Mediterranean race
[5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Carleton S. Coon characterized the subgroup as having shorter or medium (not tall) stature, a long (dolichocephalic) or moderate (mesocephalic) skull, a narrow and often slightly aquiline nose, the prevalence of dark hair and eyes,[12] and frequently darker skin, ranging from cream to tan or dark brown skin tone; olive complexion being especially common and epitomizing the supposed Mediterranean race.
By the 19th century, long-standing cultural and religious differences between Protestant northwestern Europe and the Catholic south were being reinterpreted in racial terms.
According to Huxley, On the south and west this type comes into contact and mixes with the "Melanochroi," or "dark whites" … In these regions are found, more or less mixed with Xanthochroi and Mongoloids, and extending to a greater or less distance into the conterminous Xanthochroic, Mongoloid, Negroid and Australioid areas, the men whom I have termed Melanochroi, or dark whites.
Under its best form this type is exhibited by many Irishmen, Welshmen and Bretons, by Spaniards, South Italians, Greeks, Armenians, Arabs and high-caste Brahmins … I am much disposed to think that the Melanochroi are the result of an intermixture between the Xanthochroi and the Australoids.
As such, Huxley's Melanochroi eventually also comprised various other dark Caucasoid populations, including the Hamites (e.g. Berbers, Somalis, northern Sudanese, ancient Egyptians) and Moors.
He also acknowledged the existence of non-European Caucasoids, including various populations that did not speak Indo-European or Indo-Iranian languages, such as Hamito-Semitic and Turkish groups.
Southern/Eastern Europeans were deemed to be inferior, an argument that dated back to Arthur de Gobineau's claims that racial mixing was responsible for the decline of the Roman Empire.
[20][21] However, in southern Europe itself alternative models were developed which stressed the merits of Mediterranean peoples, drawing on established traditions dating from ancient and Renaissance claims about the superiority of civilisation in the south.
[25] Ancient Egyptians, Ethiopians and Somalis were considered by Sergi as Hamites, themselves constituting a Mediterranean variety and one situated close to the cradle of the stock.
These writers subscribed to Sergi's depigmentation theory that the Nordic race was the northern variety of Mediterraneans that lost pigmentation through natural selection due to the environment.
χελτοι, Galatæ, Pyreni), are characterised by a well-formed head, elongated from front to back, and moderate in breadth; face oval; features well defined and elegantly formed; complexion dark; dark brown or black eyes; black hair turning early grey; form middle size, handsome; feet and hands small.
[41] According to Renato Biasutti, frequent Mediterranean traits included "skin color 'matte'-white or brunet-white, chestnut or dark chestnut eyes and hair, not excessive pilosity; medium-low stature (162), body of moderately longilinear forms; dolichomorphic skull (78) with rounded occiput; oval face; leptorrhine nose (68) with straight spine, horizontal or inclined downwards base of the septum; large open eyes.
"[42] Agreeing with Cipriani's classification,[43] Biasutti also adopted a category of "Ibero-Insular" for a more archaic and isolated type observed in Sardinia,[44] and especially among the South Eastern Sardinians, which went by the specific name of Paleo-Sardinian.
