Montagu said that "The Mongoloid skull has proceeded further than in any other people."
[5] "The Mongoloid skull generally, whether Chinese or Japanese, has been rather more neotenized than the Caucasoid or European..."
[5] "The female skull, it will be noted, is more pedomorphic in all human populations than the male skull."
[5]
Montagu further observed that "the skeleton of the classic Mongoloid type is very delicately made, even down to the character of the
sutures of the skull which, like those of the infant skull, are relatively smooth and untortuous. In fact the Mongoloid presents so many physical traits which are associated with the late fetus or young infant that he has been called a fetalized, infantilized or pedomorphic type. Those who have carefully observed young babies may recall that the root of the nose is frequently flat or low as in Mongoloids, and that an internal
epicanthic fold in such instances is usually present. The smaller number of individual head hairs and the marked hairlessness of the remainder of the body are infantile traits, as are likewise the small
mastoid processes, the shallow
fossa into which the
jawbone fits (the
mandibular fossa), the rather stocky build, the large
brain-pan and brain, lack of
brow ridges, and quite a number of other characters."
[59]
Richard Grossinger wrote that
"The intuition that advanced human development was pedomorphic rather than recapitulationary and accelerated was disturbing to many Eurocentric nineteenth century anthropologists."[60] "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."[60]
Stephen Oppenheimer said, "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 pedomorphy. 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
retroussé [turned up at the end] nose and relative loss of facial hair got into the package."
[61] "[D]ecrease unnecessary muscle bulk, less tooth mass, thinner bones and smaller physical size; ...this follows the selective adaptive model of Mongoloid evolution."
[61]
Paul Storm said that Asia contained humans with "generalized" cranial morphology, but between 20,000
BP and 12,000 BP this generalized type disappeared as a new type emerged. This new type had a flatter face with more pronounced cheekbones, a more rounded head, reduced
sexual dimorphism (male skulls started to resemble female skulls), a reduction of supestructures such as the
supraorbital region and an increased "retention of juvenile characters". Storm said that this new type of skull that emerged is called the "Proto-Sunda" (Proto-Mongoloid) type, and it is distinguished from the "Sunda" (Mongoloid) type by being more "
robust". Storm said that the "Mongoloid" or "Asian" type of skull developed relatively fast during a
population bottleneck in Asia that happened during the
Late Pleistocene or
Early Holocene through a
microevolutionary trend that involved a "continuation of neoteny and
gracilisation trends". Due to different courses of evolution, Storm said that these two types of skulls, the "Sunda" (Mongoloid) type and the "Sahul" (Australoid) type, are now clearly recognizable at the present time.
[62]
Andrew Arthur Abbie, an anatomist and anthropologist at the
University of Adelaide,
[63] talked about leg-to-torso length being related to neoteny. Abbie said that women normally have shorter legs than men, and he said that shorter legs are the normal condition in some ethnic groups such as Mongoloids. Abbie said that
Mongoloids, of whom he listed the people of "China, Japan and the Americas", have proportionately larger heads and shorter legs than Europeans, and he said this is a case of "paedomorphism". Abbie said that aboriginal Australians and some African ethnic groups such as the "Negro", the "Hottentot" and the "Nubian" peoples have proportionately longer legs than Europeans, and he said this is a case of "gerontomorphism". Abbie said that ethnic groups with proportionately shorter legs than Europeans are relatively "paedomorphic" in terms of leg-to-torso ratios when compared to Europeans, and he said that ethnic groups with proportionately longer legs than Europeans are relatively "gerontomorphic" in terms of leg-to-torso ratios when compared to Europeans.
[64]
