Which Sub-Racial Types are Genuine Germanics?

[Arkona]

It's well known that Germanic peoples do not form an anthropological unity.

There are Alpine/Borreby (Central and Southern Germany), low skulled Bruenn (NW Germany, Western Norway, the Netherlands), high skulled Bruenn (Southern Norway), Baltic (NE Germany), Nordic (Sweden and Eastern Norway) and Troender (Central Norway) and even Dinaric (in Southern Germany), Mediterranian (in the Netherlands) and Tydal (in NW Norway) Germanics.

All those types are quite different from each other, as affirmed by genetical data as well.

So what type is the genuine Germanic type?

[Loki]

So what type is the genuine Germanic type?

Good question. I think the Nordic race is what binds together most Germanic groups. In almost all Germanic groups/countries, the Nordic type is found in a certain solution -- increasingly as you go from south to north. Hence, blondism also increases from south to north. I think we can safely say that the Nordic type is the original, classical Germanic -- and is present in most Germanic peoples today, at least partially in subracial solution. Hence the term "Nordish" can be applied -- in a lesser or greater extent.

However we must acknowledge that types like the Upper Paleolithic Brunn have been intermixed with Germanics from a very early stage, possibly resulting in redheaded, freckled pigmentation found all over northern Europe. So you cannot say that they are not a Germanic type also. When did the ethnicity "Germanic" actually arise? That is probably a better question...

[Glenlivet]

Baltic Axe and Corded Ware were sibling cultures, and they were both part of the formation of Germanic and Balto-Slavic people.

Also impportant is the native Mesolithic Funnelbeaker culture (or in German Trichterbecher kultur, with its subdivisions) which had its origin in Schleswig-Holstein. Proto-Germanic can be traced to ca 3500 BC. Kossina identified TRB with the origin of Germanic tribes. However, most historians agree that the Funnelbeaker culture was the native (Pre-Indo-European) culture of northern Europe. Ethnically, they were ancestors of later Germanic folks, but the Germanic people had culturally other influences.

The earliest known hypothesised origin of at least the Germanic languages is the Iron Age Jastorf (named after a village in lower Saxony) culture around 600 to 100 BC (when the Harpstedt culture in west joined the new Germanic culture) in Southern Scandinavia, Denmark (Jutland/Jylland) and Northern Germany (Holstein, Mecklenburg and northeast Saxony, with the cradle in Lüneburg). It was also from this region it was spread to Sweden and Norway. Groups who had moved north later migrated back south. There's not only etymological hypotheses when a sound shift occured, but archaeology too show tangible evidence. The Jastorf culture was characterised by its use of cremation burials in urnfields. It links with the practise of the Northern Bronze Age. It's sure that the area had a continuity of settlement.

What we should go after is the Jastorf culture of around 500 BC, where the complete formation of the Proto-Germanic language was completed. There were other pre-Germanic Bronze Age cultures, e.g. Ems-Hunte group and Lausitz culture, but of all of them the Lüneburger group is probably the most direct ancestor of the Jastorf culture. Many of these cultures were highly influenced by the Urnfield culture, from which the Celtic Hallstatt culture descended.

When did the ethnicity "Germanic" actually arise? That is probably a better question...

[Germaniathane]

1.) Hallstatt
2.) Anglo-Saxon
3.) Troender

[Catterick]

Germanic languages emerged out of contact between other languages creating a substrate of possible Uralic and an unstable placement within Indo-European bouncing up as the sister of Baltic, Celt-Latin and Albanian. I hope that helps you figure out the rassentype of the Proto-Germanic speakers.