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Who are the modern day "Greeks"?

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  Quote Axl Low Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Who are the modern day "Greeks"?
    Posted: 10-Jun-2005 at 11:16

Hellenized Albanians,Macedonians,Bulgars,Vlach and Turks? And these "people" have the nerve to question the macedonians and their identity lol:

It is a striking fact that the leading defenders of Greek liberty at this time were largely Non-Greek. Koundouriotis was decended from the Albanian invadors of Greece in the 14th century,and spoke Greek only with difficulty. His principal colleague was John Kolettis, a Vlakh who had been Ali Pasha's court doctor at Ioannina. One of the few leaders who maintained resistance far to the north of the Gulf of Corinth was the Souliote,Marko Botsaris,whos followers were largely Albanian. By a strange chance, it happend that two of the Turkish commanders-in-chief during the war, Khurshid Pasha and Muhammad Rehid Pasha(known to the Greeks as Kiutahi), were by birth Orthodox Christians, who had been converted to Islam for the sake of career in the Sultans service.

Modern Greece A Short History
C.M. Woodhouse
Page 139

Greece included considerably fewer than half of those who regarded themselves as Greeks by virtue of their language,their religion, and (less plausibly) their race. It was easy to stir up agitation in favour of enlarging Greece's frontiers by a progressive extension of "enosis" (union).

Modern Greece A Short History
C.M. Woodhouse
Page 163

In practice the Greeks had only exchanged arbitrary rule by Bavarians for arbitrary rule by others scarcely closer to themselves. The first six prime ministers under the new constitutions were all war-time leaders, several of them only nominally Greek. They included the Phanariote Mavrokordatos,the Vlakh Kolettis, and the Albanian Koundouriotis. With the exception of the last prime minister of Otho's reign, Admiral Kanaris,all of them paid litle regard to the constitution which had cost them so much toil and intrigue.
Mavrokordatos in particular culpably betrayed his trust as Greece's first constitutional prime minister(March 1844), and was compelled to resign within six months. Kolettis, who succeeded him in August 1844,remained in office until his death three years later. Neither took naturally to democratic principles, though both had a superficial acquanintance with Western Europe. Mavrokordatos' background was the Phanariote society of Constantinpole and the Rumanian principalities.

Modern Greece A Short History
C.M. Woodhouse
Page 162


The conditions of the war were now completely changed. The Greeks, who had been squandering the money provided by the loans in every sort of senseless extravagance, affected to despise the Egyptian invaders, but they ~ were soon undeceived. On the 21st of March Ibrahim Mo,ea. had laid siege to Navarino, and after some delay a Greek force under Skourti, a Hydriote sea-captain, was sent to its relief. The Greeks had in all some 7000 men, Suliotes, Albanians, armatoli from Rumelia, and some irregular Bulgarian and Viach cavalry.

http://63.1911encyclopedia.org/G/GR/GREEK_INDEPENDENCE_WAR_O F.htm


Anthony D. Smith points out, specifically in reference to the modern Greek nation, "Greek demographic continuity was brutally interrupted in the late sixth to eighth centuries A.D. by massive influxes of Avar, Slav and later, Albanian immigrants." He adds that modern Greeks "could hardly count as being of ancient Greek descent, even if this could never be ruled out.


A process of "re-hellenization" took place, led by the Greek Orthodox Church, using the vehicle of the Greek language. To use the words of Nicholas Cheetham, (in the south) "religion and Hellenization marched hand in hand." The Slavs and Albanians, in particular, converted to Christianity and learned to speak Greek.

Albanians settled in Athens, Corinth, Mani, Thessaly and even in the Aegean islands. In the early nineteenth century, the population of Athens was 24 percent Albanian, 32 percent Turkish, and only 44 percent Greek. The village of Marathon, scene of the great victory in 490 B.C., was, early in the nineteenth century, almost entirely Albanian."

Nicholas Hammond a historian who is sympathetic to the Greek view that the ancient Macedonians were a Greek tribe and who has had several works published in Athens says that by the middle of the fourteenth and early fifteenth century the majority of people in the Peloponnese were Albanian speakers.

The continuing impact of this new ethnic and cultural force is indicated in Hammond's comments that the Albanian incursions into Greece continued under the Turkish system and went on right into the eighteenth century, and that the descendants of these Albanian people were still speaking Albanian when he was in Greece in the 1930s. This is not a reflection on the national consciousness of these Greek citizens, for as Hammond explains, they thought of themselves as Greek. Indeed Hammond points out that the Albanian role in the resistance to the Turks, and in the formation of the Greek nation, was significant. Like the Slavs, the Albanians became attached to their new lands, learned the new language, and began to think of themselves as one with the other peoples living there.

Finlay recognized " the vigorous Albanians of Hydra, the warlike Albanians of Suli, the persevering Bulgarians of Macedonia, and the laborious Vallachians on the banks of the Aspropotamos" who embarked together on a struggle for Greek independence, "as heartily as the posterity of the ancient inhabitants of the soil of Hellas. Nicholas Hammond tells us that in the Greek War of Independence the Albanians, above all, drove the Turks out.

According to anthropologist Roger Just, most of the nineteenth-century "Greeks," who had so recently won their independence from the Turks, not only did not call themselves Hellenes (they learned this label later from the intellectual nationalists); they did not even speak Greek by preference, but rather Albanian, Slavonic, or Vlach dialects."

The Editor of The Sunday Telegraph argues that Greece has been ruthless in erasing traces of ethnic diversity, and suggests that the desperation of its actions, including the Greek claim to a monopoly of the classical past (in which all peoples of European origins have a share) can be explained by the fact that the Greeks today are a mixture of Slavs, Turks, Greeks, Bulgars, Albanians, Vlachs, Jews and Gypsies.

 

... the name of one of the Albanian leaders who fought so valiantly for Greek Independence against the Ottoman Turks in 1820 was Laskarina Bubalina, a female commander? And that other Albanian leaders in that same Greek war against the Turks were eo Picari, Foto Xhavella, Gjon Leka, Rrapo Hekali, Hodo Leka, Tafil Buzi, Shahin Qafezezi, and Marko Boari?

http://www.frosina.org/infobits/more_012103.shtml


Clark quotes a Greek religious refrain from that era:

'Albanians, Wallachians, Bulgarians,
speakers of other tongues, rejoice!
And ready yourselves all to become Greeks
Abandoning your barbaric tongue, speech, customs
So that to your descendants they may appear as myths'

http://www.neww.org/pipermail/academic-resources/2000-August /000329.html

Nicholas Hammond a historian who is sympathetic to the Greek view that the ancient Macedonians were a Greek tribe and who has had several works published in Athens, is unable to support the Greek view on this matter. He says that by the middle of the fourteenth
and early fifteenth century the majority of people in the
Peloponnese were Albanian speakers. The fascinating point is that the people with whom they were competing for land were overwhelmingly not the original Greek-speaking Roman citizens, but the new breed of Greek-speaking Slavs. As Hammond says, many Greek-
speaking people at that point in time were probably ethnic Slavs.

The continuing impact of this new ethnic and cultural force is indicated in Hammond's comments that the Albanian incursions into Greece continued under the Turkish system and went on right into the
eighteenth century, and that the descendants of these Albanian people were still speaking Albanian when he was in Greece in the 1930s. This is not a reflection on the national consciousness of these Greek citizens, for as Hammond explains, they thought of themselves as Greek. Indeed Hammond points out that the Albanian
role in the resistance to the Turks, and in the formation of the Greek nation, was significant. Like the Slavs, the Albanians became attached to their new lands, learned the new language, and began to think of themselves as one with the other peoples living there.

 

"I watched the Koutsovlachi disappear in Thessaly over a period of twenty years. I remember the first time I went up there in 1957, I was stunned, it was another world--it was Rumania. Blond, blue-eyed women wearing incredibly beautiful costumes: white, with about twelve to fifteen inches of thick fringes at the bottom, in saffron, black, and ocher. And everywhere I went, there were ducks and geese, which I didn't see anywhere else in Greece. Ducks and geese and pigs--standard east and central European farm culture. But I saw all of that disappear.

It's a pity because Greece has lost the Sarakatsani, it's lost the Vlachi, the Koutsovlachi, the Karagounidhes -- it's lost all these fascinating minority groups, and now people are getting up and trying to stop it, but they're about twenty years too late."

