i84 



NATURE 



[October 7, 1920 



pure Armenoid ; the younger had many characters 

 usually associated with the Mediterranean people. 

 The inadequacy of grouping by cephalic index 

 alone is confirmed by the very great local differ- 

 ences to be found between groups of villages in 

 Cyprus, to take one example only. The villages 

 on the north coast have a cephalic index of 81-9, 

 those round the Bay of Salamis, just the other 

 side of the hills, an index of 83-4. There are 

 similar local differences in Crete. 



Fig. I. — A Greek family, showing the two extreme types. The father 

 (not shown in the photograph) had fair hair and blue eyei. The 

 contrasted contours of the backs of the head should be noticed. 



If we compare ancient crania with modern heads 

 it would appear that the modern Greeks are 

 slightly more round-headed than the ancient in- 

 habitants of the same places. But this difference 

 is not of any great significance, and there is a 

 greater resemblance between the modern inhabit- 

 ants of any one place and their predecessors than 

 between the modern inhabitants of two neighbour- 

 ing areas ; in other words, the variation of types 



NO. 2658, VOL. 106] 



at any stage is horizontal, and not vertical, in the 

 strata. First, the cranial indices, then, of the 

 Greeks exhibit great variety, sufficient to suggest 

 ethnic admixture. Secondly, this admixture has 

 not been evenly distributed, and local and distinct 

 sub-races have been formed, the mean of which 

 forms a series of types, one of which is illustrated 

 in Fig. 2 — a type which has neither the breadth 

 of head of the Armenoid, nor the length of head 

 of the Mediterranean. So distinct are these sub- 

 races that where crania over a long period have 

 been obtained the cephalic index of one modern 

 village more closely resembles that of their 

 Bronze-age predecessors than that of a neigh- 

 bouring area. Thirdly, there is archaological 

 material which suggests that the mixture of race 

 is early, possibly Neolithic in Leukas, certainly 

 Bronze-age (or before) in Cyprus and Crete. 



So few complete ancient skeletons have been col- 

 lected that we cannot estimate the stature of the 

 ancient Greeks. Among the modern, we find that 



Fig. 



-An intermediate type, with hazel eyes and 

 brown hair. 



the Cypriots and Cretans are the tallest, averaging 

 about 5 ft. 6^ in., and the Leukadiansand Pelopon- 

 nesians the shortest, being about an inch shorter. 

 So few measurements are, however, at present 

 available that the stature must remain uncertain. 



Data for hair and eye colour are rather scanty. 

 The number of blue-eyed individuals is not, how- 

 ever, so few as might be expected. In Cyprus 

 they form about 10 per cent, of the population, 

 and most authorities are in agreement that blue 

 eyes are not rare in Greek lands. It is this occur- 

 rence of light eyes that has made some writers 

 postulate the presence of Nordics among the 

 Greeks. Speaking from personal experience, the 

 author was struck by the continual association of 

 blue eyes with a very Armenoid type of skull in 

 Cyprus and elsewhere — the taller boy in Fig. i 

 is a good instance of this type — and though, his- 

 torically, no doubt Nordics have filtered into the 



