Dinaric race

Meyers Blitz-Lexikon (Leipzig, 1932) shows a Tyrolian woman as an example of the Dinaric type.

The Dinaric race (or Adriatic race or Epirotic race) is one of the sub-categories of the Europid (White; Caucasian) race into which it was divided by physical anthropologists in the early 20th century. Such racial typologies have been rejected by modern anthropology for several reasons, especially since the rise of molecular anthropology.

History and physiognomy

The concept of a Dinaric race originated with Joseph Deniker, but became most closely associated with the writings of Hans F. K. Günther and Carleton S. Coon. The name was derived from the Dinaric Alps (the western part of the Balkan Peninsula) which was supposed to be the principal habitat. The Dinaric type was considered a branch of the Balkans-Caucasian race in Soviet era anthropology.^[1]

Characteristics were defined as tall, mostly mesomorph bodily build, with relatively long legs and short trunk and a medium arm span. The overall anatomy of the head was said to be brachycephalic to hyperbrachycephalic (Cranial index: 81-86) whereby the condition is caused by both rather high breadth of the head and a medium length of the neurocranium, whose back part is often somewhat flattened (planoccipital).

The type has been described as follows:

The vertical height of the cranium is high. Eyes are set relatively close and the surrounding tissue defines them as wide open. The iris is most often brown, with a significant percentage of light pigmentation in the Dinaric population. The nose is large, narrow and convex. The face is long and orthognathic, with a prominent chin, and also wide. The form of the forehead is variable, but not rarely it is bulbous. The hair color is usually dark brown, with black-haired and blond individuals in minority, blondness being the characteristic of the more Central European, morphologically similar Noric race (a race intermediate between Nordic and Dinaric races). The skin is lacking the rosy color characteristic for Northern Europe as well as the relatively brunet pigmentation characteristic for the southernmost Europe and on a geographical plane it is of medium pigmentation and often it is variable.

Origin and distribution

Joseph Deniker's map of European races (1899) identified "Dinarics" as the dominant group in parts of central Europe, Northern Italy and the North West Balkans.

Several theories were advanced regarding the genesis of the Dinaric race. Most researchers agreed that this race was autochthonous to its present habitat from the Neolithic period. Both Günther and Coon claimed that the Bell-Beaker people of the European Bronze Age were at least partially Dinaric.

Coon also argued, however, in The Origin of Races (1962), that the Dinaric and some other categories "are not races but simply the visible expressions of the genetic variability of the intermarrying groups to which they belong."

He referred to the creation of this distinctive phenotype from the mixing of earlier separate groups as "dinaricisation". In his view Dinarics were a specific type that arose from ancient mixes of the Mediterranean race and Alpine race.

According to the Dinaric model, Dinarics were to be found in the mountainous areas of the western Balkans: Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Slovenia, Austria, part of northwestern Bulgaria, and northwestern Republic of Macedonia).

Northern and Eastern Italy was considered mostly a Dinaric area as well as western Greece, Romania, western Ukraine, southeastern German-speaking areas, and parts of southern Poland and southeastern France.

"Noric" subtype

The Noric race (German: Norische Rasse) was a racial category proposed by the anthropologist Victor Lebzelter. The Noric race was supposed to be a lighter sub-type of the Dinaric race.^[2] The term derived from Noricum, a province of the Roman empire roughly equivalent to southern Austria. The term is not to be confused with Nordic.

Norics were characterized by tall stature, brachycephaly, nasal convexity, long face and broad forehead. Their complexion was said to be light, and blondness combined with light eyes to be their anthropologic characteristic.

Norics were supposed to populate parts of Austria, Slovenia, Hungary, Northern Croatia, Northern Serbia and South-Eastern Germany. Norics are also found amongst Albanians.

References

1. ^ The Great Soviet Encyclopaedia (Russian)
2. ^ Renato Biasutti on Caucasoid Subraces

External links

• Examples of Dinarics (plates 35-43) from Carleton Coon's The Races of Europe