--"A Point of Contact: An Interview with Nikos Stavroulakis," by Peter Pappas in The Greek American (January 9, 1988)

To the Ottoman authorities what had always mattered were religious rather than national or linguistic differences; Balkan Christians were either under the authority of the Patriarch in chemas-microsoft-comfficemarttags" />lace>Constantinoplelace>, or they were more rarely Catholic or Protestant.

The Patriarch shared the same outlook; it was indifferent to whether its flocks spoke Greek, Vlach, Bulgarian or any other language or dialect. As for its flock , the illiterate Slav- speaking peasants tilling the fields outside the cities rarely felt strongly about Greece or Bulgaria and when asked which they were, many insisted on being known simply, as they had been for centuries, as Christians.

In Salonica itself, the growth of the Christian population had come from continual immigration over centuries from outlying villages, often as distant as the far side of the Pindos mountains, where many of the inhabitants spoke not Greek but a Vlach  ( a Romance language akin to Romanian), Albanian, or indeed various forms of  Slavic. They citeys life, schools and Priests gave these villagers, or their children, a new tongue, and turned them into Greeks. In fact many famous Greek figures of the past were really Vlachs by origin, including the savant Mosiodax, the revolutionary Rhigas  Velestinlis, as well as the citys first Greek printers, the Garbolas family, and the Manakis brothers, pioneers of Balkan cinema.

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lace>laceName>SalonicalaceName> laceType>CitylaceType>lace> of Ghosts

Mark Mazower

Page 257

> >

The Academy was built with  bequest from Simon Sinas, the hugely wealthy son of Georgios Sinas, a Hellenised Vlach whose family came from Moschopolis in Southern Albania, who made his fortune in the Habsburg Empire and was himself the donor of Theophilos Hansen's observatory (1843-6).

A concise history Of Greece
Richard Clogg
Page 79

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Yiannis View Drop Down
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  Quote Yiannis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Jun-2005 at 11:27

I see, so apparently Greek culture is strong enough to absorve all those people with such ease, over the course of just a few decades. I can only take that as a compliment.

Be carefull, perhaps you'll become the Greek that you so much hate, as well in a couple of years!  



Edited by Yiannis
The basis of a democratic state is liberty. Aristotle, Politics

Those that can give up essential liberty to obtain a temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin
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  Quote Phallanx Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Jun-2005 at 11:40
OK, it seems that there are alot more than I originally thought.
The world is filled with morons.

Well, you can quote your wanna-be historians all you like. I'll just put up a bit of GENETICS. (this will be a loooong one)

Of course Hellines are not a "pure race", but the available data demonstrate that any potential introgression into the Hellinic gene pool were minor and did not replace the indigenous people. Hence, Fallmerayer's thesis has been disproved.

Let's start with his BS.

The Fallmerayer Thesis in the Light of Genetic Evidence
Jacob Fallmerayer stirred quite a controversy in the 19th century by proposing that the Hellenic nation had perished in the Middle Ages by admixture with Slavs and Albanians.

We are now in a position, through genetic evidence to evaluate this thesis, at least with respect to the question of Slavic settlements.

Slavs are distinguished by having a specific Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a, or HG3, or Eu19. This reaches frequencies of higher than 50% in Poles and decreases significantly in non-Slavic populations. The "Macedonians" of FYROM, the Slavic population immediately to the north of Greece have frequencies of R1a of 35%.

We must warn that R1a itself is not a Slavic marker. This means that any particular R1a sequence could, or could not be of Slavic origin. But, a population that has mixed with Slavs is likely to show this in relatively high levels of R1a.

Ornella Semino published a study in Science 290: 1155 in which the levels of R1a (which she calls Eu19 are given in various populations. Greeks have 11.8%, that is about 1/6 that of the Hungarians, who top the list at 60%. The Hungarians are not Slavs, but from the genetic standpoint they could very well be of Slavic origin, converted linguistically by the Asiatic Magyars. The Poles at 56.4% are the highest Slavic population.

We must note that ancient Slavic groups at the time of the Slavic dispersals probably had even higher levels of R1a. After all, Poles and Hungarians are themselves only partly Slavic in origin, and the result of admixture of a predominantly Slavic element with indigenous pre-Slavic ones. As a result, it is likely that at the time of their migrations, the Slavs had even higher frequencies of R1a.

R1a did not originate with the Slavs (that is why it is not a Slavic marker). Its origins in a Eastern European refugium after the Last Glacial Maximum means that it has had plenty of time to spread across the continent even to places where Slavs were never present. For example, its frequency in Syrians at a frequency of 10%, close to that of Greece, in the Saami of Scandinavia at 10%, Turks at 6.6% and in Albanians in 9.8%. It is even found in the Dutch, at a frequency of 3.7%, a population that has been largely unaffected by any Slavonic incursion. Given that Greece is closer to the area where R1a probably originated, it is very likely that R1a lineages would have been part of early population elements of the Balkans.

Thus, we know that at least a part of 11.8% of R1a in Greeks is of pre-Slavic origin. We also know that the ancient Slavs had frequencies of it in excess of 50%. It's hard to quantify the exact percentages, but I will give an educated guess, that 5% of R1a lineages in Greece are of Slavic origin, while the ancient Slavs had it in frequency of 75%. The picture is not much different if we change these numbers, but they will do for now. As a result, the Slavonic influence in Greece turns out to be about 7%, an almost exact match for the figure given by Vasiliev in his History of the Byzantine Empire based on demographic considerations.

This figure might turn out to be less, or slightly more. Better resolution using markers distinguishing R1a chromosomes might provide us with additional information. But, the conclusion seems unavoidable, that the contribution of Slavs to the Greek gene pool (if any) is very limited, certainly not enough to extinguish the noble Hellenic nation as Fallmereyer had proposed.


It seems that a certain cystic fibrosis mutation is of Slavic origin (in other words, the original population who became the Slavs came up with this gene). The intersting thing is that Serbs, Croats and Bulgarians don't carry the gene. What does this mean? It might mean that the gene is not really the Slavic gene. Or, as the authors of the report below say, southern Slavs lost the gene when they mixed with other populations. I'm not saying they're right in making that assumption. But who knows?

"Our results indicate that this mutation is particularly common in Czech, Russian, Belorussian, Austrian, German, Polish, Ukrainian, Slovenian, and Slovak patients. It is the second most common CF mutation to be identified in Central and Eastern European CF patients. By contrast, it was only sporadically detected in Western Europe and was absent in Bulgarian, Croatian, Romanian and Serbian CF patients. It was not found in diverse other populations of non-Slavic origin. The geographic distribution of the mutation is similar to the spread of Slavic populations during the first millenium."

------------------------------------------------------
Y Chromosomes

The most comprehensive study of Y-chromosomal diversity in Europe thus far is Rosser et al., [1]. The human Y chromosome is passed on from father to son. One can thus study one half of a population's ancestry (along the paternal line) by studying the Y-chromosome. Greek Y-chromosomes belong to haplogroups HG1, HG2, HG3, HG9, HG21 and HG26. None of the 35 Greek Y chromosomes are of non-Caucasoid origin.

A second Y-chromosome study including Greeks have also shown similar results. Helgason et al., [2] reports one HG16 sequence of North Eurasian provenance in a sample of 42 Greeks (at least 97.6% Caucasoid). To put this in perspective, eight HG16 chromosomes occur in 110 Swedes (at least 92.7% Caucasoid) and three HG16 sequences in 112 Norwegians (at least 97.3% Caucasoid) were also found. HG16 is shared by many populations ranging from Europe to Mongolia. Its origin has been placed by [7] in the Eastern range of its current geographical distribution.

A third Y-chromosome study, by Malaspina et al., [3] which included a sample of 28 continental and 83 Cretan Greeks (total sample size of 111) found no evidence of the presence of non-Caucasoid Y chromosomes in Greeks.

A fourth Y-chromosome study, by Semino et al., [4] included 76 Greeks and 20 Macedonian Greeks. One Eu6 lineage, corresponding to HG10/HG36 [5] is probably of East Asian origin. One Eu17 lineage corresponds to HG 28 which is frequent in Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent [6]. In total, admixture of 2.1% is detected (if we label HG 28 as non-Caucasoid).

A fifth Y-chromosome study, by Weale et al., [8] included 132 Greek students from Athens. The same haplogroups found in [1] were detected in this study. No non-Caucasoid chromosomes were found.

