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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Comparative statistical studies on the anthropology of the Iron Age (last millennium B.C.)

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Abstract Extending previous statistical studies on the anthropology of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, anthropological material from the Iron Age (1000-0) was compiled and condensed into 71 series (population samples). Penrose distances were calculated on the basis of 10 skull measurements. The dendrogram consisting of 49 larger series shows a division into a west- and an east-cluster. The west-cluster can be broken down into a northern, entirely European section, and into a southern subcluster, stretching from Sardinia to Pakistan. The east-cluster differs from the west-cluster above all in the larger width measurements, as in the case with the north-east and south-west complexes in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages The northern part deviates from the southern part in much the same way, but only to the same degree with respect to skull width. Both in the west and in the east the “Europid Brachycephalic belt” begins to show, with a lower cephalic index in the north and south, and a higher one in the centre. The convergent trend in resemblance between the European populations continues in the Iron Age. The difference between east and west diminishes continually, too. Skull width and cephalic index run contrary to this trend; the brachycranisation process is faster in the east than in the west.