Negroid

Skull of the classic "Negroid" phenotype

Negroid is an anthropological term describing the racial classification of humans indigenous to Africa, where they predominate in most regions of the continent, save for portions of North Africa. The term applies to one of a varying number of races defined by various racial theories, and is used along with Caucasoid and Mongoloid. The word itself is derived from Negro, which in turn originally derives from the Template:Ll/Template:Ll word, meaning black in color.

Negroid also has been used to describe a combination of human physical features that often include a broad nose, curly hair, and dark skin pigmentation. The facio-cranial characteristics of the classic Negroid phenotype include rounded eye sockets, a rounded nasal cavity, maxillary and/or alveolar prognathism and, often, a dolichocephalic skull.

There are other Negroid peoples, however, such as some Nilotic, Cushitic, manyPolynesians, Melaneasian, Micronesian peoples, who have relatively straight hair or narrower features who are also considered Negroid.

The term Negroid lately has met with some criticism because of an association with historical sociological and anthropological theories now often considered racist. Additionally, it is derived from Negro, a term many consider pejorative or passé because of an association with the trans-Atlantic slave trade and white subjugation. Alternatively, Africoid is being used in some quarters, most notably among blacks themselves. The term is considered by them devoid of the negative associations of Negroid and, like the two other terms commonly used to describe racial groupings, connects the population it describes to biogeographic ancestry.

Caucasoid and Mongoloid are still used, generally without challenge, to describe in the case of the former a set of features associated with European, Middle-Eastern, South Asian peoples, and in the case of the latter, most non-South Asian peoples. Another word that has occasionally been used instead of Negroid is Congoid. Nonetheless, Negroid is the commonly used term in scientific literature.[1]

See also