Mediterranean race

The Mediterranean race (also Mediterranid race) is one of the sub-races into which the Caucasian race was categorised by most anthropologists in the late 19th to mid-20th centuries. According to various definitions, it was said to be prevalent in Southern Europe, in Western Asia, western Central Asia and north-western 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 or shorter 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.

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. Aristotle argued that the Greeks were an ideal people because they possessed a medium skin-tone, in contrast to pale northerners. By the 19th century, long-standing cultural and religious differences between Protestant northwestern Europe and the Roman Catholic south were being reinterpreted in racial terms.

In the 19th century, the division of humanity into distinct races became a matter for scientific debate. In 1870, Thomas Huxley argued that there were four basic racial categories (Xanthochroic, Mongoloid, Australioid and Negroid). The Xanthochroic race were the "fair whites" of north and central Europe. According to Huxley,

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