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Carleton’s 1939 The Races of Europe has a treasure trove of pre World War II anthropological information, but I can’t find any hard numbers on Icelandic arm span. But my rough impression is that they are extremely short limbed. Here for example is the Icelandic Michael Jordan:pic.twitter.com/LaTPYHA87p
But Coon does have relative span (armspan/height) measurements from many other Europeans and the list helps to identity a third population that has also adapted to wet cold in the accustomed way:pic.twitter.com/ZjzfqbGv3F
Montenegrins were both the tallest and shortest armed people in Europe in 1939 and the same is true today. A 2012 study replicated the finding of a tiny 1.01 wingspan, which is even more anomalous when you consider, as Coon did, that they also have abnormally broad shoulders.pic.twitter.com/umL1WdJ7fP
The massive height seen in the ex-Yugoslavia is very strange. In most European groups height seems to increase smoothly as you move north up the first PC of variation, which reaches its northern apex in the tall, blond Latvians and in the other extreme in Sicilians.
Montenegrins and Romanians are fairly close genetically, being much more South European than Old Slavic and yet their difference in height is more than 4 inches. Not only are these people big absolutely, their size is defying a very strong pattern.
My argument here is more speculative than the others, but I think the key factor is the late persistence of the Mediterranean practice of transhumant pastoralism, where herders regularly migrate from warm coastal areas in the summer to highlands in the winter.
High meat consumption, which is characteristic of all the people discussed here, is probably a pre-requisite of large body bulk. But this wouldn’t explain the small arms of Montenegrins and Serbs, and cold stress imposed by the ex Yugoslavia’s very high levels of rainfall would:pic.twitter.com/iW2BcOazNp
Fin. Comments welcome, going to try and do another one of these tomorrow on some of the peculiarities of the Japanese.
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