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<P align="justify"> Today physical ( … <P align="justify"> Today physical (biological) anthropology studies the biological (both morphological and genetic) characteristics of man, and it uses them to explicate the evolution of the human race and variations within it arising from age, sex and population. Before the birth of population genetics and the concomitant concept of population, research into the geographical variation in man was typological and hence classificatory in nature. People and nations were classified into races (i.e. subspecies) on the basis of visible phenotypical features. With the advent of population genetics, physical anthropologists who were interested in the phenotypical variety of the human race renounced the classification into races and began to investigate how phenotypical differences between human populations originated in the evolutionary process. This article will deal with the Saami in the light of these genetic racial features. Many early studies of race exaggerated the difference of the Saami from the other Nordic peoples. It was partly on account of this that differences of opinion arose between scholars about which race the Saami belonged to. In 1795 the German Johann Friedrich Blumembach classified the Saami and the Finns among the Mongolian race on the basis of the fact that their zygomatic arch was broad in relation to the width of the front of their cranium. He was not aware that this feature was also a characteristic of the other Nordic peoples. The view that the Finns were at least partly representatives of the Mongolian race was common throughout the nineteenth century. Some particularly racist classifiers considered them to be an atrophied or even a degenerate race. </P>
<P align="justify"> Most twentieth-century physical anthropologists, like Carleton Coon and Alice Brues, considered the Saami to be Caucasian. In particular East European physical anthropologist like the Estonian Karin Mark believed them to be representatives of a Uralic race together with the Ob-Ugrians, or then to be an independent Lappish race. A belief that the Saami possess at least some oriental features still persists in many circles, and the original home of the Finno-Ugric people is commonly assumed to have been in the easternmost part of Europe or even in Siberia.</P><P align="justify"> In addition to confusion over race, incorrect information about the biological characteristics of the Saami was disseminated, or the excessively typological approach of scholars led to an exaggeration of the racial differences of the Saami. They were claimed to have the shortest skulls and smallest brains of any people in Europe, to be more dark-haired and dark-eyed than they in fact are, and to possess at least partly oriental facial features. In fact, most central and eastern Europeans have shorter skulls that the Saami; the size of the Saamis f skull (for men 1464.8 cu cm and for women 1305.4 cu cm) is close to the European average (men 1450 cu cm and women 1300 cu cm); they are lighter-haired than the Irish and more blue-eyed than most peoples of western Central Europe; their facial features and bone structure is no more oriental than those of most other Europeans. Craniometric studies show that the facial bone structure of the Saami is completely different from the European type. They differ from most other Europeans in that the dimensions of their facial bones are very similar to those of the European hunter-gatherers of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Ages. They have fairly low brows and noses, broad jaws, shallow eye sockets, thick, high cheek bones and curved zygomatic arches which give them broad faces. The shape of the eye sockets is reflected in the shape of the soft tissue in the area around the eyes, particularly the eyelids. This facial bone structure is characteristic of hunter-gatherer peoples, and consequently it is not surprising in the Saami as they were hunter-gatherers themselves only a relatively short time ago.</P>
<P align="justify"> The conclusions about the origins of the Saami that are based on visible biological features are the same as those that are based on molecular anthropological research. The Saami constitute a separate group of their own in Europe because they are descended from a relatively small number of forebears that have come from different places and they have lived in partial isolation on the northern periphery of Europe. Despite this partially isolated position, the Saami do not represent a separate race in Europe; they simply represent the northern extreme of European morphological and genetic variation. <BR><BR> [[Saami in the light of population genetics|The Saami in the light of population genetics]]<BR><BR> [[Molecular anthropology|Molecular anthropology]] </P><BR>
[[Table of contents: Demography, ethnicity and physical anthropology| Table of contents: Demography, ethnicity and physical anthropology]]<BR><BR>hysical anthropology]]<BR><BR> +
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