[2][3][4] While some have ascribed the aquiline nose to specific ethnic, racial, or geographic groups, and in some cases associated it with other supposed non-physical characteristics (i.e. intelligence, status, personality, etc., see below), no scientific studies or evidence support any such linkage.
As with many phenotypical expressions (e.g. 'widow's peak', eye color, earwax type) it is found in many geographically diverse populations.
In racist discourse, especially that of post-Enlightenment Western writers, a Roman nose has been characterized as a marker of beauty and nobility.
[5] A well-known example of the aquiline nose as a marker contrasting the bearer with their contemporaries is the protagonist of Aphra Behn's Oroonoko (1688).
[11] The supposed science of physiognomy, popular during the Victorian era, made the "prominent" nose a marker of Aryanness: "the shape of the nose and the cheeks indicated, like the forehead's angle, the subject's social status and level of intelligence.