some wrong reputations or stereotypes about physical aspect of populations

MOESAN

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it's rather a rectifying of too often read or heard unbased affirmations


In more than athread in blogs or fora here and there I 've had the occasion to read very astonishingstatements made by people about physical anthropology, statementspresented as Bible words.
I know Ph-An ormetrics are not the preferred sport of most of forumers interested bygenetics, but, whatever their value, they deserve to be respected interms of factual observations. So, just to avoid wrong links, I 'llgive some general clues for what they are worth. I hope I shan't falltoo far from scientific truth.
Fake news read hereand there (in bold):
-Hunters-Gatherers were brachycephalic (!) :
- the Paleolithicpeople of Eurasia were dolichocephalic or subdolichocephalic :Cro-Magnon types had CI about 74 – others were rather around 71 to72 -
- at Mesolithic,they were between 71 and 76 for the most in Western Europe, rathermore dolicho in eastern Europe – it's true that in West it's ratherthe ones closer to Cro-Ma' forms who were subdolicho, Combe-Capelleand Chancelade, Upper-Paleo/Meoslithic, were rather 71/72...
- the first trendstoward brachycephaly seems appearing in Alpine regions of Europe,around the 8000/6000 BC, among HG's – the first Neolithic farmersfrom West and Central Anatolia come around 7000/6000 BC throughSouth-East Europe, the « fathers » of our 'danubianfarmers', were dolico-/subdolichocepahlic, in any case not too muchover CI 76 – the first so called 'proto-alpine' types had around IC82/84 at first and were still rugged, coarse in their forms – it'sonly later, at neolithic times that they turned more brachy androunded, softer profiled,with IC's from 86 to over 90 – I wonderif it's not some crossings with 'danubian' types that produced a morebrachycephalic result stamp 'alpine' by genetic dominance and softerfeatures, in a mingling where domined numerically the HG's (trend :skull and orbits a bit higher, face a bit more gracile, less broadand less bony – for body, I Haven't enough clues – inEastern Europe (Romania) I lack clear data, but some readings seemsstating a trend toward brachycephaly in Western part of Balkans, atneolithic, in pop's with a clear input of HG's (which ones?) ;and as time passed, it seems that subdolichocephaly took the place ofdolichocephay, and then came mesocephaly and subbrachycephaly, inLate Neolithic/Chalcolithic pop's ; but the first arrivals ofSteppes set of tribes brought rather dolicho/subdolichocephalicpops ! So the brachycephalic trend seems attached to westernHG's genome + to their adaptation to their environmental/way of lifeconstraints – could we link it to a stage of Y-I(2) pop's ?here again we speak of means : among these populations,individual CI's were very variable, and there were found already CI'sof 90 ; so not kind of gradual increase of everybody but only arapid enough mutation of some individuals, surely with a specificgenetic background ; we have to separate the global 'limited)increase or decrease of a pop involving all people from the sometimedrastic mean increase or decrease produced by change of the weight ofmore or less numerous dolicho's and brachy's in the mix– the terms like « brachycephalisation » ordolichocephalisation » can be very mistaking...
Caution, theplace is surely of some importance (mountainous regions), because theso called partially megalithic mixed too 'Long Barrows people' ofBritain, who played a role in the megalitihic turn of TRBK's, werevery dolicho, around 72 so...
& : let'snotice that very often books speak of brachycranic for CI of 80 orjust more ; in fact for today European mean, it's just « high »mesocephaly ; the '-cranic' labels concern crania, the'-cephalic' ones concern skull on live and are a bit more accurateIMO – on live, we should add ~ 1 index to the CI : (eg 71>72,89>90...) - to compare to 1930/40 European pop's we should add~ 2/3 index, this brachycephalisation linked maybe to sedentisation,diet, less selection and more endogamy, I think ; so a 2000 BCpop with a mean of CI 82 could turn into CI 86 (1+3) in 1930 ;it's a proxi, nothing more, all pop's did not evolve exactly the sameway for more than a reason, but everywherebrachycephaly increased – today, for linked but different reasons,brachycephaly is decreasing : maybe 2 index lost since 1930, asa mean.


