The Dinaric race, also known as the Adriatic race, were psuedoscientific terms used by certain physical anthropologists in the early to mid-20th century[1] [2] to describe the perceived predominant phenotype of the contemporary ethnic groups of southeast Europe. According to the discredited theories of physical anthropologist Carleton Coon, the Dinaric race was most commonly found among the populations in the Balkans and Carpathians, such as Montenegrins, Serbs, Bosniaks, Croats, Ghegs, Slovaks, Romanians, Hungarians, Western Ukrainians, and Southern Poles.[3] Additionally, in Northern Europe, the South Germans are also identified as having Dinaric characteristics.[4]
The notion of a Dinaric race originated with racial anthropologist Joseph Deniker in the late 19th century, but became most closely associated with the writings of Carleton S. Coon and Nazi eugenicist Hans F. K. Günther. The term was derived from the Dinaric Alps (the western part of Southeastern Europe) which was supposed to be the principal habitat of the race.
Several pseudoscientific theories were advanced regarding the genesis of the Dinaric race. Günther argued that the Dinaric race shared a common origin with the Hither Asiatic (Near Eastern) race in the Caucasus region. They left the Caucasus region and underwent selective pressure, with the Dinaric race eventually possessing mental traits similar to the Nordic race. Jan Czekanowski believed that the Dinaric race arose from admixture between the Nordic and Armenoid race.[5]
Coon also argued, however, in The Origin of Races (1962), that the Dinaric and some other categories "are not races but simply the visible expressions of the genetic variability of the intermarrying groups to which they belong."
He referred to the creation of this distinctive phenotype from the mixing of earlier separate groups as "dinaricisation". In his view Dinarics were a specific type that arose from ancient mixes of the Mediterranean race and Alpine race.
According to the Dinaric model, Dinarics were to be found mainly in the mountainous areas of southeastern Europe: Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Austria, part of northwestern Bulgaria, and northwestern Northern Macedonia. Northern and eastern Italy was considered mostly a Dinaric area as well as western Greece, Romania, Moldova, western Ukraine, southeastern German-speaking areas, and parts of southeastern France.
The Noric race (German: Norische Rasse) was a racial category proposed by the anthropologist Victor Lebzelter. The "Noric race" was supposed to be a sub-type of the Dinaric race more Nordic in appearance than standard Dinaric peoples.[6] The term derived from Noricum, a province of the Roman Empire roughly equivalent to southern Austria and northern Slovenia. The term is not to be confused with Nordic.[7]