, is supposed by some scholars as a local evolution upon a dominantly ‘cromagnoid’ population, put on the account of a kind of partial foetalization; someones spoke of a lack of iodin… it’s true that the today general shape evocates more a gentle “infantile” ‘cromagnoid’ with a partly reduced face breadth (but it keeps short, and by the same evolution, the orbits index spite being higher than in Cro-magnon, remains low enough), retaining the lower skull height, very different from the ‘brünnoid’ or ‘capelloid’ crania height indexes. Somenes spoke of an arrival from Asia Minor, or from North Maghreb (uneasy to confirm or infirm). But the first brachy’s people faces were more on the ‘cromagnoid’ squarefaced model, what could confirm a local evolution; but the same evolution upon a same common basis could also have occurred elsewhere! Coon compared Ofnet Bavarian skulls to some brachy’s of Afalou, who were found too in some number in Palestina (Natufian period?). I don’t buy the only mechanical mesologic explananations so we have to find where occurred the first mutation if only one.
Concerning the so called ‘borreby’ type which appeared later (4000 BC in North Europe?) I think there were(in fact 2 types – a ‘cromagnoid’ based and a ‘brünnoid’ based, without knowing if the brachycephalic trait was passed from one to another or inherited in both from a third group – I would prefer a ‘cromagnoid’ basis, because the first distribution we have is North the Alpine regions where more of the proto-‘alpine’ types were found at first. The ‘borreby’ on ‘cromagnoid’ basis seems in fact very close to the first subbrachycephals of Mesolithic Central Europe, but did not undergo the reducing of well defined ‘alpine’ types. At Eneo-Neolithic times ‘alpine’ types were become very common around Alps (forming the majority among Palafittes) and penetrated lands as far as Pyrenees to Greece; we could also imagine a reasonable imput of a kind of ‘mediterraean’ gracile type in the progressive gracilization of ‘alpine’??? open to debate.
The brachycephaly is a question for amateurs because the ancient populations are poorly described to us by scholars, and I would say it is worst today than in past! Brachycephals have been signaled here and there in popular digests but we have no populations means. At Chalcolithic times and later it seems brachycephals of unkown origin appeared in Anatolia and Near-East Palestine where (at this time) they were a new form of skulls.. And not fromSouth! Some were already planoccipital so roughly said ‘dinaric’ or ‘dinarid’ at least, other ‘alpine’ and other more robust, evocating a kind of ‘borreby’ according to descriptions.
Before that if my readings are right Anatolians were dolicho-subdolicho’s. as were bearers of the ‘danubian’ type associated to the most of Neolithic Catal Höyök farmers. Other civilizations of Mesopotamia were also dolicho, more akin to ‘eurafrican’ “viril” type with crooked nose. So we cannot say it’s Neolithic which sends brachycephaly to Europe, at least not through Anatolia or Near-East. Someones think the ‘alpine’ type was very common among Hittites; I think the ‘borrebylike’ more robust brachy can have the same source. Some Neolithic people of the Vinca sites of Starcevo Culture were brachycephalic and seemed to Zsoffmann as exceptions among Neolithic people…
I have no detail about the CI of CHG of old Western Caucasus, helas! The maps of TODAY CI indexes means in South Eurasia show, by simplification, a Northern distribution of dominant brachycephaly and a southern one of dominant dolichocephaly; Bedawins of the 1950’s are all dolichocephals as a mean, often between 73-74. Palestinians and Iraqians a bit higher: 76-78. But Alawit Syrians and Lebanese were about 84-86; Kurds very variated. Turks about 83 as France or Germany, but with regional variations from 82 to 87. Armenians 84-87 except around Van Lake (more meso and more lighted pigmented). 1950’s Caucasus was between 82-84 (West) and 85-87 (East) but most of Azerbadji were under 80… Iranians are between Dolicho’s (more South) and meso-subbrachy’s (more North) but it’s a rough simplification. In the eastern part of West-Asia it’s not clearer:Tadjiks are brachy’s for the most, more in mountains than in plains, Afghans as a mean 75-76 and Pathans 72-73! . The question is: when appeared first brachycephals there and where from? What is the part of natural selection and the part of isolation/hazard?
Chalco-Early Bronze Age of Steppes “caucasian”types deserve a special attention (a so large space of lands!). The Corded dominant type was a kind of selection (some small tribes at first?)on the dolichocephalic side, high-narrow faced (# ‘cromagnoid’). I recall we are here dealing with the description of features, not in the genetic genealogy: we have yet to find the genealogy and interrelations of these types and to find which ones are based or not on homozygoty concerning external features (genetical aspect). Very hard…
To resume the above lignes concerning Caucasus and surroundings, I have not the answer to when arrived Brachy’s there. None of the Neolithic people living in fertile Crescent or Anatolia or East Caspian farmers colonies of BMAC was brachycephalic and brachycephaly seems to me arrived in there from more than a point, Balkans as well as Hindu Kush slopes and ??? I long to surveys upon ancient Kurdistan too // The ‘teal’ population could have been geographically partly differentiated by time, because a bunch of mutations concerning external aspect does not need a complete turn over of the whole genome! The same in every case of these “types”.
Loschbour and others ‘s reconstutions are good enough based on what they have at hand; I wonder nevertheless if they took in account the muscular mass of jaws muscles which augments in a big part the visible breadth of the inferior jaw, specially in they way of life? It seems to me the same case for La Brana and Ötzi (very poorly ‘mediterraneanlike’, this Ötzi’s reconstitution, by the way!)
Loschbour (male) is an individual type among a local population which left genetic imput among S.O.M. and Eiffel Wallonia Eneolithic populations. Its “brutal” frontal profile (# ‘cromagnoid’)seems close to the Scandinavian HG’s too. It illustrates well for me one of the possible results of the Mesolithic mix of the 2 great ancient types with ‘c-c/brünn’ dominating ’before Neolithic new populations whose evolution in Near-East is still to be explained. By the way the Neolithic populations were not all on the same pattern!
To conclude I agree with the remarks saying the today populations cannot be taken as pictures of the ancient populations; History did not stop around Iron Age!. And Caucasus seems looked at it as a cradle of Humanity, but I think it received a lot too.
Rather long my speech… Sorry for the diarrhea.
