Alpine Race - Physical Appearance

Physical Appearance

The Alpine race is mainly distinguished by its cranial measurements, such as high cephalic index. A typical Alpine skull is therefore regarded as brachycephalic ('broad-headed'). As well as being broad in the crania, this thickness appears generally elsewhere in the morphology of the Alpine, as Hans Günther describes:

...the Alpine race is thick-set and broad. The average height of the Alpine man is about 1.63 metres. This small height is brought about by the relatively short, squat legs. This broadness and shortness is repeated in all the details: in the broadness of the hand and its short fingers, in the short, broad feet, in the thick, short calves.

Ripley (1899) further notes that the nose of the Alpine is more broad (mesorrhine) while their hair is usually a chestnut colour. According to Robert Bennett Bean (1932) the skin pigmentation of the Alpine is an 'intermediate white', a colour in-between the lighter skinned Nordic and the darker skinned Mediterranean. Despite the large numbers of alleged Alpines, the characteristics of the Alpines were not as widely discussed as those of the Nordics and Mediterraneans. Typically they were portrayed as "sedentary": solid peasant stock, the reliable backbone of the European population, but not outstanding for qualities of leadership or creativity. Madison Grant, insisted on their "essentially peasant character".