Man, Past and Present

by A. H. Keane

And in Wales.

The work carried on in Wales for a number of years by H. J. Fleure and T. C. James[1264] has produced some extremely interesting results. The chief types (based on measurements and observations of head, face, nose, skin, hair and eye colour, stature, etc.) fall into the following groups.

1. "The fundamental type is certainly the long-headed brunet of the moorlands and their inland valleys. He is universally recognised as belonging to the Mediterranean race of Sergi and as dating back in this country to early Neolithic times." The cephalic index is about 78, with high colouring, dark hair and eyes, and stature rather below the average. A possible mixture of earlier stocks is shown in a longer-headed type (c.i. about 75), with well-marked occiput, very dark hair and eyes, swarthy complexion, and average stature (about 1690 mm. = 5 ft. 6½ ins.). Occasionally in North Wales the occurrence of lank black hair, a sallow complexion and prominent cheekbones suggests a "Mongoloid" type; and a type with small stature, black, closely curled hair and a rather broad nose has negroid reminiscences. The Plynlymon moorlands contain a "nest" of extreme dolichocephaly and an unusually high percentage of red hair.

2. Nordic-Alpine type, with cephalic index mainly between 76 and 81. This group includes (a) a "local version of the Nordic type" occurring at Newcastle Emlyn and in South and South-West Pembrokeshire with fair hair and eyes, usually tall stature and great strength of brow, jaw and chin; (b) a heavier variant on the Welsh border, often with cephalic index above 80, and extremely tall stature; (c) the Borreby or Beaker-Maker type, broad-headed and short-faced with darker pigmentation, probably a cross between Alpine and Nordic, characteristic of the long cleft from Corwen via Bala to Tabyllyn and Towyn.

3. Dark bullet-headed short thick-set men of the general type denoted by the term Alpine or more exactly perhaps by the term Cevenole are found, though not commonly, in North Montgomeryshire valleys.

4. Powerfully built, often intensely dark, broad-headed, broad-faced, strong and square jawed men are characteristic of the Ardudwy coast, the South Glamorgan coast, Newquay district (Cardiganshire) and elsewhere.

The authors observe that Type 1 with its variations contributes "considerable numbers to the ministries of the various churches, possibly in part from inherent and racial leanings, but partly also because these are the people of the moorlands. The idealism of such people usually expresses itself in music, poetry, literature and religion rather than in architecture, painting and plastic arts generally. They rarely have a sufficiency of material resources for the latter activities. These types also contribute a number of men to the medical profession.... The successful commercial men, who have given the Welsh their extraordinarily prominent place in British trade (shipping firms for example) usually belong to types 2 or 4, rather than to 1, as also do the majority of Welsh members of Parliament, though there are exceptions of the first importance. The Nordic type is marked by ingenuity and enterprise in striking out new lines. Type 2 (c) in Wales is remarkable for governmental ability of the administrative kind as well as for independence of thought and critical power" (p. 119).

Present Constitution of the British Peoples.

We have now all the elements needed to unravel the ethnical tangle of the present inhabitants of the British Isles. The astonishing prevalence everywhere of the moderately dolicho heads is at once explained by the absence of brachy immigrants except in the Bronze period, and these could do no more than raise the cephalic index from about 70 or 72 to the present mean of about 78. With the other perhaps less stable characters the case is not always quite so simple. The brunettes, representing the Mediterranean type, certainly increase, as we should expect, from north-east to south-west, though even here there is a considerable dark patch, due to local causes, in the home shires about London[1265]. But the stature, almost everywhere a troublesome factor, seems to wander somewhat lawlessly over the land.

Although a short stature more or less coincides with brunetteness in England and Wales, and the observations in Ireland are too few to be relied on, no such parallelism can be traced in Scotland. The west (Inverness and Argyllshire), though as dark as South Wales, shows an average stature of 1.73 m. to 1.74 m. (5 ft. 8 ins. to 5 ft. 8½ ins.), which is higher than the average for the whole of Britain. And South-west Scotland, where the type is fairly dark, contains the tallest population in Europe, if not in the world. Ripley suggests either that "some ethnic element of which no pure trace remains, served to increase the stature of the western Highlanders without at the same time conducing to blondness; or else some local influences of natural selection or environment are responsible for it[1266]"; and he hints also that the linguistic distinction between Gaels and Brythons may have been associated with physical variation.