Mediterranean race

The Mediterranean race (also Mediterranid race) is one of the sub-races into which the Caucasian race was categorized by most anthropologists in the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. According to various definitions, it was said to be prevalent in Southern Europe and Southeast Europe, in Western Asia, Central Asia, certain parts of South Asia, in North Africa and the Horn of Africa, and in certain parts of the British Isles and Germany. It is characterized by medium to tall stature, long (dolichocephalic) or moderate (mesocephalic) skull, a narrow and often slightly aquiline nose, prevalence of dark hair and eyes, and pink to reddish to light or dark brown skin tone; olive complexion being especially common.

Racial theories

Early debates

These differentiations occurred following long-standing claims about the alleged differences between the Nordic and the Mediterranean people. Such debates arose from responses to ancient writers who had commented on differences between northern and southern Europeans. The Greek and Roman people considered the Germanic and Celtic peoples wild, red haired barbarians. Pseudo-Aristotle argued that the Greeks were an ideal people because they possessed a medium skin-tone, in contrast to pale northerners and dark southerners. By the nineteenth century, long-standing cultural and religious differences between Protestant northwestern Europe and the Roman Catholic south were being reinterpreted in racial terms.