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Negroid is a largely-archaic term used to describe one of the "three races of man", a view now mostly regarded as an over-simplification of the spectrum of human diversity. Negroids are the most genetically diverse of the historically defined races, including both the world's tallest ethnic group (African Tutsis) and the world's shortest ethnic group (African pygmies).

Definitions

• The Oxford English Dictionary defines negroid as an adjective relating to the division of humankind represented by the indigenous peoples of central and southern Africa. ..The term Negroid is associated with outdated notions of racial types; it is potentially offensive and best avoided.

• According to J. Phillipe Rushton the negroid race is a major racial division of mankind originating and predominating in sub-Saharan Africa. Skin pigmentation is dense, hair wooly, nose broad, face generally short, lips thick, and ears squarish and lobeless. Stature varies greatly, from pygmy to very tall. The most divergent group are the Khoisan (Bushman and Hottentot) peoples of Southern Africa

• According to philosophy professor Michael Levin:Ordinary speakers acquainted with the out-of-Africa scenario are most charitably construed as intending 'Negroid' to denote individuals whose ancestors 15 to 5000 generations ago (with Harris & Hey, 1999, counting a generation as 20 years) were sub-Saharan African...Hybrid populations with multiple lines of descent are to be characterized in just those terms: as of multiple descent. Thus, American Negroids are individuals most of whose ancestors from 15 to 5000 generations ago were sub- Saharan African. Specifying 'most' more precisely in a way that captures ordinary usage may not be possible. '> 50%' seems too low a threshold; my sense is that ordinary attributions of race begin to stabilize at 75%.

"Negroid" compared to "Black"

The term Negroid is a modified version of Negro which means black. As such, the terms Negroid and black are virtually synonymous. On Page 42 of the abridged version of "Race, Evolution, and Behavior" J. Phillipe Rushton states: "In both everyday life and evolutionary biology, a 'Black' is anyone most of whose ancestors were born in sub-Saharan Africa" while elsewhere Rushton writes "a Negroid is someone whose ancestors, between 4,000 and (to accommodate recent migrations) 20 generations ago, were born in sub-Saharan Africa.

The U.S. census race definitions say a black is a person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "Black, African Am., or Negro," or provide written entries such as African American, Afro American, Kenyan, Nigerian, or Haitian. The Census Bureau however claims that these classifications are socio-political constructs and should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature

A craniofacial category

Forensic anthropologists study the human skeleton in a legal setting, most often in criminal cases where the victim's remains are more or less skeletonized. A forensic anthropologist can also assist in the identification of deceased individuals whose remains are decomposed or otherwise unrecognizable. The adjective "forensic" refers to the application of this subfield of science to a court of law. Craniofacial anthropometry of a person's remains can help determine what the person looked like when alive. Also, due to the requirements of the U.S. judicial system, U.S. forensic practitioners are sometimes asked to classify remains into one of the U.S. socially-enforced endogamous groups: Black, White, or East Asian. In legal practice, these are sometimes termed, respectively, "Negroid," "Caucasoid," and "Mongoloid," or even the older "Caucasian," "Negro," and "Oriental." Nowadays, the terms "Black," "White," and "East Asian" are the more common usage.

"Caucasoids" are generalized to have the lowest degree of projection of the alveolar ridge bones which contain the teeth, a notable size prominence of the cranium and forehead region, and a projection of the midfacial region. "Negroid" traits are generalized to include more rounded eye sockets; broader, more rounded nasal cavity; a forward-slanting facial profile (prognathism); and a dolichocephalic skull (proportionally longer from front to back).

Challenges

Although it is categorization of a skull is clear given arbitrary parameters, it will not locate the owners geographic ancestry concretely all the time. While one's perception of an individual's race can be affected by cultural aspects, the "race" of his skull is less ambiguous. As Dr. Stan Rhine put it, "...it is clear that race does mean different things to different people. In the context of forensic anthropology, the term race is unambiguous." Although their craniofacial race based on skull indeces is unambiguous, it will not pin point their geographic origins accurately all the time due to variation in skulls within a geographic region. For example, racial categorization by craniofacial type will categorize some people from the Horn of Africa (notably Ethiopians, Eritreans, Djiboutians, and Somalis) as having "Caucasoid" skulls, althoughEthiopians,have caucasion features i;e nose,face,hair. Ethiopians, Eritreans, Djiboutians, and Somalis have silky smooth caucasoid hair. A region of the world historically defined as caucasoid. While this method produces useful results for the population of the United States, it is likely that it would not be reliable for populations from other countries. This is due to the fact that the United States has traditionally had groups whose ancestry came from geographically distant locations, and which have generally remained endogamous in this country, for social reasons. The craniofacial difference between Northern Europeans, West Africans, East Asians/Native Americans is quite pronounced and fall easily within the indeces used to determine race from skull type. As more immigrants from in between regions and as Americans become more racially mixed, such craniofacial identification is problematic.

Classification by craniofacial anthropometry does not necessarily coincide with genetic ancestry or social self-identification. For example, about one-third of so-called "White" Americans have detectable African DNA markers. And about five percent of so-called "Black" Americans have no detectable "Negroid" traits at all, neither craniofacial nor in their DNA. In short, given three Americans, one who self-identifies and is socially accepted as U.S. White, another one who self-identifies and is socially accepted as U.S. Black, and one who self-identifies and is socially accepted as U.S. Hispanic, and given that they have precisely the same Afro-European mix of ancestries (one "mulatto" grandparent), there is quite literally no objective test that will identify their U.S. endogamous group membership without an interview. In practice, the application of such forensic criteria ultimately comes down to whether the skull "looks Negroid," "Caucasoid," or "Mongoloid" in the eye of each U.S. forensic practitioner.

References

1. http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/negroid?view=uk
2. Race, Evolution, and Behavior by J. Phillipe Rushton, 1997, Transaction Publishers, pg 304
3. Levin M. The Race Concept: A Defense, Behavior and Philosophy, 30, 21-42 (2002)
5. Cite error: The named reference Rushton was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
7. http://medstat.med.utah.edu/kw/osteo/forensics/race.html.
8. The Online Companion to California Newsreel's 3 part documentary about race and society, science and history, "Race — The Power of an Illusion", Ask the Experts section
9. Heather E. Collins-Schramm and others, "Markers that Discriminate Between European and African Ancestry Show Limited Variation Within Africa," Human Genetics 111 (2002): 566-9; Mark D. Shriver and others, "Skin Pigmentation, Biogeographical Ancestry, and Admixture Mapping," Human Genetics 112 (2003): 387-99.
10. E.J. Parra and others, "Ancestral Proportions and Admixture Dynamics in Geographically Defined African Americans Living in South Carolina," American Journal of Physical Anthropology 114 (2001): 18-29, Figure 1.
11. Carol Channing, Just Lucky I Guess: A Memoir of Sorts (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002); Gregory Howard Williams, Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy who Discovered he was Black (New York: Dutton, 1995)

• Race (historical definitions)