Mongoloid - Features

Features

See also: Asian features and Epicanthal fold

In 2004, forensic anthropologist Caroline Wilkenson said Mongoloids are characterized by absent browridges. R.G. Ong of the Department of Oral Radiology, Perth Dental Hospital, Australia found that Mongoloid subjects had about "20% higher bone density at the angle of the mandible" when compared to Caucasoid subjects.

Louis R. Sullivan Curator of Physical Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, said Samoans are of the Mongoloid race but their features represent a "slightly different evolution since the time of their separation and isolation from their parental stock" or a retention of features that have been lost in other Mongoloid types. Sullivan said the wavy and wooly hair of the Samoan is one such retention compared to the stiff, coarse hair that typifies the Mongoloid. Sullivan lists most of the characteristics of the Samoan as having Mongoloid affinities such as: skin color, hair color, eye color, conjuctiva, amount of beard, hair on chest, nasal bridge, nostrils, lips, face width, biogonial width, cephalo-facial index, nasal height, ear height and chin.

Dr. Rukang Wu (Chinese: 吴汝康) of the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology, Academia Sinica, China, said Mongoloid features are a mesocranic skull, fairly large and protruding cheekbones, nasal bones are flat and broad, nasal bridge is slightly concave without depression in the nasion, "the lower borders of the piriform aperature are not sharp but guttered", prenasal fossae are shallow, small anterior nasal spine, trace amounts of canine fossae and moderate alveolar prognathism.

Dr. Marta Mirazon Lahr of the Department of Biological Anthropology at Cambridge University said the Paleoindian has proto-Mongoloid morphology such as pronounced development of supraorbital ridges low frontals, marked post-orbital constriction, prominent and protruding occipitals, small mastoids, long crania and a relatively narrow bizygomatic breadth.

In 1882, Irish anthropologist Augustus Henry Keane who was professor at University College, London, said that the features of the Japanese that "attest their relationship with the great Mongolian family" are slightly oblique eyes, small nose, black lank hair, sparse beard, salient cheek-bones and yellowish complexion.

Shunsuke Yuzuriha (Japanese:杠俊介) et al. of Shinshu University School of Medicine, Matsumoto, Japan, said the Mongoloid eyelid is characterized by puffiness of the upper eyelid, "superficial expansion of the levator aponeurosis" that are "turned up around this transverse ligament to become the orbital septum", "low position of the preaponeurotic fat" and narrowness of the palpebral fissure.

Theodore G. Schurr of the Department of Anthropology at University of Pennsylvania said the Mongoloid racial type is distinguished by forward-projecting malar (cheek) bones, comparatively flat faces, large circular orbits, "moderate nasal aperture with a slightly pointed lower margin", larger, more gracile braincase, broader skull, broader face and flatter roof of the nose.

Akazawa said Mongoloid skin has thick skin cuticle and an abundance of carotene (yellow pigment). Rodney P.R. Dawber of the Oxford Hair Foundation and Clinical Lecturer in Dermatology said Mongoloid males have "little or no facial or body hair". Mildred Trotter of the School of Medicine St. Louis Missouri said Mongoloid hair is coarse, straight, blue-black and weighs the most out of the races. Mildred Trotter of the School of Medicine St. Louis Missouri and Oliver H. Duggins of the Department of Anatomy Washington University said the size of the average Mongoloid hair is 0.0051 square millimetres (7.9×10−6 sq in) based on samples from Chinese, North and South American Indians, Eskimos and Thais. Daniel Hrdy of the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University said that Mongoloid hair whether it be Sioux, Ifugao or Japanese has the thickest diameter out of all human hair. Professor of anthropology, Akazawa Takeru (Japanese:赤沢威) of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto, said Mongoloids evolved hairlessness to keep clean while wearing heavy garments for months without bathing during the Ice Age.

In 1996, Rebecca Haydenblit of the Hominid Evolutionary Biology Research Group at Cambridge University did a study on the dentition of four pre-Columbian Mesoamerican populations and compared their data to other Mongoloid populations. She found that Tlatilco, Cuicuilco, Monte Albán and Cholula populations followed an overall Sundadont dental pattern characteristic of Southeast Asia rather than a Sinodont dental pattern characteristic of Northeast Asia.

Robert B. Pickering Professor of Anthropology at the University of Tulsa said the traits of the Mongoloid skull are: long and broad skulls of intermediate height, arched sagittal contour, very wide facial contour, high face height, rounded orbital opening, narrow nasal opening, wide, flat nasal bones, sharp lower nasal margin, straight facial profile, moderate and white palate shape, 90%+ shovel-shaped incisors and large, smooth general form.

Miquel Hernández of the Department of Animal Biology at the University of Barcelona said East Asians (Kyushu, Atayal, Philippines, Chinese, Hokkaido and Anyang) and Amerinds (Yaujos, Santa Cruz and Arikara) have the typical Mongoloid cranial pattern, but other Mongoloids such as Pacific groups (Easter Island, Mokapu, Guam and Moriori people), arctic groups (Eskimos and Buriats), Fuegians (Selk’nam, Ya´mana, Kawe´skar) and the Ainu differ from this by having "larger cranial dimensions over many variables".