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The Anthropological Features of the East German Nobility
Andreas Vonderach
Published: 2018/06/01
Abstract
This study investigates aristocratic and non-aristocratic 14-year-old schoolchildren of the 1950s with origins in East Germany (before 1945). It shows that aristocrats are far ahead in the expression of “socially progressive” features, defined in German anthropology as anthropological traits that tend to be more common in the upper than the lower social classes. Because most of these traits have high heritabilities, this suggests the nobility to be an old biological elite due to social assortment — a result of some historical and sociological importance.
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