Several theories were advanced regarding the genesis of the Dinaric race. Günther argued that the Dinaric race shared a common origin with the Hither Asiatic (Near Eastern) race in the Caucasus region. They left the Caucasus region and underwent selective pressure, with the Dinaric race eventually possessing mental traits similar to the Nordic race. Jan Czekanowski believed that the Dinaric race arose from admixture between the Nordic and Armenoid race.[6]
Coon also argued, however, in The Origin of Races (1962), that the Dinaric and some other categories "are not races but simply the visible expressions of the genetic variability of the intermarrying groups to which they belong."
He referred to the creation of this distinctive phenotype from the mixing of earlier separate groups as "dinaricisation". In his view Dinarics were a specific type that arose from ancient mixes of the Mediterranean race and Alpine race.
The Noric race (German: Norische Rasse) was a racial category proposed by the anthropologist Victor Lebzelter. The "Noric race" was supposed to be a sub-type of the Dinaric race more Nordic in appearance than standard Dinaric peoples.[7] The term derived from Noricum, a province of the Roman Empire roughly equivalent to southern Austria and northern Slovenia.[8]