Have races or ethnically distinct populations that exhibit non-Amerindian characteristics been revealed in ancient Mesoamerican art?
For us the answer to this question is unequivocally “Yes!” Of course, there is no demonstrated direct connection between most features of human beings’ external appearance and specific DNA; nevertheless, if we see striking differences in appearance (phenotype) of a population, we can plausibly expect differences in genetic makeup (genotype). The concept that all American Indians formed a monolithic “race” whose ancestors came from northern Asia was made a part of early 20th-century physical anthropology by one of the field’s first leaders, Ales Hrdlicka. He claimed that if “some members of the Asiatic groups and the average [sic] American Indians were to be transplanted and body and hair dressed like those of the other tribe, they could not possibly be distinguished physically by an observer.”90 That extreme view is no longer held, yet intellectual inertia seems to prevent many anthropologists from acknowledging that substantial variation exists among so-called Native Americans. Nowher