The most recent and comprehensive study of Greek Y-chromosomes, by Di Giacomo et al., [9] included 154 individuals from continental Greece and 212 from Crete, Lesvos and Chios. In total, Greeks from thirteen separate locations were examined, thus giving the most complete picture of variation so far. A single haplogroup A chromosome was found (in Lesvos) which is usually found in Africa. The remainder belonged to haplogroups found in Caucasoid populations. The breakup (in percent) of the haplogroups observed) based on the set of markers typed is as follows.

P*(xR1a) R1a DE G2 I-M170 J2(DYS413≤ 18) J2*(xDYS413≤ 18) J*(xJ2) A Y*(xA,DE,G2,I,J,P)
12.8 9.8 20.2 6.6 14.8 20.2 4.9 2.7 0.3 7.7


A newer study by Semino et al. [10] has studied two samples of Greeks of size 84 and 59 (Macedonian Greeks). The focus was on two specific haplogroups E and J which are frequent in the Mediterranean region and can be used to detect population movements between Europe, Africa and the Near East. 2.4% of Greeks belong in haplogroup E-M123 and 21.4% in E-M78. Clades of E prevalent in Northern or Sub-Saharan Africa were not found. According to Cruciani et al. [11] most Greeks and other Balkan people belong to a specific cluster α within haplogroup E-M78 that is found in lower frequencies outside the Balkans and marks migrations from the Balkan area. E-M123 and its daughter haplogroup E-M34 originated in the Near East in prehistoric times. As for haplogroup J, most Greeks (22.8% Greeks/14.3% Macedonian Greeks) belong to J-M172 and its subclades which is associated with Neolithic population movements. Only 1.8%/2.2% of Macedonian Greeks/Greeks belonged to haplogroup J-M267 which could potentially (althought not certainly) reflect more recent Near Eastern admixture.

Thus, at present, in a total of seven studies, in which 925 Greek males were tested, one HG16, one HG28, one HG10/HG36, and one haplogroup A chromosomes have been found, for a total of 0.4% possible non-Caucasoid contribution to the modern Greek male gene pool. Additionally, the latest studies [9, 10] with a more refined version of the Y chromosome phylogeny indicate that influences from the Near East and North Africa in historical times are unlikely (perhaps in the order of ~2%). Additionally, Y chromosome haplogroup R1a which is very frequent in Slavic populations (>50%) is found in only around 9.8% of Greeks, and is also found at comparable frequencies further East (10.8% in Iraq; Al-Zahery et al. [12]) indicating that its presence in Greece need not be associated with medieval intrusions by Slavic speakers. The emerging picture of Y chromosome variation in Greece indicates genetic continuity, with slight influences from neighboring Caucasoid regions and virtually no influence from non-Caucasoids.

Future studies with larger samples and more detailed founder analyses will allow us to obtain a better pictures of Y-chromosome variation in Greece, Europe and the world at large. At present, it appears that modern Europeans share many of the haplogroups, while there is also geographic structure in the distribution. With the exception of the Northeast corner of Europe, all other European populations have very small traces of extra-Caucasoid genetic input(a).

[1] Rosser et al. (2000) European Y-Chromosome Diversity. Am J Hum Genet 67:1526-1543
[2] Helgason et al. (2000) Ancestry of Icelandic Y Chromosomes. Am J Hum Genet 67:697-717
[3] Malaspina et al. (2000) Patterns of male-specific inter-population divergence in Europe, West Asia and North Africa. Ann Hum Genet 64:395-412
[4] Semino et al. (2000) The genetic legacy of Paleolithic Homo sapiens sapiens in Extant Europeans: A Y Chromosome Perspective
[5] Zerjal et al. (2002) Y-Chromosomal Insights into Central Asia. Am J Hum Genet 71:466-482
[6] Qamar et al. (2002) Y-Chromosomal DNA Variation in Pakistan. Am J Hum Genet 70:1107-1124
[7] Zerjal et al. (1997) Genetic relationships of Asians and Northern Europeans, revealed by Y-chromosomal DNA analysis. Am J Hum Genet 60:11741183
[8] Weale et al. (2001) Armenian Y chromosome haplotypes reveal strong regional structure within a single ethno-national group. Hum Genet 109: 659-674
[9] Di Giacomo et al. (2003) Clinal Patterns of human Y chromosomal diversity in continental Italy and Greece are dominated by drift and founder effects. Mol Phyl Evol 28:387-395
[10] Semino et al. (2004) Origin, Diffusion, and Differentiation of Y-Chromosome Haplogroups E and J: Inferences on the Neolithization of Europe and Later Migratory Events in the Mediterranean Area. Am J Hum Genet (to appear)
[11] Cruciani et al. (2004) Phylogeographic Analysis of Haplogroup E3b (E-M215) Y Chromosomes Reveals Multiple Migratory Events Within and Out Of Africa. Am J Hum Genet (to appear)
[12] Al-Zahery et al. (2003) Y-chromosome and mtDNA polymorphisms in Iraq, a crossroad of the early human dispersal and of post-Neolithic migrations Mol Phyl Evol 28:458-472
-----------------------------------------------------

Some Anthropology for you.

J. Lawrence Angel sorted Greek skeletal tendencies into six arbitrary morphological types, including several sub-varieties. These were not “races,” but rather [1]:

“Types are entirely aribitrary creations from sorting of individuals. Genetically determined traits will recombine and re-form in each new generation largely at random so that types cannot express these new individualities adequately, only schematically. At best they give a preliminary overview of change.”

Angel studied skeletal material from the Paleolithic to modern times, and participated in examinations of skeletal material throughout the East Mediterranean. With respect to Greece, he found that the morphological types already established in the third millennium BC, if not before that, persisted in all subsequent ages. Thus, he emphasized the racial continuity of Greeks, stating epigrammatically [2]:

“Racial continuity in Greece is striking.”


Angel, by an examination of ancient Greek burials expressly rejected the hypothesis that a genetically distinct isolated caste was responsible for Hellenic achievement [3]:

“Both evidence and speculation contradict Nilsson's hypothesis that Graeco-Roman decline resulted from production of vacillating individuals by unlimited bastardizing and from elimination of a racially pure upper class by lowered birthrate, after this capable group inbred during the Geometric period had created Classic Greek culture!”

Morphological Types
To illustrate the six morphological types of Ancient Greeks, we reproduce in the following Angel's descriptions of the types, as well as pictures of modern Greeks chosen by Angel to illustrate the appearance of these types on the living. His pictures illustrate the varieties that we would expect to find among the creators of Ancient Greek civilization. The descriptions and pictures in the following are reproduced from [4].

Basic Whites (Type A)
Basic Whites (Type A: Plate XL, u-y) are sturdy. They have large and long heads with somewhat low and receding bony foreheads, massive browridges, and a generally angular and ill-filled appearance emphasized in slight midline gabling of parietals and lamboid flattening just above the projecting occiput. Their almost trapezoid faces lack height, and show rectangular orbits, short, straight, coarse noses, angular profile, and strong chin and teeth. They were probably above medium stature, strong, dark-brown haired, and swarthy. They show noteworthy similarity to Chalcolithic Palestinians, Siculans, Chalcolithic Sardinians, and Neolithic type British, and are obviously also comparable to Atlanto-Mediterraneans in Mesopotamia. They are less homogeneous as a group than the other types, covering the range from a linear and high-skulled “Megalithic” variant with high, thin-nosed hatchet-face (A1 and A2: Cephallenian and Athenian in Plate XL, v, w), to a low-headed and squat-faced extreme with wide nose and low orbits (A4: S.C. Macedonian in Plate XL, u), with a central group (A3 and A5: Corinthian of Argive parentage and Lemnian in Plate XL, x and y) connecting these divergent tendencies.



Classic Mediterraneans (Type B)
Classic Mediterraneans (Type B: Mytilenean, W. Cretan, and Corinthian of Argive parentage in Plate XL, r, s, and t) are light-boned, almost fragile. They have small, barely dolichocrane heads, pentagonoid in outline in both vertical and occipital views, contracted neck muscle area, and low almost vertical rounded foreheads. Their slender, fine-featured faces have square orbits, thin noses smooth and low in the nasion region, and a triangular taper down to pinched jaws with shallow and pointed chin, weak prognathism, and an overbite linked with subnormal degree of teeth wear. They were probably just below medium stature, gracile, slender-necked, brunet, with black or dark hair. They are virtually identical with ancient Libyans and modern Sicilians, and similar to Upper Egyptians of prehistoric and Early Dynastic dates, and to modern Spanish. Type B is the most homogeneous one, with only slight tendencies in longer-headed, linear-faced and smaller, more squat-faced directions.



