Why do Asians look Asian?

[Al B. Sure!]

Scientists seem to agree that racial differences are the result of the environment of groups of people. The more south a people is, the darker they will be due to the warmer climate and all that.

But what about the dozens of other racial differences that don't seem to make sense? Why would East Asians have muscle folds at their eyes? What purpose would that serve?

Why are Scandinavians generally tall and thin when a short and stocky body is the ideal for cold climates? Why would Mediterrenean people (and Indians) have long, thin noses when short wide noses are considered the best for warmer temperatures (ie- most Africans having such noses)?

So whats up with that?


thanks

[DinoDoc]

Perhaps they look Asian because they actually are Asian?

[Gangerolf]

people have been moving around alot, so evolution hasn't kicked in everywhere yet

[Ned]

Re: Why do Asians look Asian?

Originally posted by Albert Speer
Scientists seem to agree that racial differences are the result of the environment of groups of people. The more south a people is, the darker they will be due to the warmer climate and all that.

But what about the dozens of other racial differences that don't seem to make sense? Why would East Asians have muscle folds at their eyes? What purpose would that serve?

Why are Scandinavians generally tall and thin when a short and stocky body is the ideal for cold climates? Why would Mediterrenean people (and Indians) have long, thin noses when short wide noses are considered the best for warmer temperatures (ie- most Africans having such noses)?

So whats up with that?


thanks

They moved from other climes.

[Bosh]

Its partially because of bottlenecks. Often an area is colonized by a very small group of people or everyone in an area is whiped out except for a small group so any strange genes that that group has becomes common over a large area and can even be introduced due to genetic drift.
There's also sexual selection, if a trait becomes culturally-valued as attractive it can do quite well...

[Dinner]

I would think the group just hasn't been in a proticular geographic area long enough to have natural selection select for certain groups. For instance the current inhabitants of southern and south east asia are considerably lighter skinned then the Negritos (relatives of Australian aborigonese) who originally inhabited the area. Yet they've only been there for a few tens of thousands of years so they're skin color hasn't really adapted. Scandanavians are part of the "south German" language group and they too are relatively new to their area.

[lord of the mark]

iiuc the muscle folds are related to improved vision in areas of high sunlight reflected off snow - modern east asians being descended in large part from migrants from Siberia - but dont take this as gospel.

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by Boshko
Its partially because of bottlenecks. Often an area is colonized by a very small group of people

isn't that thought to be the case with native americans?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I would think the group just hasn't been in a proticular geographic area long enough to have natural selection select for certain groups. For instance the current inhabitants of southern and south east asia are considerably lighter skinned then the Negritos (relatives of Australian aborigonese) who originally inhabited the area. Yet they've only been there for a few tens of thousands of years so they're skin color hasn't really adapted. Scandanavians are part of the "south German" language group and they too are relatively new to their area.

well yeah but most scandinavians look no different from Finns, right, who speak a pre-indo european language. so i presume most scandinavians are descended from the pre-germanic inhabitants - if anything the germanics brought in darker features

[Gangerolf]

Scandanavians are part of the "south German" language group and they too are relatively new to their area.

"North Germanic". And yes, IIRC Scandinavia was covered in ice until 10 000 years ago .

[Dinner]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
well yeah but most scandinavians look no different from Finns, right, who speak a pre-indo european language. so i presume most scandinavians are descended from the pre-germanic inhabitants - if anything the germanics brought in darker features

Actually Finns are related to Hungarians so I suspect they arrived about the same time. Which would make them one of the last modern European groups to reach Europe.

The only group I know to predate the arrive of the Indo-European group is the Basques. I've also heard people say the Picts were related to Basques but the Picts have been extinct for close to 2k years so I guess we'll never know.

[Ned]

Actually, geneticists, using DNA analysis, have traced the origin of the Chinese to Africa. The Chinese and African gene-pools are the most diverse on the planet, indicating extreme age. This suggested two possiblities: the Chinese are a separate but just as old population. Or they came from Africa in relative recent times.

Well they discovered that they did come out of Africa by tracing their migration. However, I do not recall ho long ago this was.

[Al B. Sure!]

So Scandinavians do not have the body type you would expect of people living in cold climates because they migrated there recently?

So Arabs, Italians, Greeks, Spanish, Indians, etc. also migrated recently hence their thin long noses instead of wide ones? i dont think that's true either

[ranskaldan]

Re: Why do Asians look Asian?

Originally posted by Albert Speer
But what about the dozens of other racial differences that don't seem to make sense? Why would East Asians have muscle folds at their eyes? What purpose would that serve?

Because we want to, er, strike fear into the hearts of our enemies.

No, seriously, here's a link that seems to consider it a case of neoteny (sp)? Yes I copied that term from the "I was wondering" thread - it means a holdover of an infantile feature:

http://www.gpnotebook.co.uk/cache/-1422589947.htm

and this site seems to explain everything:

http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/Courses/SE302/humanmorpohvar.html

[Dinner]

Where do you get the stuff on noses? What could noses possibly have to do with anything?