What are the characteristic physical features of a macedonian?

Answer 1

The most complete study of Greek skeletal material from Neolithic to modern times was carried out by American anthropologist J. Lawrence Angel who found that in the early age racial variability in Greece was 7% above average, indicating that the Greeks had multiple origins within the Europid racial family. Angel noted that from the earliest times to the present "racial continuity in Greece is striking." Buxton who had earlier studied Greek skeletal material and measured modern Greeks, especially in Cyprus, finds that the modern Greeks "possess physical characteristics not differing essentially from those of the former [ancient Greeks]."

The most extensive study of modern Greeks has been carried by the Greek anthropologist Aris N. Poulianos. Poulianos' study included the collection and study of more than seventy anthropometric measurements from a large sample of thousands of Greeks from different parts of the country. His main conclusions are that Greeks are basically a mixture of Aegeans (a Mediterranean type local to the area) and Epirotics (Dinarics) and are descended from the ancient inhabitants of the lands in which they live. The presence of individuals which approximate the Nordic subrace is minimal, and does not exceed 4-6% even in the most depigmented groups of Greece. More frequent are individuals which approximate the Alpine race of Central Europe. These reach up to 20-30% of some groups and are often blended with more southern racial types. Poulianos' conclusions of Greek continuity are not simply the wishful thinking of a modern Greek. In a critical review of his book, J. Lawrence Angel states that "Poulianos is correct in pointing out ... that there is complete continuity genetically from ancient to modern times."

Nikolaos Xirotiris, more recently, surveyed Greek skeletal material and a number of genetical and anthropometrical studies on modern Greeks. His discoveries were that like in antiquity, the Greek terrain which favors isolation has led to the formation of local types by micro-evolution. He too concludes racial continuity in Greece, not finding traces of any significant alteration of the Greek racial complex, from prehistory, through classical and medieval, to modern times.

The American anthropologist Roland Dixon studied the funeral masks of Spartans and found them to be Alpine. Italian anthropologist Raffaello Battaglia found the death masks of the Shaft Grave Mycenaeans to represent Dinaric physiognomies. J. Lawrence Angel expressed similar opinions in that he believed that northerners in Greece were always of "Dinaroid-Alpine central trend" added to the earlier Mediterranean/Alpine blend. Racial elements were not separate but combined to produce Greek civilization. Finally, a more recent statistical comparison of ancient and modern Greek skulls resulted in the discovery of "a remarkable similarity in craniofacial morphology between modern and ancient Greeks."