- broad skull >broad face, broad bizygomatic > broad inferior maxillar (!) :
- completelywrong : there are « harmonic » and « disharmonic »faces : Cro-Magnon type and some of the other later pop's,whatever the links between them, have long narrow skulls with broadlow faces (SSA people have often this kind of association, not all ofthem, 'australoids' of Australia too) – 'dinaric' type, stable orunstable crossing, has broad short skull with rather narrow highface, spite not as narrow as some harmonic dolicho's -
- 'cro-ma'like typeshave broad bizygomatics and broad bigonials (jaw) when otherpaleo/meso (eg 'brünn'like or 'capelle'like types had broadbizygomatics (a bit less) but narrow bigonials spite heavy highinferior maxillar – as a whole, all the subtypes of true 'mediter'have this late tendancy -
& :it's one of the problems of metrics : very often, bigonialsaren't taken in account, perhaps because of lack of evidence ofindividual unity when skulls are found very mingled in collectivesepultures or because jaws as a whole are less well conserved thanskulls ? - no clue here -
- SSAfricans arelong legged, North-Africans are long legged (!):
- it's verydangerous to generalise some facts concerning some limited pop's toall pop's of a country, even more dangerous when we speak ofcontinents ! First : there is almost NO pop or tribecompletely homogenous concerning phenotypes (same for CI's, seeabove) – we compare and create means, but the extremes can be farfrom the mean, and produce very opposed types in the samepopulation ; not only pop's are not internally homogenous, butregions vary in a country, in some cases on small distances ;there is no Iberian unity : variations between Spanyards andPortugeses, this last as a whole shorter legged compared to alloverstature, and variations within Portugal – among the longer leggedpeople are the Touaregs (Targi?) of N-Sahel, the negroid Nilotictribes (very homogenous for phenotypes spite surely a less cleartotal auDNA making). Some of the regions of North-Africa showpeople rather between middle and short legs compared to their alloverstature – SSA pop's of Congo and surroundings, in forests zones,are rather short legged, with thick legs muscles.
In Europe, northernlands show as a whole (Sweden, Norway, except Far North and West)long legged people, Denmark a bit less I suppose, Iceland too. Itseems linked to the « pure » 'nordic' type, longlegged.
In the C. Coon's'nordic' variants with so called « archaic » typesinputs, the body is often less elongated and leggs proportionallyshorter, so the trunk higher, spite these types are even higerstatured than the typical 'nordic' type – Irish and British peopleare rather short legged -
in Asia, the wellevolved diverse 'mongoloid' ('east-asian') types are all of themshort legged, whatever the form of the upper body, almost withoutexception – it seems it changes, for what I know, in thesoutheastern islands (Malaysia, Indonesia …) where some popsshow very short bodied very long legged people (Dayaks by instance?) - the even more archaic lookingpop's of South-East Asiaislands areless short legged, the 'australoid' types are even very long legged,and it seems it's commontoo among Veddas of India-
Here under somesitting/standing stature ratio's :
Tuareg/Targi 48,0 -Andalusia Spain 50,6 – Frisians 51,0 – Livonians Latvia Finns51,3 – Yemen 51,3 – Pathans 51,6 – Traso os MontesCentral-North Portugal 51,9 – Monte Negro 52,0 - Koweit 52,5 –Afghans 52,6 – Serbia 52,8 – Ghegs Albania 52,8 – CareliansFinland 53,0 – Finland total 53,0 – Armenians 53,2 – Portugaltotal 53,2 - US Italians (majority South+Central South) 53,3 – WestIreland 53,3 – Tosks Albania 53,7 -
+ unprecise :Irakians < less than < 52 – Britain : between 52 and 53– South Central France (Occitanie) : between 52,6 and 53,0 –Bavarians : 53 or more -
As we can see, theleggs proportions are not linked to allover stature and onlyimperfectly linked to climate – the muscular+fat mass is notdirectly linked to limbs proportions either -
 
I have very long legs for my height; I am 5'9" (1.75 metres for our Euro friends) and my inseam (pant leg length) is 32 inches (81 cm).
 
I have very long legs for my height; I am 5'9" (1.75 metres for our Euro friends) and my inseam (pant leg length) is 32 inches (81 cm).

I'm long legged too: index 50,5/50,8 (amateur's measures: sitting/standing)
in your case it's an other way to measure (leg's "fork" (inseam?)/standing); if my memory is good, I was very close to 80cm/171,7cm, but I'm not sure at all so...
 
I am Brazilian of Portuguese descent and I am 1.83 cm tall. Long legs and no recent northern European ancestry - African and Amerindian are also very small, not exceeding 10% when added together.
 

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