Throughout the Mediterranean region Type B occurs in various proportions with the Basic White type, and a composite made of Types A and B in equal proportions is very close to Minoan Cretans and somewhat resembles Lower Egyptians of XXVI to Dynasties and Iron Age South Palestinians.

Nordic-Iranians (Type D)
Nordic-Iranians (Type D: Plate XL, m-q) have long and high heads with peculiarly deep occiputs, smooth ovoid-ellipsoid contour, sharply-cut muscle impressions, strong browridges, and tilted and capacious foreheads. Marked facial height and narrowness of cheeks compared to wide forehead and jowls makes a rectangular, horse-faced impression. Large but slightly retreating cheekbones enclose drooping orbits, and big, salient, and aquiline noses, long-arched palates, muscular jaws wide at the angles, and cleft chins lacking prominence all add to the same effect. Nordic-Iranians were tall and muscular, strong-necked, and probably included tawny-haired blue- or green-eyed blonds as well as brunets. Approximate identity, and noteworthy resemblances to North Iranian Bronze Age Proto-Nordics, to Anglo-Saxons, and to medieval Irish Monks show the divided eastern and northern relations of this Greek type. And although Type D has low variability, it includes four slightly different tendencies: a cylindrical-skulled, slab-faced Iron-Age Nordic one (D1: Chalcidian and E. Thracian, in Plate XL, n and o), a high-skulled, ellipsoid, “Corded” tendency (D2: Chalcidian in Plate XL, p slightly “dinaricised”), a long byrsoid, deep-skulled, huge-nosed, convex-profiled Iranian trend (D4: Athenian of Arcadian parentage, in Plate XL, m), and a small-faced Iranian-Mediterranean divergence approaching Coon's Cappadocian and Danubian types (D3: Athenian in Plate XL, q).



Dinaric-Mediterraneans (Type F)
Dinaric-Mediterraneans (Type F: Chalcidian, Corinthian, and E. Thessalian in Plate XL, j, k, and l) are the least Alpine of two intermediate, hybrid, Alpinoid forms. Their short (high mesocrane) and relatively high byrsoid heads have pinched and flatly sloping foreheads and non-projecting occiputs. They have big and drooping, hound-like, faces with an elongated hexagonal outline, stemming from striking (though variable) flare of the cheek region. Face height is emphasized in their long and thin noses pulled down almost parallel with their foreheads, in high palates, and in long deep jaws. Dinaric-Mediterraneans are medium tall, long-necked, and presumably mainly brunet. They resemble both dinaricised Mediterraneans from Lower Egypt in the third and second millennia BC and dinaricised Alpines including inhabitants of the Roman Troad, modern Greeks from Anatolia and European Turkey, Serbs and Croats, and Slovenes. Type F is homogeneous but shows divergences toward linearity on the one hand and toward true brachycrane Dinaric makeup on the other.



Mixed Alpines (Type E)
Mixed-Alpines (Type E: Plate XL, f-h) are closer to Alpines morphologically than in their proportions. Their large mesocrane heads are well-filled, with peculiarly large and wide foreheads with little slope and smooth parietals with a long flat plane in the obellion-lambda region. The massive foreheads dwarf their low faces which have an inverted trapezoid outline and a retreating profile, high-rooted but insignificant noses, and shallow and relatively delicate jaws despite respectable size. They were not especially short but probably heavy-bodied, probably with some mixed blonds among a brunet majority. Their approximations to Etrusco-Roman Tarquinians and Merovingian Franks are both good, and they resemble adequately Bessarabian Scythians, Carniola Illyrians, Basques and Teneriffe Guanche. This parallelism stresses their hybrid origin. Type E is homogeneous, but with some inner divergences including Nordic Alpine (E2: W. Macedonian and E. Arcadian in Plate XL, g and h) as opposed to Mediterranean-Alpine (E1, E3: N.W. Macedonian in Plate XL, f) tendencies.



Alpines (Type C)
Alpines (Type C: Plate XL, a-e, and i) have shortened and laterally bulging heads, with weakly curved occiputs equipped with strong torus for neck muscles, broad and full foreheads (narrow relative to bulging parietals) and a short ovoid to sphenoid or spheroid outline in norma verticalis. Their heads as a whole range from “square” to globular. The Alpine face is low and orthognathous with square to hexagonal outline rounded at the angles. Non-retreating cheekbones, and dominantly short, low-rooted, non-salient and concave nose combine to give the face a certain flatness, emphasized further by alveolar retraction with short and low palate, and by a prominent chin linked with an edge bite and much worn and somewhat poor teeth. Alpines were notably short and probably stocky, and dominantly brunet. They resemble significantly both recent Carinthian villagers and medieval citizens of Hythe in Kent, with good approximations to Foothill Bavarians and to Bronze Age Eastern Cypriotes. This suggestion of divided resemblance is confirmed fully by Type C's slightly elevated variability. And various divergent tendencies are appreciable: C1, C2, and C3 (Maniote, E. Thracian, and Athenian in Plate XL, a, b, and c) tend respectively toward the globular Central European Alpine, its paedomorphic extreme, and a rugged slab-faced Borreby-like type; an Eastern Alpine trend (C4: Ithacan and Athenian in Plate XL, d and e) toward a high, sphenoid vault with flat occiput and high-nosed, square-jowled face, and a squate Eastern Alpine tendency (C5: S.E. Messenian in Plate XL, i) toward sphenoid-byrsoid and broad-based vault with short face and puffy nose both have obvious Near Eastern rather than European appearances.



References
Angel, J. Lawrence, in Mylonas, George E., 1972-1973, Ο ταφικός κύκλος V των Μυκηνών, Εθνική Αρχαιολογική Εταιρεία, Athens
Angel, J. Lawrence, 1944, A racial analysis of the ancient Greeks: An essay on the use of morphological types, American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Angel, J. Lawrence, 1946, Social Biology of Greek Culture Growth, American Anthropologist
Angel J. Lawrence, 1945, Skeletal Material from Attica, Hesperia
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For all those that believe in the TWISTED theory of ancient Hellines being blone and blue-eyed.

Proof in literature:
There are numerous references to brunets in ancient mythology and literature, e.g., the Muses, Poseidon, Alcmena, Theseus, Zeus, Dionysos and Odysseus are described as possessing either dark hair or dark eyes. Hercules, the Greeks' favorite hero is described as dark (melanan), hook-nosed (grupon) by Dicaearchus (Clement of Alexandria, "Protreptic to the Greeks" 2.30.7). Hercules was also proverbially melampugos (having a black behind) as indicative of his bravery, as opposed to pugargos (having a white behind), a coward . Irwin, E., 1974, Colour Terms in Greek Poetry, Hakkert, Toronto

The Greek poetess Sappho (an aristocrat from the isle of Lesbos in the 7th c. BC) reveals that both she and her mother were dark (Fr. 98a, line 11). Philoktetes and Aias were also both brunet-skinned and black-haired (Malalas, Chronogr. 104, 3-8). We must also not neglect to mention the detailed analysis of classicist Denys Page who, in agreement with the ancient testimony of Callimachus (Fr. 299.1) demonstrates that the epithet elikôpes, collectively used for the Homeric Achaeans, probably meant "dark-eyed" .Page, D.L., 1959, History and the Homeric Iliad, Berkeley : University of California Press Eleanor Irwin, who wrote the definitive work on color terms in Greek poetry agrees with this opinion. Irwin, E., 1974, Colour Terms in Greek Poetry, Hakkert, Toronto Aristotle in his Physics defines graying as the process by which hair turns from dark to grey, furnishing some evidence that the Hellenes had usually a dark hair color.

