Mongoloid race

The term "Mongoloid" is a variation of the word "Mongol", meaning "Mongol-like". It has been coined as a racial category to describe the distinctive appearance of East Asian peoples. Today it is most used in discussions of human prehistory, historical definitions of race and in the forensic analysis of human remains. The concept's existence is based on a now disputed typological method of racial classification. [O'Neil, Dennis. Palomar College. "Biological Anthropology Terms." 2006. May 13, 2007. [http://anthro.palomar.edu/tutorials/pglossary.htm] ] [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/first/gill.html Does Race Exist? A proponent's perspective by George W. Gill.] In forensics, Mongoloid is considered a skull type that is used to determine the probable soft-tissue reconstruction of discovered human remains. The "-oid" racial terms are now often controversial in both technical and non-technical contexts and may sometimes give offense no matter how they are used. [American Heritage Book of English Usage. Houghton Mifflin Company. 1996. .] This is especially true of "Mongoloid" because it has also been used as a synonym for persons with Down Syndrome, and in American English as a generic insult meaning "idiot". [ [http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=945 Down Syndrome Was Not Discovered By Dr. Down] ] Contrary to popular beliefs, Mongoloid refers to diverse ethnical groups, instead of a homogeneous group.

Populations included

). legend|#a14308|1: BushmenHuxley states: 'It is to the Xanthochroi and Melanochroi, taken together, that the absurd denomination of "Caucasian" is usually applied'. [Huxley, T. H. " [http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/SM3/GeoDis.html On the Geographical Distribution of the Chief Modifications of Mankind] " (1870) "Journal of the Ethnological Society of London"] ] The term comes from the Mongolian people of East Asia, who had a reputation in Europe for ruthless expansionism and massacre of enemy populations. The first usage of the term "Mongolian race" was by Christoph Meiners in a "binary racial scheme" of "two races" with the Caucasian whose racial purity was exemplified by the "venerated... ancient Germans" with some Europeans being impure "dirty whites" and "Mongolians" who consisted of everyone else.Painter, Nell Irvin. Yale University. "Why White People are Called Caucasian?" 2003. September 27, 2007. [http://www.yale.edu/glc/events/race/Painter.pdf] ] The term "Mongolian" was borrowed from Meiners by Johann Blumenbach to describe "second [race] , [which] includes that part of Asia beyond the Ganges and below the river Amoor [Amur] , which looks toward the south, together with the islands and the greater part of these countries which is now called Australian." Blumenbach, Johann. The Anthropological Treatise of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. London: Longman Green, 1865.] In 1861, Isid Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire added the "Australian" as a "secondary race" (subrace) of the "principal race" of "Mongolian" Deniker, Joseph. The Races of Man: An Outline of Anthropology and EthnographyC. Scribner's Sons: New York, 1900. ISBN 0836959329 ] In the nineteenth century Georges Cuvier used the term "Mongolian" again as a racial classification, but additionally included American Indians under the term. [ [The End of Racism by Dinesh D'Souza, pg 124] ] Later, Thomas Huxley used the term "Mongoloid" and included American Indians as well as Arctic Native Americans. [ [http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/SM3/GeoDis.html Huxley, Thomas, On the Geographical Distribution of the Chief Modifications of Mankind. 1870. August 14, 2006.] ] Other nomenclatures were proposed, such as "Mesochroi" (middle color), [James Dallas, "On the Primary Divisions and Geographical Distributions of Mankind", 1886 "Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland", p.204-10. James describes this as "equivalent to Professor Huxley's Mongoloid division" and as encompassing "Mongols and American Indians"] but "Mongoloid" was widely adopted. In 1915, "anthropologist Arthur de Gobineau" DiPiero, Thomas. White Men Aren't Duke University Press, 2002. ISBN 0822329611] defined the extent of the "Mongolian" race, "by the yellow the Altaic, Mongol, Finnish and Tartar branches." cite web|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=JeM_1BCeffAC|year=1915|publisher=Putnam|last=Gobineau|first= Arthur|title=The Inequality of Human Races|accessdate=2007-10-18] In the 20th century, Carleton S. Coon used the term and included Pacific Islanders. [ [http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/bindon/ant275/presentations/POST_WWII.PDF Jim Bindon, University of Alabama, Post WW2 notions about Human Variation] ] In 1983, Futuyma claimed that the inclusion of Native Americans and Pacific Islanders under the Mongoloid race was not recognized by "many anthropologists" who consider them "distinct races".Futuyma, Douglas A. Evolutionary Biology. Massachusetts: Sinauer Associates, 1983. p. 520] For example, in 1984, Roger J. Lederer Professor of Biological Sciences [California State University, Chico. "University Catalog." September 28, 2007. 2003. [http://www.csuchico.edu/catalog/cat03/programs/biol/faculty.html] ] separately listed the "Mongoloid" race from Pacific islanders and American Indians when he enumerated the "geographical variants of the same species known as races... we recognize several races Eskimos, American Indians, Mongoloid... Polynesian" [Lederer Roger J. Ecology and Field Biology. Cummings Publishing Company: California, 1984. ISBN 0-8053-5718-1 p.129] .

