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Why do Asians and Westerners look different?
Source: Women's Generation (Black Mushroom)
1. The "compactness" of facial features.
First of all, as for why facial features are small,
it is said that Mongoloids are the race that evolved to be most suited for the cold.
When it's extremely cold, if there are many parts protruding from the body,
heat is lost easily,
so the extremities (ears, nose, fingers, toes, etc.) become smaller.
By the same principle, polar bears have huge bodies, but their eyes, nose, and mouth
are relatively more compact than those of animals living in hot regions.
"Wait? Then why do Northern European whites have big noses?"
You might wonder...
The answer is very simple.
It's said that those folks haven't lived in those cold regions for very long.
This is the expansion route of the Indo-European language family in Europe.
Based on this,
the homeland of whites is estimated to be around Eastern Anatolia, the Caucasus, and the Steppes.
This is a map from the last ice age.
Mongoloids are seen to have moved eastward, pushing through those cold regions... in other words, taking the cold head-on,
while
Caucasoids held out in the red square area, which was relatively livable,
and then moved westward as the Earth warmed up.
For reference, regarding human-level body hair,
it's said that it doesn't help much with the cold and actually makes it easier to lose heat. lol
It's said that not having it, like Asians, is actually better.
You can see this by looking at the Inuit who live in extreme cold.
Especially regarding the eyes unique to Asians,
as mentioned before, Mongoloids moved east through cold regions.
What is there a lot of in cold regions?
Lots of snow,
and the UV reflection rate of snowfields
means the amount of UV rays hitting the human eye is more than double.
For that reason, the theory that eyes became smaller is quite persuasive.
If you spend a long time in the snow, your skin gets burned like this.
That's why people climbing Mt. Everest wear goggles to protect their eyes.
It's not for fashion.
Anyway, because of this adaptation to the cold, Asians'
facial features became smaller,
and even the "important parts" became relatively smaller......
In fact, it's said that Asians are relatively more resistant to frostbite compared to other races.
2. Skeletal differences between East and West
Unlike facial features, this part
isn't exactly the mainstream academic theory,
but more of a "could it be this??" kind of theory,
though it's quite persuasive.
I'll explain it in an easy-to-understand way.
Human skeletons evolved like this.
Number 6 is modern humans.
The brain grew larger and the snout became shorter,
and if you compare this to animals...
it's like this.
They are round when young,
but they get elongated as they grow. lol
If you look at chimpanzees, who are close to humans,
it's like this.
Round when young, elongated when grown.
Looking again at the skeleton according to the human evolution process...
You can think of it like this.
1. Animals' appearance changes as they grow.
2. Humans were the same.
3. Humans evolved toward larger brains and receding snouts.
4. And they evolved in a direction to retain their childhood appearance for longer.
(Refer to the chimpanzee photo)
This evolution toward maintaining the appearance of childhood
is called "neoteny," or "juvenile maturation" in Korean,
(If you want to know more, you can search for this keyword)
and the race at the forefront of this evolutionary direction
is the Mongoloid.
Brachycephalic (short-headed) vs. Dolichocephalic (long-headed) skull shapes.
Moving away from an aesthetic perspective,
if we use the criterion of whether the face shape is similar to when they were babies,
you can see that Mongoloid skull shapes are more similar to those of infants.
Originally, this is a drawing mocking the difference between manga and real Asian faces,
but please focus on which side retains the baby-like skull shape more.
For reference, even Westerners
have relatively brachycephalic skull shapes when they are babies.
The same goes for body type.
Moving to the right is the adult body type,
but since Asians are leading the trend of neoteny in human evolution,
even their body type, after growing to a certain point,
doesn't proceed to the next stage, resulting in shorter limbs compared to Westerners.
(Again, this is just a theory, so just view it as "there is such a perspective.")
To summarize again:
1. Animals' appearance changes as they grow.
2. Humans were the same.
3. Humans evolved toward larger brains and receding snouts.
4. And they evolved in a direction to retain their childhood appearance for longer.
In this context,
Mongoloids are number one in this evolutionary direction.
In other words,
Mongoloids
are the race that retains their childhood appearance the longest.
(That's why the head is larger and the limbs are shorter.)
It might seem like a disadvantage for sports... and like there are only downsides,
but there is a plus side.
From this perspective,
this "baby face,"
or this "youthful look,"
which seems like a "cheat code" to Westerners,
the youthful appearance of Mongoloids is easily explained.
Because they evolved to retain the appearance of childhood,
although the head is relatively larger and limbs are shorter,
their appearance becomes an extreme "baby face" compared to other races.
Just to add, so there's no misunderstanding:
This doesn't mean Mongoloids are the most "advanced."
It just means they are specialized in this particular direction.
Just remember that a sloth isn't the most advanced because it moves slowly.
Evolution is often just a result of things happening as they go,
so it doesn't mean Mongoloids are the "best" race.
That's all.
Source: https://cafe.daum.net/subdued20club/ReHf/5659151