The author of Aristotelis Physiognomica claims that both excessive paleness and excessive swarthiness are indicative of cowardice. Aristotle in the Eudemian Ethics mentions that "some men are blue eyed (glaukoi) and others black eyed (melanommatoi) because a particular part of them is of a particular quality" without assigning any moral superiority on either of the types. In the same passage, he continues that the blue-eyed man (glaukos) does not see clearly, an error which illustrates that he did not believe in a superiority of blue-eyed individuals. Indeed, the Greeks in general were somewhat repulsed by blue eyes, because of their rarity and association with disease (cataract and glaucoma), as Maxwell-Stuart, P.G., 1981, Studies in Greek colour terminology, vol.1 "Glaukos", Leiden : Brill in a complete study of all the uses of the adjective (glaukos) shows: Instinctive fear of blindness must be very strong among all sighted human beings, so their immediate reaction to such an eye will manifest itself in a repulsive frisson. Men will wish to ward off a similar fate from themselves.
Healthy eyes of that colour therefore have something unnatural about them, and their relative infrequence in Greece proper (and, indeed, in Crete), will have aroused a similar instinctive hostility. Fear of the unknown and of the unusual would contribute to the notion that possessors of such eyes must be malign; hence the long association of blue and the Evil Eye which has lasted in Greece and the surrounding area until modern times. Not surprisingly, these feelings of hostility would be strengthened by knowledge that foreigners from the cold North - those dangerous, incursive, un-Greek people - had blue eyes. The author of Aristotle's On Colours mentions that infants are born with light-colored hair but their hair turns to black as they grow up. Hence, unlike Nordics who retain (to some degree) the paedomorphic trait of blondness, Hellenes appear to possess mostly dark hair in adult life. There are a number of references in the Greek authors in the practice of women dyeing their hair blond (e.g., in Euripides) or using artificial means (white lead) to lighten their complexion.

This is taken by some as a pursuit of a "Nordic ideal". When we read in Athenaeus' Deipnosophists that: Another woman has eyebrows too light: they paint them with lamp-black. Still another, as it happens, is too dark: she plasters herself over with white lead. One has a complexion too white: she rubs on rouge. Plato, in the Republic mentions that statues' eyes should be painted black so that they will have the appearance of eyes, and not some exotic color. He continues that by painting eyes in proportion (i.e., black) and all other parts of the body in proportion, then the result is "beautiful". Hence, it will appear that Plato did not find any fault with dark eyes, he believed them to be beautiful and proposed that statues be painted naturally, i.e., with black eyes. In the Republic, Plato presents direct evidence that blondness might be admired for its beauty, but "dark" [melanas] men are of manly aspect: One, because his nose is tip tilted, you will praise as piquant, the beak of another you pronounce right royal, the intermediate type you say strikes the harmonious mean,the swarthy are of manly aspect, the white are children of the gods divinely fair, and as for honey hued, do you suppose the very word is anything but the euphemistic invention of some lover who can feel no distaste for sallowness when it accompanies the blooming time of youth?

An oft-quoted passage from the 4th c. AD Jewish writer Adamantius Judaeus is used to "prove" that the original Greeks were tall, pale, blond and light-eyed. Let us not question, for the sake of argument, the knowledge of Adamantius as to the physical type of early Greek speakers already twenty five centuries in his past. Reproducing the passage in the original Greek reveals that the Greeks were moderately tall men (autarkôs megaloi andres), broader, i.e., not linear-bodied (euruteroi), with moderately firm flesh (sarkos krasin echontes metrian eupagesteran), lighter-skinned (leukoteroi tên chroan), with a medium-sized head (kephalên mesên to megethos), a strong neck(trachêlon eurôston), slightly-curly brown hair (trichôma hupoxanthon hapalôteron oulon praôs), a square face, i.e., with a broad jaw and not long (prosôpon tetragônon), narrow lips (cheilê lepta), straight nose (rhina orthên), liquid, "glad", quick eyes full of light (ophthalmous hugrous charopous gorgous phôs polu echontas en heautois). It is a common secret between Europeans that todays western Turks are mostly of Greek origin (some of them are Syrians and several other ethnicities).

Of course this must not be expressed and revealed to the public cause as Mustafa Kemal said the unity of the country is above all. It is not only the difference in the facial characteristics (people in Constandinoupoli and Asia Minor have totally different characteristics then the mainland Turks who are Mongols), that can lead someone to that conclusion but a bit remanding of history would be enough. For instance it is known that Greeks were the majority of the population inhabited in the coasts of Asia Minor. I’m translating from Felix Sartiaux (a French archeologist and intellectual who spent several years of his life in Asia Minor to find the trace of the Greek population who migrate to France to establish the Greek colonies). ‘ The Turkish population present in the region (he means Minor Asia), is a very mixed population (not with Greeks though). The original Turks constitute a very small part and the majority of them are not native’. (Felix Sartiaux- The Hellenic Micrasia 1993 pp 130-131).

Further, according to anthropologic studies made by the German Von Luschan (the early inhabitants of Western Asia), there used to be 22 different population groups, 10 of which were Christians. The statistics provided for the Muslim groups (the remaining 12) is misleading since among the original Turks, there are other group of people with nothing in common: Naggers, Turkmans, Jourouks, Tachtachides OF Lycia, Arabs, Perses etc. the Turks themselves can be classified in two different groups. He continues saying that ‘ The Turks in the region has nothing in common with Osamns, who conquer the Byzantine Empire in the 11th century. Some of the defeated populations were fiercely change their believes and created ‘Turkish’ families’. And he continues ‘…I have already mentioned Genitsarous , Greek Children, who had to join that body by force, and the young girls who were sold in the Turkish harems. 47.000 people have suffered this only in island Chios’. Besides some of the populations that thought that they had changed their religion, still remain CryptoChrystians’ ( he uses the example of a Greek tribe called Stauriotes). In addition, the American Ambassador in Constntinoupoli H. Morgenthau in a letter to the head office reveals that: ‘…the Greek youth is kidnapped from their parents and under the ‘humanitarian’ veil were put in Turkish schools where they had to change religion and confess to Muslim by force. Greek families led to Muslim villages where they had the option of either becoming Muslims or die’. 2 French historians report ‘..the young women were led to harems’ (Alaux and Puax – les persecutions anti-Hellenique en Turquie pp26-30) Last, but not least comes the official policy imposed by the Turks during the Ottoman Empire (Orchan Sultan) and it is nothing else than the so-called paidomazoma, which took official form and every 5 years 1/5 of the young boys were captured in order to serve the Jenisarous (which means new army). So to come to a conclussion Physical anthropology indicates racial continuity in Greece, with main Dinaric-Alpine-Mediterranean racial elements. Racial type of aristocrats, commoners and criminals is the same.

Greek literature furnishes evidence of brunet and fair individuals, as today, without ascribing any superiority to either type. Greek art shows a predominance of brunet types, with a small minority of fair ones, rarely as fair as northern Europeans and with the same physique as their brunet counterparts
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Artistic Evidence:
Greek art furnishes important information about the racial type of the ancient Hellenes. Coon in observed that the beauty ideal of a straight nose and a lithe body was borrowed from Minoan Crete which was undisputably peopled by Mediterraneans.The characteristic nose-forehead continuity of idealistic depictions of gods and heroes is more typical of Mediterraneans than Nordics , although it was rare for ancient Greeks as it is for modern ones. Angel observes though, that his Dinaric-Mediterranean (Type F) morphological type approaches this ideal, in contrast to the Nordic-Iranian (Type D) in which the nasal bone projects at a sharp angle with the frontal bone.

Statues sometimes show traces of pigmentation; this includes different pigment types and is not uniform, representing the different hair colors among Greeks. Manzelli in a study of polychromatic Archaic Greek statuary records an incidence of only 2% of yellow hair.(f) Manzelli also records that eye colors were black, “red,” and brown in the majority of surviving examples, with only a single example having green eyes. Mary Stieber who studied the appearance of archaic statues of young women called korai also concludes that despite the presence of light hair in some examples, “it remains a fact that yellow hair is a rarity; for this reason alone it is tempting to infer that the percentage of its occurrence in female statues on the Acropolis is largely a reflection of its occurrence in real life.” Buxton in records an interesting fact observed by Sergi, Ripley and Deniker and the Greek anthropologist Klon Stephanos. A quote from Ripley (p.410) “these ideal heads [of the statues] are distinctly brachycephalic.” Importantly, various populations in modern Hellas who are suspected by some (for historical and linguistic reasons) to represent a relatively pure Hellenic type, the Sphakiots and Maniates are also brachycephalic. Ancient Greeks were, however, on average mesocephalic.

The German art historian, Winckelmann discusses extensively the Greek beauty ideal. The low forehead, luxurious curly hair, straight nose in continuity to the nose, large eyes and ovoid faces described by the author are typical of Southern Europe, contrasting with the small eyes, high forehead, angular features and straight hair typical of more northern climes. Winckelmann observes the similarity of modern Greeks, particularly from the islands to the classical forms, relating in particular that the Greek women of Chios are the “most beautiful of the human race.”

