I agree with William. Whenever I am asked that, I am often tempted to say "the Welsh" (Catherine Zeta-Jones, Tom Jones, etc), but to be honest folks along the Mediterranean coast are darker. The Welsh jump out at you only because their swarthiness is so unexpected.
Catherine Zeta-Jones is part Greek, which might explain her coloring:
--CNN.com - Transcripts
Movie Star Catherine Zeta-Jones Discusses Her Life and Career ... Zeta is my grandmother's name, who is of north Greek origin. But Zeta is a Greek name.
I'm not sure the average Welsh person looks like Jones or Zeta-Jones.
It depends on what she means by northern Greece. I believe Greeks, like Italians get swarthier as you head south. My current boss is Greek-Macedonian and very fair in coloring. I've seen many Welsh people with cherry black or brown eyes and hair as Black as an East Asian's so I thought that was the typical "look."
^^^I live in North Wales and it isn't really the 'typical' look (though with some of the welsh people I have seen I began to believe it was).
Due to the location of some parts of wales some of the welsh are actually quite ethnically mixed (one of my friends is a north wales boy, his recent family descend from a black man who travelled to Liverpool on a ship and them on to Wales in the early 1900s-1920s).
Quite a few welsh people I know are mixed with some caribbean or arabic races but that is quite recent. I obviously can't speak for every welsh person but you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between a english man and a welsh man due to the smallness and mixing of the british people.
Joined: 30 Mar 2005 {Posts: 1082 } Location: New Jersey
Posted: Wed 23 Aug 2006 18:59 Post subject:
Truffling wrote:
I live in North Wales and it isn't really the 'typical' look (though with some of the welsh people I have seen I began to believe it was).
Due to the location of some parts of wales some of the welsh are actually quite ethnically mixed (one of my friends is a north wales boy, his recent family descend from a black man who travelled to Liverpool on a ship and them on to Wales in the early 1900s-1920s).
Quite a few welsh people I know are mixed with some caribbean or arabic races but that is quite recent. I obviously can't speak for every welsh person but you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between a english man and a welsh man due to the smallness and mixing of the british people.
Yes, naturally, there are many Welsh who are quite fair; but there are a good many who are quite dark and swarthy. Regarding the African admixture you mentioned, that is also true, although I doubt it accounts for the majority of the swarthiness. The African presence there goes back centuries. It would be interesting to know if genetic admixture tests were done on Welsh, to determine how much African admixture entered the native, i.e., "White," population. I'll have to have a look.
^^^^To be honest, living in Wales for such a long time, I haven't noticed any real 'darkness' amongst the welsh. Though one of the girls' I know out here is often mistaken for a darker european due to her dark eyes and hair. But there is no real darkness amongst the native welsh. Most of them are very fair and have no real difference to their fellow british islanders (especially the english). I have even heard many welsh people exclaim over Tom Jones and Catherine Zeta Jones darkness themselves.
All the dark welsh people I have met over the years have usually had some distant non-white ancestry (that they are very proud about lol)!
The only real noticeable thing is that they can often be quite short (old houses in north wales have very low ceilings)!! But due to the mixing with the english that has all changed and average height as risen considerable out here.
Posted: Fri 02 Nov 2007 14:43 Post subject: Welsh Types
New to the forum. I noticed some discussion here about the various appearances of Welsh people. It has been my experience that there are more dark-haired/dark-eyed than many people would expect in a northwestern European people. A situation similar to Ireland where about 45% have dark hair, 35% have medium hair and only about 20% are red or light haired but Americans in particular are seemingly unaware of the facts. Even to the point of inventing the "Spanish Armada" business to explain it.
Ioan Gruffudd as Jewish (Solomon & Gaenor), John Rhys Davies (Portuguese in Shogun, Sallah in Indiana Jones), Stanley Baker in an earlier Zorro, and Catherine Zeta-Jones mentioned previously may be offered as examples.
The statement about CZJ's having Greek ancestry as per a comment on Larry King's show is based on a CNN transcript now online. If you listen to the live audio what she actually says is "Yes. Zeta is my grandmother's name, who is of not Greek origin. But Zeta is a Greek name. And everyone thinks that I was." The transcript read "who is of north Greek origin."
