This averaging technique would appear to have enormous potential in the study of race and ethnicity. By averaging out the "noise" it seems to be able to zero in on the essential phenotypical facial characteristics of groups. Dienekes called facial averaging "boring." On the contrary, I find the prospect of its application to ethnic studies one of the most interesting things to come along in quite a while. Does anyone know if there are already large-scale applications of this technique to ethnological studies?

Yes its very interesting and I would ask the same question.
Really good work Dienekes.

Interesting and quite creative. A control group would spice things up.

Also, I think using a small number of macho athletes and sexy models makes the final averages a bit too...above average. That makes it all the more surprising that the average of all those ancient nerds looked so similar. Perhaps being made out of stone split the difference. :)

>> Does anyone know if there are already large-scale applications of this technique to ethnological studies?

I doubt it. One could create -in principle- composites of various ethnic-racial group. Such composites were created by hand since the early 20th century in physical anthropology.

>> Also, I think using a small number of macho athletes and sexy models makes the final averages a bit too...above average.

I dunno, the macho athletes look pretty ordinary and unglamorous facially to me.

They are from different Europeans types, but almost all are Athletisch (Kretschmer) or Mesomorph (Sheldon) and they are more masculine than the average.
So they dont really represent the average greek because of the lack of extrem Leptosom (Kretschmer) and Pyknisch (pyknomorph/brachymorph) types.
If I look at average greeks these types are much more common than in a composition of soccer players which is something obviously.
F.e. if you would have taken 20 Managers or 20 Marathon runners they would have looked much more Leptosom I think.
But its a good racial masculine represantation at all.

>> So they dont really represent the average greek because of the lack of extrem Leptosom (Kretschmer) and Pyknisch (pyknomorph/brachymorph) types.

Can you give an example of the types you are referring to? Greeks (both ancient and modern) are almost never extremely leptosomic.

Facially speaking these guys are a very good sample, including square/oval/hexagonal shapes, and a good range of the facial and upper facial index to be found in Greeks, good variation of nasal shape from low-rooted, coarse and broad to high-rooted, fine and narrow.

>> F.e. if you would have taken 20 Managers or 20 Marathon runners they would have looked much more Leptosom I think.

Leptosom = narrow body, and has nothing to do with facial appearance. Whoever said that "managers" are leptosomes anyway? Maybe in the 1930s in Germany when Kretschmer did his research, they were, but that has nothing to do with Greek reality.

I dunno, the macho athletes look pretty ordinary and unglamorous facially to me.

Glamorous? No (that's the females). More masculine than average? I would say 'yes'. I'll let you have the final word tho, DP; you know your Greeks.

But the 32 male composite for the Regenburg study, did look significantly less manly (and not just b/c of the plastic skin).

"Leptosom = narrow body, and has nothing to do with facial appearance. Whoever said that "managers" are leptosomes anyway? Maybe in the 1930s in Germany when Kretschmer did his research, they were, but that has nothing to do with Greek reality."

The faces of Leptosom people have usually less fat and muscles and a weaker chin and bigger nose. (not all but the average)
Not all successful managers are Leptosom, but the average is. And Marathon/long time runners are it definetely.
I was in Greece, and maybe there are not so much Leptosom of the Nordic/Dinaric style, but there are enough so it has something to do with greek reality.
Even the average of the classical faces are a little bit more Leptosom than the modern average and everybody knows that the greek physical ideal was the athletic body.
But just look at the well known speakers like Demosthenes but even the great politician Perikles were definetely Leptosom from Kretschmers theory.
I know everybody prefers one of the body types, and obviously you like to see for the greek males the classical athletic one, but, thats not the average.
And if you would look at german soccer players, it would be almost the same. (almost no pyknomorphs, and less Leptosom but more masculinized)

>> But the 32 male composite for the Regenburg study, did look significantly less manly (and not just b/c of the plastic skin).

It could be because (a) they were unshaven, (b) they were paler, or (c) they were German.

>> The faces of Leptosom people have usually less fat and muscles and a weaker chin and bigger nose. (not all but the average)
Not all successful managers are Leptosom, but the average is.

Any source for this? In my experience Greek figures of authority tend to be chubbier than regular Greeks.

>> Even the average of the classical faces are a little bit more Leptosom than the modern average and everybody knows that the greek physical ideal was the athletic body.

Leptosom as a description of faces is not a valid designation. I don't detect any metrical difference between the two.

BTW, these were real Greeks, not idealized Greek statues. And, again, the athletic body has nothing to do with faces. Most Greek full-body statues show a regular to stocky body build, almost never the rather awkward lean build of other races. This is much more apparent in women.

"Any source for this? In my experience Greek figures of authority tend to be chubbier than regular Greeks."

The source is Kretschmer and Sheldon, I know they are not up to date, but they made interesting statistics. I saw even facemorphing in a book which made the difference really obvious.
To the greek question I can just say that I dont meant general authoritis but modern technocrats/managers whith a certain education and leading positions in the modern economy.