Greek pottery cannot be used directly for determining pigmentation, because most of it is bi-chromatic. It is interesting though, that in the more realistic red-figure vases, the hair is almost always painted black, creating a great contrast with the body which is white (numerous examples in). In white background lekythoi, realistic colors are used. Extreme blondness, typical of Nordic individuals is almost completely absent while many examples have hair that is black or a dark brown. Reddish brown is also present. Martin F. Kilmer, in [7: p.131, n.4] in discussing an Etruscan vase showing a blond woman says that this is “not a common Greek feature.” Thus, while examples of blonde hair in Greek art are not unknown (e.g., the Blonde Ephebe of the Acropolis, whose hair is deep yellow), they are not common.

Theater masks also sometimes provide information about human pigmentation; this may be especially important since in theater different character types are given stereotypical features. For example, a 4th c. BC mask of a hetaira or courtesan had colour that “seems to have been black for the brows and eyelashes and red for the hair,” while “Good Athenian girls had black hair.” As will be shown below, this agrees with the ancient literary evidence which disparages hair lightening as unfit for wise women.

Examples from Greek Art: An Athenian woman; A Greek man from Tarentum; A Greek woman from Paestum; A Greek man from Paestum
Unlike statuary and pottery, most Ancient Greek painting has not survived. Fortunately, Greek originals were copied by the Romans, and several frescoes with themes from life and mythology have survived in Pompeii and Herculaneum. These were buried under tons of volcanic ashes and have been brought back, almost intact, by modern archaeology. In all scenes, men and women are given the familiar features known from the plastic arts, and are painted with vivid colors. Eyes are uniformly brown, and hair ranges from a lightish brown to black. The frescoes of Pompeii are particularly valuable because they show a virtual roster of ancient Greek heroes, indicating how these were imagined by the Greek mind.
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Some more Anthropology:

THE ORIGIN OF THE GREEKS BY ARIS N. POULIANOS

(1961, 1964, 1968, 1988)

(The book is sold out, but soon will be republished).

Four successive editions, constantly enriched with new data, are edited concerning the Anthropological - Ethnogenetic study of the Greek population. The basis of this work is Aris N. Poulianos dissertation, which took place in the University of Moscow, under the supervision of the famous professor of Anthropology F. G. Debetz. The research was based on the study of 70 human characteristics (p. ex. body height, width of face, skin colour, shape of eyes etc.) of about 3000 Greek emigrants (after 1949 civil war) in the f. Soviet Union from different Hellenic areas. The statistical elaboration of these characteristics in combination with their geographical distribution demonstrated mathematically (because of their low dispersion) the incessant biological continuity of the Greeks all through the historic and prehistoric epochs, which refer at least to the Mesolithic and Upper Palaeolithic periods (15.000-30.000 years). This historical continuity is also proved by the comparison of measurements of the contemporary inhabitants with those of the ancient skulls of Greece, which statistically show no differences. Despite the occasional influences and limited migrations of populations, the anthropological research has shown that the population of Greece is basically native and that the contemporary Greeks are descendants of the ancient peoples who resided in the Greek peninsula. The same study indicated that the Albanian-speaking, Slav-speaking (Monte Negro included) as well as Valaches (Vlachi) of the greater Macedonian region are in their majority also autochthonous and therefore the influences from abroad mainly concerns the adoption of the chronologically younger languages, which are in use today.

The interest of the Press concerning the "Origin of the Greeks" is indicatively quoted in the following publications:

Avgi, 6-1-1962: “Over 150 scientists of the University and the Academy of Moscow have fully agreed with the scientific views of Mr. Aris. Poulianos, underlining the seriousness of the research, and without sparing their expressions, they spoke with praising words about him. Dr S. A. Tocarev, professor of ethnography in the University of Moscow and head of the Department of Ethnography regarding the peoples of Europe at the Institute of Ethnography of the Moscow Academy of Sciences, stated the following:

Aris Poulianos work presents an exceptional interest for the ethnographic science. The huge anthropological material of Greeks, which is concentrated and statistically elaborated, introduces for the first time new scientific sources for the study of a problem of basic importance, as is the problem of the origin of the Greek people. So far, concerning same issue it was generally accepted in science that contemporary Greeks historically have very few common elements with the ancient Greeks founders of the ancient civilization, and that contemporary Greeks in their greatest part represent descendants of Slavs, Albanians and other peoples who migrated in Greece and blended with the Greeks of the Byzantine era. Contrary, the writer of the present study, convincingly and based on analogous material, showed that whatever the influence of Slavs and other peoples who came in contact with the Greeks was, the people of modern Greece is basically descendant of the ancient population of the Balkans and the Aegean islands.

The worldwide famous anthropologist of Moscow University Dr I. I. Roginski notes that in the southern part of the Balkans a wide border between the Dinaric and the front Asian anthropological types is located. Therefore, in this area some of the general problems of the classification of the European and front Asian populations may be ascertained. It must be also noted that by this work, the critique of the racist fabrications, regarding the genesis of the ancient Greek civilization, is found. “(Note: meaning the racist theories supporting that contemporary Greeks are not descendents from the ancient and this is the reason why their civilization today falls short compared to that of the developed countries. On the contrary, besides the groundless comparison – if for instance the traditions would be taken into account – the scientific verification regarding the biological continuity of Greeks once more proves that the socio-historical and geographical conditions are the main factors ruling the people’s cultural level.)”.

“The director of the Anthropological department of the Academy Ethnographic Institute in Moscow, Dr M. G. Levin added: ...It may seem paradox that many European peoples have been studied less than the peoples from Australia, Melanesia and other remote countries, Greece being one of the lesser examined ...A. N. Poulianos work completes this missing knowledge. The writer is fully aware of the methodology of the anthropological researches, has strictly kept all the necessary terms and paid suitable attention.
The director of the Anthropological Institute and Moscow Anthropological Museum Dr B. P. Yiakimov stated: " My own view is that Mr A. N. Poulianos work represents the most perfect recapitulation regarding the Anthropology of Greeks."

From the other side of Atlantic, in USA, the director of the Smithsonian Institute, G.L. Angel, in a book review of “The origins of the Greeks” at the American Journal of Physical Anthropology (No 22, v. 5, 1964, p. 343) writes: Aris Poulianos… correctly verifies that there is a full genetic continuity from ancient to contemporary times.

In the newspaper "NEA" of 25-1-1962, it is mentioned that: “The scientific study of A. N. Poulianos refutes the dogmatic theory of the Greek hater, German historian Fallmerayer, who lived from 1790 to 1861, the time of the Greek fight for independence. Him (Fallmerayer) altogether dogmatically, that is without prior anthropological research - and therefore self-evidently anti-scientifically - tried to support the theory that Greeks are mainly Slavs. The researcher (A. Poulianos) ends by mentioning that the anthropological study, with the necessary historical and linguistic data, is necessary for the solution of ethnogenetic problems.

The present is the reflection of the past and in this lays its historical value. If the past helps us understand the present, the present helps us meditate on the future.

CRETANS – AEGEANS – PELOPONNESIANS – SARAKATSANI

Thereinafter Aris Poulianos studied other 10.000 individuals and hundreds of skeletal remains from various Eurasian sites. The Greek groups, which were less represented in his PhD thesis (Aegeans, Peloponnesians, Pindos mountains), were finally studied after his return to Greece in 1965.

THE ORIGINS OF THE CRETANS AND AEGEANS

The basic conclusion (A. Poulianos 1971,1999) is that the contemporary population of Crete (based on a sample of 3.000 individuals) and the Aegean sea as a whole including the hinterland of Thrace and Asia Minor remained unaltered at least since the Minoan era and belongs to the aegean indigenous anthropological type. The migrations, which occurred during several historical periods, resulted in some light variations, but did not change the morphology of the original type. The influences do not exceed more than 1-3 % and this homogeneity betrays once again that the dwellers of the Aegean basin in general are locally born, at least since the Mesolithic epoch, that is 15.000 years BP (before present).

In 1987, the Italian Professor of Anthropology G. Facini during the 2nd World Congress of Palaeoanthropology in Torino, announced the existence of a 50.000 years human skeleton from Crete, with a morphology similar to the contemporary Homo sapiens sapiens and not that of the Neanderthal man. The announcement never reached the Greek Media, once the “Hellenic” Ministry for Culture stayed, as it was expected, indifferent!

