(Photographic Supplement, Plate 2)


Ugrian-speakers of Ladogan-racial Type


The Uralic linguistic stock, spoken by Lapps, Finns, Magyars, Asiatic Ugrians, and Samoyeds, is divided into Finno-Ugrian and Samoyedic. The Ugrian branch is today spoken by two widely separated groups, the Magyars of Hungary and Transylvania, and the Ostiaks and Voguls of the Obi drainage. The early Ugrians were presumably, like the Finns, Danubian-like or Nordic peoples of the middle Volga country, who absorbed the older hunting population of the eastern European forest. Later the Ugrians were subjected to mongoloid influences at the times of Hunnish, Turkish, and Mongol invasions. The individuals shown on Plate 2 were chosen to illustrate in varying forms and degrees the old Ladogan racial type.

FIG. 1 (3 views). A Magyar from Budapest; a man of moderately tall stature, hyperbrachycephaly, and moderately great head size; with a large face, low orbits, a wide, interorbital distance, and a median eyefold. These characters, in combination with laterally prominent malars and a wide, heavy mandible, mark this individual as a Ladogan prototype. He represents a reëmergence of a racial element living in the eastern European woodlands in early post-glacial times; this type is one of the general group of Palaeolithic survivors, in this case largely unreduced. As with the related Palaeolithic survivors of northwestern Europe, its tendency to blondism must be considered integral, and not the result of Nordic admixture. Like the Lapp this type is incipiently mongoloid, but it differs profoundly from the Lapp in pigmentation, general size, and in the size and structure of the mandible. This individual appears to recapitulate in many respects the original Ladogan strain found among the Ugrian-speaking ancestors of the Magyars who invaded Hungary from their home in the Volga country. While typical of a true Magyar element in his country, he is not typical of the population of Hungary as a whole.

FIG. 2 (3 views, Institute of Peoples of the North). An Ostiak woman from Siberia. The Ladogan facial features are usually better exemplified in women than in men. The Ostiak woman shown above is as good a Ladogan prototype as the Magyar shown above. Note the blond hair, light eyes, the great interorbital distance, the broad, low-bridged nose with elevated snub tip, and the wide malars.

FIG. 3 (3 views, Institute of Peoples of the North). An Ostiak man with some Samoyed admixture; the hair is brown, the eyes mixed, the face freckled. In addition to the Ladogan element seen in the first two, this individual probably contains some evolved mongoloid admixture.

FIG. 4 (3 views, Institute of Peoples of the North). A Vogul man; showing more evidence of mongoloid admixture than the above. It must be emphasized that nearly all of the mongoloid racial factors possessed by the Ugrian speakers resident in Siberia were acquired after their shift of territory from European Russia to Asia.