Bodies,
You may well be right, ancient peoples were significantly less homogenised than modern peoples, genetically speaking. Undoubtedly lots more sub-races and isolated populations back then, but the picure is fuzzied by the reliability of the chroniclers of the time...
For example:
-the Picts, (from Ireland, France and Britain) were known for having ape-like lower faces and protruding muzzles. Female picts supposedly had huge protruding lips.
-the Fir Bolg (from Hy Brasil, and then Ireland) were reputed to average (males) about 300 lbs of big boned muscle at about five foot tall
-the Myrmidons, (Greek mercenaries) were said to be almost gorilla-like: heavily muscled, massively built and supposedly covered in long black hair from head to foot, they were also cannabils that never wore clothes or used any tools other than wooden spears and clubs.
-the Danes, at least in prehistory, were universially reported to be mostly blond and the males averaged about 7 foot tall.
-the Sons of Rahab, a clan of Phillistines, were reported to all be over nine feet tall and heavily built
-the Masai, of the sub-Saharan savannahs, were all over eight feet tall, females included
-the Kurgans, from the steppes of the Ural mountains in Russia, were reknowned for their brutality and prodigous strength. The were claimed to be around seven foot tall and even more bizarrely, were measured at THREE feet across the shoulders.
The slavic Roman Emperor, Maximinus, believed to be of Kurgan extraction was recorded as being 8'6'' tall and a flat-bellied 650 lbs. He supposedly could drink two barrels of wine, and was said to eat up to 40 lbs of meat in a day.
...it's all very interesting in a Weekly World News sort of way, except that some of this has been verified in recent years.
-there is no repudiation of the claims of Emperor Maximinus' brobdignagian size, even by contemperary commentators who made a point of questioning the veracity of other facts relating to him.
-the skeleton of Ivar "The Boneless" Ragnarsson, a Viking chieftain from the ninth century who eventually became one of the first Kings of England, shows that he had no major pathologies, no gigantism, no pituitary disorders... he was just a healthy, normal, nine feet two inches tall.
-Ramses the Second, who's father was a silk trader (Viking?), was 6'2'', despite the average Egyptian being somewhere between 4'6'' and 5'2''
The skeleton of a famous gladiator found near Mycenae (he was buried with full honours and must have been very well off), shows a distinct thickening of the shins... the ankles and knees are right on the outside of human proportion, "rugged" in the Neanderthal/cave-man sense, indicating he probably sported 19'' calves at 5'4'', and could have built them up even bigger than that.
Creepy eh??
The Luke