In January of 1999, the medical magazine Tissue Antigens (vol.53) published an article based on blood studies, regarding the origin of Cretans. The final conclusion of this article is that the today inhabitants of Crete have a greater kinship to the … Berbers, to the … Semites and even to the … Japanese than to the Greeks (who, as they allege, arrived … 4.000 years ago in Greece!). In this way the origin of Cretans is transferred to …Africa or to the Middle East 10.000 years ago. Seven professors from Spain and three from Greece sign the article and unfortunately they reached the above conclusion following a route of low scientific standards, since they were based on a sample of only 135 individuals only the HLA gene is studied. They also little respected deontology, because ignoring the previous and more accurate anthropological bibliography, since the phenotype is represented by thousands of genes. Along this slippery way, also the work of A. Mourant et al: “The distribution of human blood groups and other polymorphisms”, University of Oxford, 1976, pp 1055, is missing from their bibliography. In this edition it is referred that the HLA gene is an unreliable basis to exact conclusions on such matters, since it makes the inhabitants of Basque, Iceland and Congo to have … bonds of kinship. It may be noted that views of this kind appeared since 1965, i.e. in a time when studies of molecular biology based on human DNA were not yet started, curiously coordinated toward the same direction (for example see the opposing Athens newspaper Athinaiki, 15/4/1966 : “Cretans … do not derive from Phoenicians and Semites.”).

As for their historical, linguistic and archaeological arguments the situation is no better. For example they make the hypothesis that when 10.000 years ago Sahara became a desert, perhaps the Berbers migrated … to Crete creating the Minoan civilization. In other words, instead of trying to find a way to survive they constructed … ships, and went to … Crete! Did not the authors really wonder about the probability that Cretans, rulers of the high seas at the time, traveled the opposite way, as many ancient sources refer? Moreover, the Sahara’s succulent sojourn faced an abrupt end about 5.500 years ago.”(see Sara Simpson, Scientific American Oct.1999, p.19) and naturally not 10.000 ago when the last fluvial climatic conditions (cataclysm) occurred.

However, this hematological work may be considered as just a hoax and not as related to analogous to Cyprus situations. It is only sad, in the verge of the 3rd millennium, to see scientific journals publishing uncritically such “essays”.

THE PELOPONNESIAN POPULATION (1977/8)

Th. Pitsios conducted the anthropological research regarding the Peloponnesian population, under the guidance of Dr A. Poulianos, preliminary announced in "Anthropos" (1977, v. 4, p. 5-36). It has verified the basic conclusions of “The origin of the Greeks”, completing the anthropometrical data with 1582 individuals. In 1978 it was published in a separate edition of the Anthropological Association of Greece (book No 2), dedicated with love to his master.
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The alleged "Sub-Saharan" theory that your "scholars" (damn am I funny or what) have manipulated to prove their stupid point

In numerous recent studies, the mitochondrial DNA of Greeks was examined and was found to be predominantly Caucasoid with only infrequent presence of "erratic" sequences from non-Caucasoid sources. Mitochondrial DNA ("mtDNA") is inherited from one's mother and is thus a good way to establish the maternal ancestry of a population.

The most comprehensive European-wide study of mtDNA is [1] in which 125 Greeks were sampled among thousands of Europeans. The Greeks and the Albanians appear in the "Mediterranean-East" category of the study. Greeks tested belonged overwhelmingly to the Caucasoid-specific haplogroups ("Seven Daughters of Eve" popularized by Bryan Sykes' book).

The "erratic" sequences include a Sub-Saharan African (L1a) sequence, which was derived from the Albanian part of the sample [2]. The other two sequences non-attributed to a European founder are members of haplogroups prevalent in Asia, M and D. Thus, the total percentage of erratics in the Greek sample was 1.6%. The Greeks, like most Europeans are fairly pure in terms of their maternal ancestry.

It is sometimes argued that the Greeks absorbed large numbers of Negro slaves or immigrants. There is no evidence of such an event in Greek mtDNA. If it ever took place, it was so limited in scope that not a single sequence in a total of 125 could be found.

The number of non-European sequences in the rest of Europe is also small, while in the Near East it is about 5%, only slightly larger. One can easily verify that Sub-Saharan African admixture (L sequences) has been detected in Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway and Iceland - 0.6%), Southeastern Europe (Bulgaria/Romania - 0.5%), Central Mediterranean (Italy and Sardinia - 1.7%; mostly in Sardinia), the Mediterranean West (Spain and Portugal - 3.7%), North Central Europe (Poles, Czechs, Germans, Danes - 0.9%), North Western Europe (Britain, Ireland and France - 0.4%). In another recent study [3] on Norwegians, an L2 Sub-Saharan African sequence was found in the sample of 74 Norwegians (1.4% Sub-Saharan admixture). Finally [4] showed 0.5% to 1.2% introgression of Sub-Saharan African genes into the European American gene pool.

The main conclusion to be drawn from these studies, is that Caucasoids of European descent have negligible traces of non-Caucasoid maternal admixture. Sub-Saharan African traces of such ancestry are found at levels of about 1% in many populations. But not in Greeks(a).


References
1) Richards et al., Tracing European founder lineages in the Near Eastern mtDNA pool. American Journal of Human Genetics, 67, 1251-1276. Online paper and supplementary data in Vincent Macaulay's home page.
2) Michele Belledi et al., Maternal and paternal lineages in Albania and the genetic structure of Indo-European populations, European Journal of Human Genetics, 8, 480 - 486 (01 Jul 2000)
3) Giuseppe Passarino et al., Different genetic components in the Norwegian population revealed by the analysis of mtDNA and Y chromosome polymorphisms, European Journal of Human Genetics10, 521 - 529 (23 Aug 2002)
4) Esteban J. Parra et al., Estimating African American Admixture Proportions by Use of Population-Specific Alleles, Am. J. Hum. Genet., 63:1839-1851, 1998
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Racial Type of the Ancient Hellenes

Greek women through the ages: Minoan, Cycladic, Mycenaean, Classical, Modern
Introduction
This essay attempts a critical evaluation of the extant evidence about the racial type of the Ancient Greeks. It is in part an anthropological study in its own right, and in part a response to those, especially of the Nordicist school, who claim that the Ancient Greeks were physically different from the modern ones. If it sometimes appears that too much effort is spent in convincing the reader of simple enough points, it is because of my desire not to let any of the arguments of people holding different views unchallenged.

Anthropological Evidence
Early anthropologists commonly believed that the Hellenes belonged principally to the Mediterranean(a) race. This was the view shared by Sergi [1] and Ripley [2]. In a more recent study of the problem of Race, John R. Baker in [5] says that later studies “do not appear to have disproved” these views. Buxton in [3] shares this general view, although he observes that brachycephals(b) were a part of the Greek population from the beginning and that the Greeks were a mix of Alpine(c) and Mediterranean people from a “comparatively early date.” The American anthropologist Coon in [4] agrees when he asserts that the Greeks are an Alpine/Mediterranean mix, with a weak Nordic(d) component, being “remarkably similar” to their ancient ancestors.

The most complete study of Greek skeletal material from Neolithic to modern times was carried out by American anthropologist J. Lawrence Angel [6] who found that in the early age racial variability in Greece was 7% above average, indicating that the Greeks had multiple origins within the Europid racial family. Angel noted that from the earliest times to the present “racial continuity in Greece is striking.” Buxton [30] who had earlier studied Greek skeletal material and measured modern Greeks, especially in Cyprus, finds that the modern Greeks “possess physical characteristics not differing essentially from those of the former [ancient Greeks].”

The most extensive study of modern Greeks has been carried by the Greek anthropologist Aris N. Poulianos [10,11]. Poulianos’ study included the collection and study of more than seventy anthropometric measurements from a large sample of thousands of Greeks from different parts of the country. His main conclusions are that both Greeks and their neighboring populations are basically a mixture of Aegeans (a Mediterranean type local to the area) and Epirotics (Dinarics(e)) and are descended from the ancient inhabitants of the lands in which they live. The presence of individuals which approximate the Nordic subrace is minimal, and does not exceed 4-6% even in the most depigmented groups of Greece. More frequent are individuals which approximate the Alpine race of Central Europe. These reach up to 20-30% of some groups and are often blended with more southern racial types.