"Leptosom as a description of faces is not a valid designation. I don't detect any metrical difference between the two."

Well I saw the metric data and the morphing, and further on I have personal experience because try to abstract what I see in my daily life.
Further on your articel about "perfect" Faces show really mainly the difference between constitutional types with just a little bit of racial influence.
The only other factor is that the attractive males are more masculine than the unattractive ones.
I mean we both know that in modern western culture the aesthetic of Pyknish people is not as appreciated as the Leptosom (today more for women) or Athletic (today more for men).

I dont know how much the faces are idealized.
If I look at the bust of Plato I can hardly imagine that he is that much idealized, but on the other hand, if I look at Perikles it seems probable that he is idealized.
My guess is that philosophers are more realistic than the art about politicians and war heros.

I really appreciate your attempt, and it was a good one, furthermore I want to encourage you to hold on your high quality and good work, but the term "average" for your greek man and women is to some extend problematic.
It is more aesthetic and a fine art, and for sure we can see the avantgarde of mediterranean Leptosom (women) and Athletic (man) of greece.
You could do the same the other way around with Leptosom man (maybe artists, long time runner, some male modells, featherweight boxers, etc) and athletic women (heavy athlets, some prominent women etc) and it would be another picture of the same population, but of course a in common aestetic terms less idealized.

"Most Greek full-body statues show a regular to stocky body build, almost never the rather awkward lean build of other races."

Sorry but that is not very objective. You can see the proof if you look at Diogenes or the most other philosophs. And in fact, Leptosomic people were everytime in Europe the primary philosophs.
So why do you want to hear that? Because you have the athletic ideal for men in mind which is so present in US, much more than in ancient Greece?
It is biologically almost impossible that women are just Leptosomic and all men are Athletic.
A race with such a sexuall dimorphism do not exist.
The constitution doesnt depend to much on race and sex, and much more on genetical family background and environmental factors.

>> Sorry but that is not very objective. You can see the proof if you look at Diogenes or the most other philosophs. And in fact, Leptosomic people were everytime in Europe the primary philosophs.

Your argument is not very convincing. It amounts to "Greek philosophers were leptosomic because leptosomic people were everywhere in Europe the primary philosophers".

First of all, I would not put Greek philosophers in the same category as the "philosophers" that appeared in Europe thousands of years later. Greek philosophers were active citizens and most of them were multiple-battle veterans. Clearly a different kind than the rather dysfunctional individuals that often took to philosophy (Nietzsche, Schopenhauer come to mind).

Second of all, if we look at the three most famous philosophers: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, we see broad-faced, broad-headed people, definitely nothing "lepto" about them. In fact, Plato himself means "broad", and "Plato" was in fact a nickname (meaning "broad") for Aristokles who was a wrestler before he was a philosopher.

In fact, physical anthropologist J. Lawrence Angel who studied Greek skeletal remains comments that the dominant body build was a "stocky European type of build".

He also comments in "Skeletal Material from Attica", Hesperia, 1945 with respect to the appearance of statuary of prominent Athenians:

"The body build is dominantly lateral, "mesomorphic", often with disharmonic elongation of extremities."

Diogenes. Hardly "leptosomic".

Well as mentioned on your side before Plato and Sokrates are more of the Alpin type, this means they would have broad faces even if they were Leptosomic, Aristoteles is in my point of view a Leptosomic too.
But maybe we just differ more in terms than in content of our statements.
If I refer to Kretschmer and other Anthropologists and Psychologists I dont mean the extrem Asthenic variant. Leptosom doesnt mean this. F.e. The most cyclist, long distance runners etc. are Leptosom but dont have to extrem Asthenic.
So in fact f.e. the most well known Soldiers are of Leptosom body type.
Diogenes is in my opinion just aged. Leptosomic doesnt have to mean skinny especially not in age.
Epikur and Chrysipp look very narrow build too.
But the problem is that the most of them are quite aged, and in age its the same like in childhood, the differences are not as clear as in the "best age". Thats well knowm for race features and for constitution as well.

If you want to know what a typical European Leptosomic type is, just look at Pierce Brosnan a typical Athletic would be Rock Hudson and a typical Pyknish type Peter Ustinov.
So if you compare them, they are not as extrem as you maybe thought of it.
The extreme Leptosomic variant the Asthenic or the pathological extrem of Phtysisch type (Kretschmer) is in no European population very common, but the wider Leptosomic variant is everywhere more than a third and the relative majority. (Kretschmer/Eickstedt)

"The body build is dominantly lateral, "mesomorphic", often with disharmonic elongation of extremities."

This could be interpret in many ways, but sounds interestingly even if I consider that the most bodies were more idealized than the faces.

>> Well as mentioned on your side before Plato and Sokrates are more of the Alpin type, this means they would have broad faces even if they were Leptosomic, Aristoteles is in my point of view a Leptosomic too.

