The Indians were more like the inhabitants of Asia than of any other region. Great naturalist Alexander von Humboldt pointed to the true similarities - physical features - when he noted a striking analogy between the Americans and the Mongol race, meaning those people of East Asia whom the anthropologists term Mongoloids. Modern physical anthropology has confirmed Humboldt's analogies. Most of the traits they have in common are also found among the mongoloid people all the way from Siberia to Indonesia.
Their cheekbones are almost invariably wide, giving the eyes a somewhat elongated look. Perhaps the most striking similarity between Indians and East Asians is a curious trait called shovel incisor, in which the inner surfaces of the upper front teeth are concave, as though scooped out. Among both Indians and East Asians the incidence of this trait is 90% or more.
No scientist today doubts that American Indians are genetically most akin to the present people of East Asia.
The most obvious difference is as plain as the nose on Sitting Bull's face: the Indians" characteristic "hawk" nose. Although by no means universal among Indians, it is fairly common; by contrast it is virtually unknown among the East Asians, most of whom have conspicuously flat profiles. Further, while the Indian's eyes are often narrowed, they are almost never surrounded by the fleshy eyelids and the eyelid folds that give East Asian eyes their characteristic slanted appearance. The Indians, in short, must represent a distinctive and independent branch of Asian stock, one that migrated from Siberia at a time when modern East Asians had not yet evolved many of their special characteristics.
A 19th century Argentine professor turned up a skull that he claimed was one million years old-proving that Homo sapiens had actually originated in America (in Argentina, naturally). This and other notions, only somewhat less dubious, aroused a 20th century backlash, which led to the opinion that New World man was a relatively newcomer.