Native Americans

"Native Americans are clearly derived from an Asian population with affinities to the Mongoloids. However, Native Americans retain certain non-Mongoloid features. These might represent the genetic legacy of a pre-Mongoloid, Australoid-Caucasoid population, swamped by a later Mongoloid immigration; more likely, they reflect the broad range of physical variation found in early northern Asian populations, before Mongoloid traits became predominant." Fiedel, Stuart J. Prehistory of the Americas.Published by Cambridge University Press, 1992ISBN 0521425441] "When we compare Native Americans with the other living races of mankind, we find them to be most similar to the Mongoloid peoples of Asia. Among the visible physical characteristics that these groups share are coarse straight black hair, relatively hairless faces and bodies, light brown skin, brown eyes, epicanthic folds (only occasionally present in American populations), high cheekbones, and a high frequency of shovel-shaped incisor teeth ... The distribution of patterns of invisible genetically determined traits offer less clear-cut evidence of relationship."

Akkadians

John Macmillan Brown identified an "Ancient Mongoloid Empire in Mesopotamia ...the busts of these Akkadians that have been unearthed show not only the flattened face and high cheek-bones that mark the Mongol, but, long before the Semites from the south mingled with them, the wavy hair and often full eyes of the Caucasian." cite book|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=BNcKAAAAIAAJ|pages=46|last=Brown|first=John Macmillan|title=Maori and Polynesian|publisher=Hutchinson & Co.|year=1907]

Origins

In 1865, Thomas Huxley presented the views of polygenesists of which Huxley was not as "some imagine their assumed species of mankind were created where we find them... the Mongolians from the Orangs." Huxley, Thomas. Collected Essays of Thomas Huxley: Man's Place in Nature and Other Kessinger Publishing: Montana, 2005. ISBN 1417974621]

In 1897, WEB DuBois, sociologist and historian, said, " [t] he final word of science, so far, is that we have at least two perhaps three, great families of human beings -- the whites and Negroes, possibly the yellow race [he calls this "Mongolian" later] . The other races have arisen from the intermingling of the blood of these two. " Later, there was a "change in his anthropological view", where he postulated "Negroids and Mongoloids are primary, with Caucasoids listed as a type between these, possibly formed by their union, with bleached skin and intermediate hair." Bernasconi, Robert. Race Blackwell Publishing: Boston, 2001. ISBN 063120783X]

In 1972, Carleton Coon claimed, " [f] rom a hyborean [sic] group there evolved, in northern Asia, the ancestral strain of the entire specialized mongoloid family." [Coon, Carleton S. The Races of Europe. Greenwood: USA, 1972 ISBN 0837163285 p.2] In 1962, Coon believed that the Mongoloid "subspecies" existed "during most of the Pleistocene, from 500,000 to 10,000 years ago". Coon, Carleton S. The Origin of the Races. Knopf: Michigan, 1962. ISBN-10: 0394301420] According to Coon, the Mongoloid race had not completed its "invasions and expansions" into Southeast Asia, the Americas, and the Pacific Islands until " [t] oward the end of the Pleistocene" By this time Coon hypothesis that the Mongoloid race had become "sapien".
Milford Wolpoff and Rachel Caspari characterize "his [Carleton Coon's] contention [as being] that the Mongoloid race crossed the "sapiens threshold" first and thereby evolved the furthest". [cite book|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=gjYvEunARoYC|author=Milford Wolpoff and Rachel Caspari|title=Race and Human Evolution: A Fatal Attraction|publisher=Westview Press|date=1998|isbn=0813335469]

