Proto-Mongoloid is an outdated racial classification of human beings based on a now-disproven theory of biological race. In

anthropological Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

theories of the 19th and 20th centuries, proto-Mongoloids were seen as the ancestors of the Mongoloid race. Notable examples of fossils that were formerly thought to belong to the proto-Mongoloid group are found in

Late Pleistocene The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as Upper Pleistocene from a stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division of the Pleistocene Epoch within ...

(

Upper Paleolithic The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories coi ...

) fossils, notably the Minatogawa skeletons and the Liujiang crania.Matt Cartmill, Fred H. Smith, ''The Human Lineage'', John Wiley & Sons (2009)
p. 449
The

Jōmon people is the generic name of several peoples who lived in the Japanese archipelago during the Jōmon period (). The Jōmon people may have consisted of multiple groups, which arrived and merged at different times in the Japanese archipelago, using multi ...

of Japan, Southeast Asians,

Pacific islanders Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the Pacific Islands. As an ethnic/ racial term, it is used to describe the original peoples—inhabitants and diasporas—of any of the three major subregions of Oce ...

, and Native Americans were thought to be most closely related to the proto-Mongoloid group.

Morphological characteristics

While the Jōmon are relatively short, and have finely chiseled features, most times double

eyelid An eyelid is a thin fold of skin that covers and protects an eye. The levator palpebrae superioris muscle retracts the eyelid, exposing the cornea to the outside, giving vision. This can be either voluntarily or involuntarily. The human eyel ...

s, much

body hair Body hair, or androgenic hair, is the terminal hair that develops on the human body during and after puberty. It is differentiated from the head hair and less visible vellus hair, which is much finer and lighter in color. The growth of andr ...

and often wavy hair which resemble pseudo-Caucasoid traits, the Proto-Mongoloids were often described as "straight-haired type, medium in complexion, jaw protrusion, nose-breadth, and inclining probably to round-headedness". Professor of anthropology, at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies,

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ...

, said that there were Neo-Mongoloids and Paleo-Mongoloids. Akazawa said Neo-Mongoloids have "extreme Mongoloid, cold-adapted features" and they included the Chinese,

Buryats The Buryats ( bua, Буряад, Buryaad; mn, Буриад, Buriad) are a Mongolic ethnic group native to southeastern Siberia who speak the Buryat language. They are one of the two largest indigenous groups in Siberia, the other being the Ya ...

Eskimo Eskimo () is an exonym used to refer to two closely related Indigenous peoples: the Inuit (including the Alaska Native Iñupiat, the Greenlandic Inuit, and the Canadian Inuit) and the Yupik (or Yuit) of eastern Siberia and Alaska. A related thi ...

and Chukchi. In contrast, Akazawa said Paleo-Mongoloids are less cold-adapted. He said

Burmese Burmese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Myanmar, a country in Southeast Asia * Burmese people * Burmese language * Burmese alphabet * Burmese cuisine * Burmese culture Animals * Burmese cat * Burmese chicken * Burmese (hor ...

Filipinos Filipinos ( tl, Mga Pilipino) are the people who are citizens of or native to the Philippines. The majority of Filipinos today come from various Austronesian ethnolinguistic groups, all typically speaking either Filipino, English and/or oth ...

Polynesians Polynesians form an ethnolinguistic group of closely related people who are native to Polynesia (islands in the Polynesian Triangle), an expansive region of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. They trace their early prehistoric origins to Island Sou ...

, Jōmon and the

indigenous peoples of the Americas The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples. Many Indigenous peoples of the A ...

were Paleo-Mongoloid.Takeru Akazawa and Emóke J.E. Sathmåry. Prehistoric Mongoloid dispersals. New York, Oxford University Press, 1996.

References

{{reflist Indigenous peoples of East Asia Peopling of East Asia Peopling of Southeast Asia Archaeogenetic lineages