1920. No. 7. MORE FYLKES ANTROPOLOGI. I27 



Ripley gaar i sit verk »The races of Europe« uten videre ut fra at 

 den norsi<e vestlandske brach3'cephal er den nordligste utloper av den 

 alpine race (Ripley pag. 210 f.) : 



»What explanation can be oftered for the curiously un-Teutonic po- 

 pulation which seems to fringe the coast of Norway, especially centreing 

 in the southwest? It is an untenable hypothesis, as, in fact, Nilsson found 

 it, to ascribe this to the persistence of a substratum of Lapps from the 

 stone age. These people, to be sure, are characterized by all the traits 

 noted in the southwest of Norway, and this, moreover, to an extraordi- 

 nary degree. They are almost dwarfed in stature; they are dark-haired 

 and swarthy; and, as our two portraits illustrate, they are broad-headed 

 to an extreme. Their squat faces prove this, even in absence of anthro- 

 pometric data; no contrast could be more striking than that between the 

 Lapps and the Teutons. The difficulty, however, in holding them respon- 

 sible for the cross of physical traits in the southwest is a very positive 

 one, albeit, mainly, geographical in character. The Lapps lie at the remo- 

 test distance from this district; there is no evidence in place names or 

 otherwise that they ever occupied the country even as far south as Vaage. 

 Arbo, realizing the impossibility of this hypothesis, has not apparently hit 

 upon the explanation which seems to us to be perfectly simple. It is this: 

 that here in the southwest of Norway we have an outlying lodgment of 

 the Alpine racial type from central Europe. This view is greatly strength- 

 ened by virtue of the fact that Denmark, just across the Skager Rack, so 

 far as our indefinite knowledge goes, seems to be peopled by a type not 

 unlike that of Jæderen.« — 



Som det vil sees, er Ripley og Arbo helt paa det rene med at den 

 vestlandske brachycephal i en aldeles paafaldende grad frembyr de samme 

 karaktertræk som lapperne. Alle karaktertræk svarer til lappernes, sier 

 han endog. Set fra et rent antropologisk synspunkt skulde der altsaa ikke 

 være noget til hinder for at gaa ut fra at stamracen til den vestlandske 

 brachycephal var av lappoid oprindelse, siger Ripley. 



Den eneste hindring for denne antagelse er, sier han, av geografisk 

 natur. — Han anser det helt usandsynlig at lapperne nogensinde kan være 

 kommet saa langt mot syd som til Jæderen. Men besynderlig nok finder 

 han ingen geografiske hindringer i veien for den paastarid, at Mellem- 

 Europas alpine race skulde være kommet op til eller ned til Jæderen og 

 Søndmøre. Og det blir dog en meget længere og vanskeligere vei for et 

 primitivt folk. Der er jo nu ingen som tviler om at lapperne i historisk 

 tid har været saa langt mot syd som til Langfjeldene i Norge. Og da er 

 der ikke saa langt igjen hverken til Jæderen eller til Sondmøre. 