M.K Bhasin's review article (referencing Mourant 1983) suggests that "TheCaucasoids and the Mongoloids almost certainlybecame differentiated from one anothersomewhere in Asia" and that "Another differentiation, whichprobably took place in Asia, is that of theAustraloids, perhaps from a common type beforethe separation of the Mongoloids."cite journal|url=http://www.krepublishers.com/02-Journals/IJHG/IJHG-06-0-000-000-2006-Web/IJHG-06-3-177-280-2006-Abst-PDF/IJHG-06-3-233-274-2006-000-Bhasin-M-K/IJHG-06-3-233-274-2006-000-Bhasin-M-K-Text.PDF|last=Bhasin|first=M.K.|title=Genetics of Caste and Tribes of India: Indian Population Milieu|journal=Int J Hum Genet|volume=6|issue=3|pages=244|year=2006|publisher=Kamla Raj|accessdate=2007-10-22]

Dr. T. Tirado claims that "many experts" consider American Indians and East Asians to be descended from a "Proto-Mongoloid" population which existed as late as 12,000 years ago. [Tirado, T. Millersville University. "When Worlds Collide." 2007. September 27, 2007. [http://www.millersville.edu/~columbus/papers/PEOPLE.CWK] ] See also: Models of migration to the New World

Futuyma believes the Mongoloid race "diverged 41,000 years ago" from a Mongoloid and Caucasoid group which diverged from Negroids "110,000 years ago".

Peter Brown (1999) evaluates three sites with early East Asian modern human skeletal remains (Liujiang, Liuzhou, Guangxi, China; Zhoukoudian's Upper Cave; and Minatogawa in Okinawa) dated to between 10,175 to 33,200 years ago, and finds lack of support for the conventional designation of skeletons from this period as "Proto-Mongoloid"; this would make Neolithic sites 5500 to 7000 years ago (e.g. Banpo) the oldest known Mongoloid remains in East Asia, younger than some in the Americas. He concludes that the origin of the Mongoloid phenotype remains unknown, and could even lie in the New World. [cite web|author=Peter Brown|institution=Department of Anthropology and Paleoanthropology, University of New England|title="The First Modern East Asians? another Look at Upper Cave 101, Liujiang, and Minatogawa|year=1999|lastaccess= 2007-09-23|url=http://www-personal.une.edu.au/~pbrown3/brown99.pdf|work=K. Omoto (ed.) Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Origins of the Japanese, International Research Center for Japanese Studies: Kyoto.|pages=pp. 105-130]

A 2006 study of linkage disequilibrium finds that northern populations in East Asia started to expand in number between 34 and 22 thousand years ago (KYA), before the last glacial maximum at 21–18 KYA, while southern populationsstarted to expand between 18 and 12 KYA, but then grew faster, and suggests that the northern populations expanded earlier because they could exploit the abundant megafauna of the ‘‘Mammoth Steppe,’’ while the southern populations could increase in number only when a warmer and more stable climate led to more plentiful plant resources such as tubers. [cite web|title=Male Demography in East Asia: A North–South Contrast in Human Population Expansion Times|url=http://www.genetics.org/cgi/reprint/172/4/2431.pdf|publisher=Genetics Society of America|year=2006|doi=10.1534/genetics.105.054270|lastaccess=2007-09-29|author=Yali Xue,*,†,‡ Tatiana Zerjal,*,‡ Weidong Bao,‡,§ Suling Zhu,‡,§ Qunfang Shu,§ Jiujin Xu,§ Ruofu Du,§ Songbin Fu,† Pu Li,† Matthew E. Hurles,* Huanming Yang** andChris Tyler-Smith*,‡,1]

ubraces

Bhavan identifies Northeast India Mongoloids to be a subrace called the "Paleo-Mongoloid", being the "dominant element in the tribes living in Assam and the Indo-Burmese frontiers... Sikkim and Bhutan... [and] Tibetan mongoloids"Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. The Vedic Age, Vol. 1 (S. Roma-Krishnan and Bhavan Bombay, India 1962) p. 151]