The Roman writer Tacitus described the Silures of Wales as bearing a resemblance to the people of Spain, look it up. Most of the physical anthropologists Beddoe, Ripley, Coon and Hooton all remarked on the "Mediterranean" element in the Welsh. I will tend to believe those who have studied the subject scientifically as opposed to a few anonymous posters on a website relating their personal anecdotal observations. A link to the live CZJ Larry King can be posted if anyone wants to listen to it.
One final point: the recent DNA Y-chromosome studies have found that the Welsh males have links to the Basques of Spain and France.
Hwyl fawr! Llyr
Joined: 30 Mar 2005 {Posts: 1082 } Location: New Jersey
Posted: Fri 02 Nov 2007 16:30 Post subject: Re: Welsh Types
Llyr wrote:
New to the forum. I noticed some discussion here about the various appearances of Welsh people. It has been my experience that there are more dark-haired/dark-eyed than many people would expect in a northwestern European people. A situation similar to Ireland where about 45% have dark hair, 35% have medium hair and only about 20% are red or light haired but Americans in particular are seemingly unaware of the facts. Even to the point of inventing the "Spanish Armada" business to explain it.
Ioan Gruffudd as Jewish (Solomon & Gaenor), John Rhys Davies (Portuguese in Shogun, Sallah in Indiana Jones), Stanley Baker in an earlier Zorro, and Catherine Zeta-Jones mentioned previously may be offered as examples.
The statement about CZJ's having Greek ancestry as per a comment on Larry King's show is based on a CNN transcript now online. If you listen to the live audio what she actually says is "Yes. Zeta is my grandmother's name, who is of not Greek origin. But Zeta is a Greek name. And everyone thinks that I was." The transcript read "who is of north Greek origin."
The Roman writer Tacitus described the Silures of Wales as bearing a resemblance to the people of Spain, look it up. Most of the physical anthropologists Beddoe, Ripley, Coon and Hooton all remarked on the "Mediterranean" element in the Welsh. I will tend to believe those who have studied the subject scientifically as opposed to a few anonymous posters on a website relating their personal anecdotal observations. A link to the live CZJ Larry King can be posted if anyone wants to listen to it.
One final point: the recent DNA Y-chromosome studies have found that the Welsh males have links to the Basques of Spain and France.
Hwyl fawr! Llyr
Hello, Llyr -- welcome to the forum! I can see you are well-read, and it's always nice to have someone like that contribute here.
So much stuff is hearsay, and you have to separate the wheat from the chaff, as it were. Eyeballing someone is the least scientific way to measure their admixture, as I'm sure you know. People also tend to disagree when it comes to what kind of look is common in an area, and what kind of look corresponds with a specific popular category (Nordic, Mediterranean, etc.). Even though craniology and physical anthropology are far from perfect, at least they are scientific.
I have Coon's book as well as Guenther's (and some quotes by Hooton), and have posted maps from them in the molecular forum. The hair color percentages you quoted above for Ireland seem similar to those from Coon, if memory serves (I'm at the office now and can't check). Many Americans erroneously think of the Irish as being mainly redheaded. I've heard the Spanish Armada stories, and the use of these stories as explanations for the existance of "Black Irish."
You are correct about what Tacitus and the anthropologists of the last century said regarding the Welsh. You are also correct that there is a genetic link between Basque area and Wales, and of Iberians and people of the western British Isles in general. I have seen HLA studies that corroborate the uniparental marker studies. Some earlier historians (and probably some modern ones) try to link this relatedness to Celtic expansion, but this does not hold water. Celtic culture is usually said to have begun with the Hallstatt and La Tene cultures of what are now Austria and Switzerland, respectively, and spread far and wide. Much of the spreading was due to cultural contacts and the adoption of superior methods, and not invasion and repopulation or intermarriage.
The mentioning above about African admixture in the Welsh is due to the fact that Africans have had a presence in Wales (especially Cardiff) for centuries. I personally doubt this has much to do with their Mediterranean appearance, though.