Nikolaos Xirotiris [37], more recently, surveyed Greek skeletal material and a number of genetical and anthropometrical studies on modern Greeks. His discoveries were that like in antiquity, the Greek terrain which favors isolation, has led to the formation of local types by micro-evolution. He too concludes racial continuity in Greece, not finding traces of any significant alteration of the Greek racial complex, from prehistory, through classical and medieval, to modern times.

The American anthropologist Roland Dixon studied the funeral masks of Spartans and found them to be Alpine [23]. Italian anthropologist Raffaello Battaglia found the death masks of the Shaft Grave Mycenaeans to represent Dinaric physiognomies [35]. J. Lawrence Angel exressed similar opinions in that he believed that northern intruders in Greece were always of “Dinaroid-Alpine central trend” [19] added to the earlier Mediterranean/Alpine blend. Racial elements were not separate but combined to produce Greek civilization [19]. Finally, a more recent statistical comparison [18] of ancient and modern Greek skulls resulted in the discovery of “a remarkable similarity in craniofacial morphology between modern and ancient Greeks.”



Examples of Ancient Greek types: “Mediterranean”: Pericles, 5th c. BC statesman, narrow-faced and fine-featured; Εικ 2 “Alpine”: Plato, 4th c. BC philosopher, broad-faced and broad-headed; Εικ.3 “Dinaric”: Aristippos, 4th c. BC philosopher, short and high-headed, salient nose

Baker [5] discusses the origin of blondism and says “It is often supposed that blondness is an indication of Nordid ancestry. Taken by itself, it is nothing of the kind.” Hence, it can be safely assumed that the existence of blond individuals in the Classical world does not require an explanation of Northern ancestry, as German anthropologist Hans Guenther [15] and the Nordicist school presumed. This view was shared by Buxton in [3] where he states “In regard to the Achaeans we have shown that there appears to be no good ground for suspecting the presence of Nordics.” F.G. Debets expresses a similar opinion [32] when he states that “In the Bronze Age, we generally find the same types as in the modern population, with different distribution. We cannot speak of miscegenation with the Nordic race.” With regard to the modern Greeks Buxton says [30] “the evidence of blue eyes is certainly insufficient to establish their [Nordics’] presence as a significant element in the population.” Carleton Coon [14] also cautions against ascribing blonde elements in Mediterranean populations to “some invasion of Goths or Scyths, or the miscegenation of Crusaders,” noting that “one of the characteristics of the Mediterranean race is a minority tendency to blondism.” Coon warns that “we cannot be sure that all prehistoric skeletal material which seems Nordic in an osteological sense was associated with blond soft parts” [4]. Moreover The Alpine race (prevalent in much of continental Europe) has an even greater occurrence of blondism and frequently gray eyes [2]. W. W. Howells of Harvard University also notes [48] that “Not all ‘Nordics’ are blond, and not all blonds are ‘Nordic,’ by any means.” American anthropologist Earnest Hooton [40] cautions that the existence of occasional blonds in Greek literature “does not justify inflation into pseudo-histories of conquering ‘Nordic’ tribes invading the Greek peninsula.” American anthropologist W. M. Krogman put it simply [36]: “Nordics today have not cornered the market on blondism!”

Coon [4], based on a sample of 113 Greeks measured in Boston linked the presence of the weak blond component (<5%) present in Greeks with Nordic origin, mainly due to its linkage with an absence of eyebrow concurrency. No such correlation emerges in Poulianos’ [10] sample from different regions, which exceeds 3,000 individuals. Note also, that the blondest Greek group (Macedonia) has a cephalic index of 83.08, higher than the Greek average. Like in Italy [4], blondism in Greece is slightly correlated with broader heads. The opposite would be expected if it was Nordic in origin.

In conclusion, it is most likely that the minority blonde element in Greece is not necessarily associated with historical migrations. It is also true that the introduction of northern strains to the Greek population in various times from pre-history to recent times may have introduced more blond elements.
-----------------------------

Hope you have a looong and educational read.





Edited by Phallanx
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  Quote Spartakus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Jun-2005 at 11:58
Wh are you replying to this stupid thread?
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  Quote Perseas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Jun-2005 at 12:29

What i love with your  case Axl_low, is that when your pathetic arguments are leveled to ground zero (no need to remind you it happened already in two topics!!) you will jump like the troll you really are and start another topic trying to continue your political agenda's campaign.  

Though, what i love mostly from you, is that there is no need even to use arguments... All i have to do is using your previous gibberish refuting the present ones.

And now once again ladies and gentlemen watch out Axl_low becoming a fool of himself with his own quotes.

Axl_low in his best form!!!

Originally posted by Axl Low

Like i said the macedonian have never questioned the right of the so called "greek-macedonians" and never told them off for thinking they are greek.

  

Axl_low in serious mode now!!!

Originally posted by Axl Low

and they dont even question the "greekness" of modern greeks

  

More of Axl_low!!

And again, you will always find a greek macedonian having the nerve to deny a Macedonian his Macedonian identity, yet you will never see this from a Macedonian

  

Axl_low in angry mode!!

Originally posted by Axl Low

I dare you to find me one macedonian orgaisation that denies the greekness of the modern day greek people

Axl_low in his conclusion!!!

Originally posted by Axl Low

Like i said, its obvious to see whos playing dirty games here

   

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  Quote GENERAL PARMENION Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Jun-2005 at 17:18
"There is no doubt, that Macedonians were Greeks."
(Robin Lane Fox "Historian-Author" In Interview with newspaper TO BHMA)

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  Quote BirTane Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Jun-2005 at 17:23

 

why they want so desperately to make us

SLAVS, or ALBANIANS, or TURKS, or what a sh*t they put in their minds?????????????????????????????

What do they affraid of????????????????

PLEAAAAAAAAASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  Quote ArmenianSurvival Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Jun-2005 at 17:28
This thread is pretty stupid. Freedom of speech is all good, this is just some of the idiotic things we have to listen to in order to secure this freedom. We have to take the good with the bad.


Edited by ArmenianSurvival
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  Quote Komnenos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Jun-2005 at 17:37
Originally posted by ArmenianSurvival


This thread is pretty stupid.



I agree, there was never any point to it other than to provoke Greek members of AE, and that was rather successful. If you want to insult each other, exchange e-mail adresses, do it in private and spare the rest of us!
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  Quote ArmenianSurvival Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Jun-2005 at 17:43
Originally posted by Komnenos

If you want to insult each other, exchange e-mail adresses, do it in private and spare the rest of us!


This is the best suggestion i have heard thus far. No wonder you were chosen part of the AE staff .

But, propagandists need an audience, or else their senseless cause will be senseless AND useless.
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  Quote Axl Low Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Jun-2005 at 06:22

Aeoolous, if the macedonians are "not allowed" by the greeks to claim the ancient macedonians - since they are just "slavs", then what ties do modern day "greeks" such as Koundouriotis, John Kolettis have with the ancient greeks -they were albamnian or vlach up untill the 18th century....

 

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  Quote Spartakus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Jun-2005 at 06:49
Another propagandist nationalist FYROMIAN.......Man,these people are maniacs
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  Quote Spartakus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Jun-2005 at 06:53
I was in  Katerini,near Olympus with my family for vacations.There we found some FYROMIANS,who told us they are Macedonias.We opened a discussion and after we show them historical facts that they are not,in the end they told us:"But America says we are Macedonians!"....... 
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  Quote Justice Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 04:36
The word ''Greek'' is not much a term of birth as of mentality,and is applied to a common culture rather than a common descent....Isocrates.
THEY WILL NOT PASS
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  Quote GENERAL PARMENION Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 10:37
Theese Fyromians are really starting to bore us !!
"There is no doubt, that Macedonians were Greeks."
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  Quote Murtaza Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 10:39

LOL

General I understand you my friend

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  Quote Kenaney Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 11:23

Who are the modern day "Greeks"?

Citizens of Greece.

OUT OF LIMIT
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  Quote azimuth Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 11:35

finaly someone answered that Question



Edited by azimuth
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  Quote BirTane Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 15:18
Originally posted by Kenaney

Who are the modern day "Greeks"?

Citizens of Greece.

clever answer, I must admit...but it is not correct

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  Quote TheodoreFelix Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Jun-2005 at 16:28

The word ''Greek'' is not much a term of birth as of mentality,and is applied to a common culture rather than a common descent....Isocrates.

 

I dont think you can apply that to this as I dont think Isocrates was in a different era then. Where people claimed descent from a polis. Thats was your country. So(and this is my view) by him saying that he is tying all the greeks together from whatever polis you come from.

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