In 1900, Joseph Deniker said, the "Mongol race admits two varieties or subraces: Tunguse or Northern Mongolian... and Southern Mongolian" The people of East Asia are called "Northern Mongoloids".Ainu Museum. "The Ainu People." 2007. September 26, 2007. [http://www.ainu-museum.or.jp/english/eng01.html] ] Archaeologist Peter Bellwood claims that the "vast majority" of people in Southeast Asia, the region he calls the "clinal Mongoloid-Australoid zone", are "Southern Mongoloids" but have a "high degree" of Australoid admixture. [Bellwood, Peter. Pre-History of the Indo-malaysian Archipelago. Australian National University:1985. ISBN 9781921313110] Ainus are considered Southern Mongoloids even though they live in East Asia.
Sinodonty and Sundadonty are dentition patterns that correspond to the Northern Mongoloid vs. Southern Mongoloid distinction.

Features

Forensic anthropologist Caroline Wilkenson says Mongoloids feature "absent browridges" .Wilkenson, Caroline. Forensic Facial Reconstruction. Cambridge University Press. 2004. ISBN:0521820030] Skulls belonging to Asians and American Indians exhibit very forward-projecting malar bones and comparatively flat faces, more circular orbits than other groups, and a moderate nasal aperture with a slightly pointed lower margin. [Quigley, Christine. Skulls and Skeletons: Human Bone Collections and Accumulations. McFarland: USA, 2001. ISBN 078641068X, 9780786410682 p.16] Moreover, Mongoloid skulls are the most gracile in the human family. It is believed that the Mongoloid skull type is a very recent evolutionary development. [Wade, Nicholas. Before the Dawn. Penguin Group: USA, 2006. ISBN 1594200793, 9781594200793 p.120] "The Mongoloid skull has proceeded further than in any other people." "The Mongoloid skull, whether Chinese or Japanese, has been rather more neotenized than the Caucasoid or European." "The female skull, it will be noted, is more pedomorphic in all human populations than the male skull." Montagu, Ashley. Growing Young. Published by Greenwood Publishing Group, 1989ISBN 0897891678] "Mongoloid races are explained in terms of being the most extreme paedomorphic humans." [Moxon, Steve. The Eternal Child: An Explosive New Theory of Human Origins and Behaviour by Clive BromhallEbury Press, 2003. [http://www.human-nature.com/nibbs/03/moxon.html ] ] "The intuition that advanced human development was paedomorphic rather than recapitulationary and accelerated was disturbing to many Eurocentric nineteenth century anthropologists." "If juvenilization was the characteristic for advanced status, then it was clear that the Mongoloid races were more deeply fetalized in most respects and thus capable of the greatest development." Grossinger, Richard. Embryogenesis. Published by North Atlantic Books, 2000ISBN 155643359X ] " [R] elatively large-headed [is the] mongoloid". [Carnby. Carnby’s Physical Anthropology Website. Distribution of Bodily Characters. 2008. Accessed August 11, 2008. [http://carnby.altervista.org/troe/08-04.htm ] ] "An interesting hypothesis put forward by paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould many years ago was that the package of the Mongoloid anatomical changes could be explained by the phenomenon of neoteny, whereby an infantile or childlike body form is preserved in adult life. Neoteny in hominids is still one of the simplest explanations of how we developed a disproportionately large brain so rapidly over the past few million years. The relatively large brain and the forward rotation of the skull on the spinal column, and body hair loss, both characteristic of humans, are found in foetal chimps. Gould suggested a mild intensification of neoteny in Mongoloids, in whom it has been given the name paedomorphy. Such a mechanism is likely to involve only a few controller genes and could therefore happen over a relatively short evolutionary period. It would also explain how the counterintuitive retrousse [turned up at the end] nose and relative loss of facial hair got into the package." Oppenheimer, Stephen. The Real Eve. Published by Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2003ISBN 0786711922] " [D] ecrease unnecessary muscle bulk, less tooth mass, thinner bones and smaller physical size;" this follows the selective adaptive model of Mongoloid evolution."" In Ashley Montagu's list of " [n] eotenous structural traits in which Mongoloids... differ from Caucasoids", Montagu lists "Larger brain, larger braincase, broader skull, broader face, flat roof of the nose, inner eye fold, more protuberant eyes, lack of brow ridges, greater delicacy of bones, shallow mandibular fossa, small mastoid processes, stocky build, persistence of thymus gland into adult life, persistence of juvenile form of zygomatic muscle, persistence of juvenile form of superior lip muscle, later eruption of full dentition (except second and third molars), less hairy, fewer sweat glands, fewer hairs per square centimeter [and] long torso" "Mongoloid subjects were found to have approximately 20% higher bone density at the angle of mandible than Caucasoid subjects." [Ong. R.G. Evaluation of bone density in the mandibles of young Australian adults of Mongoloid and Caucasoid descent. PubMed. 1999. Accessed September 10, 2008. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10202474 ] ]

