Tavastland - Summary

Antti Telkkä released his study on anthropology of Tavastland in 1952. Back then only the material consisting of Northern Ostrobothnia had remained un-published. In Tavastland, according to a common method around 426 men and 402 women were measured.

The average height of a Tavastian male was found to be 170,55cm. Southern Tavastians were slightly taller (170,97cm avg) in comparison to northern Tavastians (169,45cm). In a similar fashion the women in Southern Tavastland were slightly taller than the Northern Tavastians (150,08cm). The Finnish speaking men of Nyland were on average shorter in stature in comparison to the Tavastian men, however the Finnish speaking women of Nyland were taller than Tavastian females. Over half of the Tavast men were tall statured (170cm and over) and almost half of the women (159cm and over) were tall statured also. The men and women of Tavastland were mainly meso and brachycephalic.

The average cephalic index was around 81. Mesocephalics and brachycephalics amounted at 83% of men. Both at a bit over 40%. In northern Tavastland the cephalic index was slightly higher than in the South (81,97-80,62). Also the cephalic index of women in north Tavastland was a bit higher with the average cephalic index being 81,11. As far as cephalic index goes, the results among the Swedish speaking Southern-Ostrobothnia, Satakunta and Savolax were the closest to the results of Tavastland. The Tavastians were found to be mainly wide-faced and narrow nosed.

In many previous studies the Tavastians had been described as being very blond. The eye-colour among men was predominantly light (89,6%). The women once again proved to have a higher frequency of brown-eyes than men (18%). The hair was rarely extremely blond. The most common hair colour for men was dark-blond (45,1%) and brown (35,7%). Black hair was found only on 3.6%. The female hair in general was darker, however people with black hair were a few (3%). It was concluded in these studies that in the northern, eastern and in Finland proper there was a higher amount of "darkness" than elsewhere. T

The Tavastians seemed to be apart of a North-eastern group, although their eye-colour was mainly light. The most common combination among men was light-eyes and dark-blond/brown hair (73,6%)

Antti Telkkä, Anthropologische Untersuchung von Bewohnern der Landschaft Häme (Helsinki, 1952)