Description:
Ethiopid proper, showing the most pronounced Ethiopid characters of all. Common around the Horn of Africa, in its purest form in the inland areas of Somalia and Eastern Ethiopia. Typical groups include Hawiye, Darod, Dir, but also common in Tigray-Tigrinya, Agaw, and Eastern Oromo. Sometimes in Gurage, Gonga, Amhara, Digil, and Rahanweyn, the latter groups have Bantuid admixture.Physical Traits:
Dark reddish-brown skin, curly to tight-curly hair. (Rather) tall, brachyskelic, ectomorph. Dolichocephalic, orthocranic. (Hyper-)leptorrhine and high, straight or convex nose - the narrowest of Sub-Saharan Africa. Face long and oval with gracile, soft features, jaw very narrow, large eyes with full lips. Body hair is scarce, the occiput round, prognathism is absent.Literature:
The ancient Greco-Egyptian writer Ptolemy described them as "the most beautiful humans in the world". The exact definition of East Ethiopid was eventually given by Eickstedt (1943, 1949, 1952b) and adopted by Baumann (1952) and Heberer et al. (1969). In other systems simply regarded as Ethiopid proper (Biasutti, 1967; Knussmann, 1996). Some don't see a separate subrace, for them they are Mediterranid-Sudanid blends (Hooton, 1946; Lundman, 1967).