Proto Mongoloids

The physical features of the "Proto-Mongoloid" were characterized as, "a straight-haired type, medium in complexion, jaw protrusion, nose-breadth, and inclining probably to round-headedness". [Worthington, Elsie. North American Indian Life: Customs and Traditions of 23 Tribes University of Nebraska Press: USA, 1967. ISBN 0-48627-377-6 p. 7] Kanzō Umehara considers the Ainu and Ryukyuans to have "preserved their proto-Mongoloid traits". [Sleeboom, Margaret. Academic Nations in China and Japan. Routledge: UK, 2004. ISBN 0-41531-545-X p.56]

Variation in traits between groups

Variation in traits can be rather considerable between certain groups due to climatic variation, the most apparent of these differences concern the shape of the skull, the constitution of the body and the colour of the skin.

Usage

Questionable usefulness

Geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza claims that there is a genetic division between East and Southeast Asians. [ [http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/95/20/11501 The Chinese Human Genome Diversity Project, L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza] ] In a like manner, Zhou Jixu agrees that there is a physical difference between these two populations. [http://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp175_chinese_civilization_agriculture.pdfThe Rise of Agricultural Civilization in China, Sino-Platonic Papers 175, Zhou Jixu, citing Ho Ping-ti, ISBN 0226345246] Other geneticists have found evidence for three separate populations, carrying distinct sets of non-recombining Y chromosome lineages, within the traditional Mongoloid category: North Asians, Han Chinese/Southeast Asians, and Japanese. [TAJIMA Atsushi, PAN I.-Hung, FUCHAROEN Goonnapa, FUCHAROEN Supan, MATSUO Masafumi, TOKUNAGA Katsushi, JUJI Takeo, HAYAMI Masanori, OMOTO Keiichi, HORAI Satoshi, "Three major lineages of Asian Y chromosomes: implications for the peopling of east and southeast Asia," "Human Genetics" 2002, vol. 110, no1, pp. 80-88] The complexity of genetic data have led to doubt about the usefulness of the concept of a Mongoloid race itself, since distinctive East Asian features may represent separate lineages and arise from environmental adaptations or retention of common proto-Eurasian ancestral characteristics. [Encyclopedia Britannica, Mongoloid] Many scholars claim Austronesians are admixtures of Australoids (a group which includes Veddoids, Australians, Negritos, and Papuans) with Mongoloids. [ [http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Temple/9845/austro.htm Austronesian Navigation and Migration] ]

Down's Syndrome

Since people with Down syndrome may have epicanthic folds, the condition was widely called "Mongol" or "Mongoloid Idiocy" [http://www.down-syndrome.info/library/periodicals/dsrp/06/1/019/DSRP-06-1-019-EN-GB.htm Ward, Connor O. John Langson Down the man and the message. 2006. August 26, 2006] ] John Langdon Down, for whom the syndrome was named, claimed in his book "Observations on the Ethnic Classification of Idiots " (1866), that the Mongol-like features represented an evolutionary degeneration when manifested in Caucasoids. The use of the term "Mongoloid" for racial purposes has therefore acquired negative connotations because of the connection with Down syndrome.

ee also

*Craniofacial anthropometry
*Native Americans
*Malagasy people
*Eurasian (mixed ancestry)

References