Giuseppe Sergi (1841–1936)

Giuseppe Sergi was an Italian anthropologist and an influential figure in the development of physical anthropology. He promoted morphological approaches to human variation and opposed the Nordicist claim that European civilization should be attributed to a supposedly superior northern race.

Sergi is especially important here for formulating the physical-anthropological concept of a Mediterranean type, which he regarded as a major population stock extending across southern Europe, North Africa and parts of Western Asia. His framework belongs to the history of anthropology: contemporary biological anthropology does not accept these fixed racial typologies, but the concept remains significant for understanding the intellectual history of Mediterraneanism.