Plato was broad-shouldered. He was a wrestler. That's why they called him Plato. Aristotle's statues have not been preserved, only busts, AFAIK. In the busts he is extremely broad-headed with an exceptionally broad forehead; see descriptions in Gisela Richter, Portraits of the Greeks.

>> The extreme Leptosomic variant the Asthenic or the pathological extrem of Phtysisch type (Kretschmer) is in no European population very common, but the wider Leptosomic variant is everywhere more than a third and the relative majority. (Kretschmer/Eickstedt)

That is not relevant to Ancient Greeks, who were predominantly lateral.

>> This could be interpret in many ways, but sounds interestingly even if I consider that the most bodies were more idealized than the faces.

Angel finds that the skeletal material "tends to confirm [the dominantly lateral body build], so far as it can".

I'm really skpetical of the usefulness of these "parallels", which I note cannot include skin tone.

What I'd really like to see are comparisons of autosomal DNA between ancient Greek remains and modern Greeks, although probably the former is not a suitable source of material?

The only other alternative (which is far less objective) is to attempt to reconstruct Greek demographic history via history and then see if the autosomal DNA of modern Greeks matches that of what would be expected if either:
1) relative "purity" was maintained, or
2) significant admixture took place

The same can - and should - be done for all other ethnies as well.

"That is not relevant to Ancient Greeks, who were predominantly lateral."

But this would mean that there is a serious difference between ancient and modern Greeks, (which I dont believe) because modern Greeks are just a little bit more stocky than other European groups which fit perfect in this statistics.
I think that it is a idealized picture of ancient greeks to say that almost all of them were of a lateral type (which could mean more than the exact definition of Kretschmer or Sheldon)
But maybe they were idealized in their statues or it was some kind of social selection that the prominent members of the ancient society were more of Athletic,Leptosom/Athletic and Pykno-Athletic type with a (as you meant, I wouldnt see this in the statues) clear dominance of the Athletic type.

>> But this would mean that there is a serious difference between ancient and modern Greeks, (which I dont believe) because modern Greeks are just a little bit more stocky than other European groups which fit perfect in this statistics.

First of all, I'd prefer if you gave some references for your statements. You don't know the distribution of body types in either Ancient or modern Greeks and yet you make a statement such as the above.

According to Coon:

"their bodily proportions are for the most part intermediate; the shoulders are broad, the trunk length moderate"

Greeks are thus not leptosomic people. According to Angel, the statues of the ancient Greeks where mesomorphic. The Ancient skeletal material confirms this impression.

Rienzi wrote:

>> I'm really skpetical of the usefulness of these "parallels", which I note cannot include skin tone.

Skin tone is one one of many human traits. The development of the craniofacial morphology is an infinitely more complex process.

Your real problem is that the average of 16 Greeks, 9 of whom are "suspect" to you, including Hispanic and Turkic-Mongolid (!) individuals turns out to be metrically identical to the Ancient Greek average.

But, actually, a more scientific study of Greek craniofacial morphology has led to the same conclusion [1]:

"a remarkable similarity in craniofacial morphology between modern and ancient Greeks."

[1] Argyropoulos, E. et al., 1989, A comparative cephalometric investigation of the Greek craniofacial pattern through 4,000 years, Angle Orthod 1989 Fall;59(3):195-204

And of course this is also supported by the findings of FIVE different physical anthropologists who had the opportunity to study modern Greeks.

I know that the majority of the East Mediterranean People is more mesomorphic than lets say Northern Europeans.
But this cannot mean that that real Athletics and Leptosomic people like in Northern Europe didnt exist in ancient time.
In recent Greek Populations they definitely exist, or you wouldnt have such a basketball team or modells as well as long distance runners.
Maybe the extremer Leptosomic are not as common as in NCE populations, and there are more mesomorphic, but that doesnt mean that theyre all like these.
Like you said by yourself, if you suggest that the Aegaen type is predominantely Mesomorphic, there are still many Alpines and Dinarics.
But many of the Aegaen-mediterran modells f.e. are definetely Leptosomatic.
So where were these people in Antiquity?
(I looked at the statues too and they are to me not all mesomorphic, especially people like Diogenes, Demosthenes and Chrysipp.
But ok, maybe we make just other borders for the types, I dont call just the extreme variants Leptosomic, and so did it Eickstedt and Kretschmer bei himself.
But you are right, the Eastern Mediterraneans are probably the most Mesomorphic people in Europe.

>> But this cannot mean that that real Athletics and Leptosomic people like in Northern Europe didnt exist in ancient time.

All sorts of people existed in ancient times, but the dominant trend was mesomorphic. I mean, take a look at the Greek statues of athletes and female goddesses and you never see something like, e.g., this. So, while there were both slender, athletic, medium, fat, etc. people in Ancient Greece, as there are in modern Greece, the very linear form of N. European provenance was a rarity to non-existent.