(Photographic Supplement, Plate 26)
The Pontic Mediterraneans
Along the northern and western shores of the Black Sea are found, among
other populations, brunet Mediterraneans of a generalized type, called
Pontic by the Russian anthropologists, who are usually of medium to tall
stature and who seem related on the one hand to the Atlanto-Mediterraneans
and on the other to the long-faced Mediterranean prototype of Asia Minor and
the Caucasus. Inland from the Black Sea shores they are found sporadically
in Russia, Poland, and the countries along the upper course of the Danube.
They also seem to form an early population level in Serbia and Albania.
Their precise archaeological history has not yet been traced, and their
relationship to the Danubian invaders of central Europe at the beginning of
the local Neolithic is unknown. They do not, however, conform closely to the
physical type of the early Danubians as known to us by a small series of
skeletal remains. Much more work needs to be done in southeastern Europe
before their historical position and relationships can be established.
FIG. 1 (3 views). A Bulgarian from Chepelare. An excellent example of
the Pontic Mediterranean type, except for an unusually small cranial vault.
In Bulgaria this Mediterranean type seems actually in the majority.
FIG. 2 (3 views). Photo F. I. Rainer, from Rainer, F. I.
Récherches Anthropologiques dans Trois Villages Carpathiennes, Bucharest,
1937, Plate II, #3.) A Moldavian farmer This Mediterranean type is common in
Rumania on the plains of Moldavia and Wallachia, as well as in Bulgaria, but
is largely replaced by brachycephalic forms in the Carpathians.
FIG. 3 (3 views). This man, who is an excellent example of the
type in question, comes from the region of Vilna, and has a Lithuanian
father and a Polish mother. He is said to resemble his mother's family. This
type is recognized by Polish anthropologists as an element in the population
of their country, and is designated by them as Mediterranean.
FIG. 4 (3 views). A Czech of Pontic Mediterranean affiliation,
unusual in a population which is for the most part brachycephalic. Bohemia
is nearly the last outpost of this type to the west; a few, however, occur
in Bavaria.
|