Posted: Fri 02 Nov 2007 17:25 Post subject: Welsh types
Thank you for your welcome and compliments. I would like to comment on Coon's work. It seems to serve a "Bible" for many racialists. I suppose that it is because it is readily accessible in many libraries. Not so accessible, however, is Hooton's study of the Irish. Coon was offered the findings before the study was published and ran with it. His conclusions were at odds with Hooton's analysis of the data and Hooton distanced himself fom Coon's analysis in the Study "The Physical Anthropology of Ireland" published by Harvard U. in the 1950s. Coon was considered rather eccentric by many of his colleagues and was later discredited on some issues. I am more knowlegeable about the Irish and found that Coon seemed to be "spinning" his take when it came to Ireland. He talks about individuals who seem to him to flesh out the stereotypical image as typical, selectively including certain photos, he mentions that the dominant hair color is brown, without mentioning largely dark brown, and the map indicating relative lightness of hair and eyes is misleading, as the Irish are light-eyed but frequently dark-haired. Perhaps Coon was "spot on" with some issues, but I found the Irish section of "The Races of Europe" to be lacking.
Joined: 30 Mar 2005 {Posts: 1082 } Location: New Jersey
Posted: Fri 02 Nov 2007 18:22 Post subject:
You're right about Coon's work being a bible for racialists. I've argued with white supremacists and Afrocentrists who have used it thus. I've also encountered such types fraudulently claiming support from Coon for their various ideologically motivated (and sometimes utterly ridiculous) theses. There are Greek white nationalists who claim Coon said Greeks are the same people they were in ancient times, and they imply that Coon suggested they were one type of people, and are still that type of people. Coon did mention a continuity from ancient times till now amongst the Greeks, but said this is mainly because the Greek population was and still is heterogeneous, and that those who say otherwise expose a lack of understanding of what it means to be Greek.
I was unaware that Coon had been offered Hooton's findings with regard to the Irish, and that the two disagreed on the interpretations of the results.
As for parts of Coon's work being discredited, the whole science of physical anthropology and craniology isn't anywhere near as certain as that of genetics. And, of course, the whole concept of biological races in humans has gone down the toilet, where it belongs, quite frankly. But Coon's work is interesting in that he described Europeans as belonging to several different "races" (while still attempting to place them under the "Caucasoid" umbrella), and seemed to constantly be finding new ones. He also, I believe, was working on "races" of Africans when he passed away.
He seemed to regard (based on cranial and other measurements) some sub-Saharans, including Ethiopians, no matter how dark their skin or kinky their hair, as "Caucasoids," albeit with some rather recent "Negroid" admixture. He wasn't alone in this, of course, but I'm certain these opinions caused many a lay person to scratch their head in disbelief in the days when "race" was thought to be real. I'm also of the opinion that these sorts of seemingly counterintuitive conclusions are what led to derogatory opinions of this science in general.
Feel free to post quotes or summarizations of Hooton's work here. You may also scan in things if you wish. Just be sure to list what work you are quoting from or summarizing, as we are sticklers here about sources.
Comment from Hooton about the Irish study: "The preliminary data of this survey were made available to Coon for use in his work 'The Races of Europe'. Dr. Coon's summary of the material presented in detail here will be found, by anyone who takes the trouble to check his figures with ours, to differ insignificantly.
It is Coon's interpretations that we wish to discuss here. The principal point at issue is Coon's hypothesis of the 'survival' or 're-emergence' of Upper Paleolithic types, which is his favorite theme and explanation of the occurance of tall, rugged dolichocephals and brachycephals in nortwest Europe"
"All of the types that can, by any reasonable extension of the term, be called 'Nordic' do not amount to much more than 7% of Irish males and our evidence suggests that these more or less blond and long-headed types are more plausibly referable to the later colonizations of Norwegians, Danes, Scots and even Normans and English, than to Iron Age Keltics.
The basic Irish strain today, and probably always has been, a tall, long-headed, dark-haired, mixed-eyed or dark-eyed type which we call 'Nordic-Mediterranean'. The second strain is also long-headed and dark-haired but light-eyed. We have called it 'Keltic'."
"...in both Ireland and Wales the proportionately strongest morphological type is what we call Nordic-Mediterranean. This seems to be the fundamental type of the British Isles."
In the Irish study the Nordic Mediterranean type was 28.9%, the "Keltic" type was 25.3%. Smaller subracial groups were Dinaric, Nordic-Alpine, predominantly Nordic, East Baltic, pure Nordic, and pure Mediterranean in that order.
'
FAQ
Search
Register
Log in
