Barrinean Phenotype - Face Features & Origin

Average Face

Averaging the portraits behind Barrinean leaves the features that repeat and erases the ones that do not. That is exactly how the Barrinean composite below was built: individual photographs were aligned and statistically merged, exaggerating shared structure into a single reference face that no actual person looks like.

Composite source: Human Phenotypes — Barrinean

Geographic Distribution

The reference center for Barrinean sits near 17.3° S, 145.6° E in Australia. Around that anchor, prevalence falls off gradually — the type is not confined to one valley or one modern border, and the historical map should be read as a gradient rather than a boundary.

Physical Characteristics

Dark brown skin with curly or tight-curly brown-black hair.

• Short, brachyskelic sometimes mesoskelic, endomorph
• Dolichocephalic, smaller-headed than neighbouring types
• Nose (hyper-)platyrrhine with a very depressed root, often concave
• Faces shorter than in the taller types, eyes deep-set, chin short
• Body hair relatively weak

Historical Background

Australid subtype of the forest belt associated with the Australian pygmies. Could be the remnant of an ancient Negrito strain that once occupied large parts of Australia, or alternatively the result of a process of reduction. Shows similarities to Tasmanids as well. Practically extinct today. Around 1900, a few Barrineans still survived in the jungles of Queensland. For millennia they had been pushed back by Carpentarians, later by European colonists.

Research History & Naming

The passage below traces who first defined Barrinean, which rival names competed with it, and how later authors consolidated or disputed the classification — the raw material of any serious phenotype reference.

Identified by Tindale and Birdsell (1941) during their expedition to Queensland. Later used as Tasmanoid / Barrinean ( Hooton, 1946 ; Birdsell, 1949 ; Cole, 1965 ) or Australo-Pygmid ( Drexel, 1955 ). Detailed summary on the resarch by Windschuttle and Gillin (2002) .

Comparison With Nearby Phenotypes

The five phenotypes whose documented centers lie closest to Barrinean, ranked by great-circle distance. They are the types players most often confuse with Barrinean in the quiz, precisely because their distributions overlap.

Barrinean in the Game

Barrinean is one of the faces that can appear in Classic Daily and Challenge Mode. When it does, the winning pin lands near 17.3° S, 145.6° E in Australia — and because the scoring decays with distance, recognizing the region matters more than pixel-perfect placement.

Barrinean Phenotype FAQ

Where does the Barrinean phenotype come from?

The reference coordinates for the Barrinean phenotype sit near 17.3° S, 145.6° E, in Australia. That point marks the center of the Australia distribution documented roughly 1500 years ago — actual prevalence spread well beyond it, toward entries such as North Australid 546 km away, and modern migration has blurred those boundaries further.

What does the Barrinean phenotype look like?

In the historical literature, dark brown skin with curly or tight-curly brown-black hair. For Barrinean these are statistical tendencies across a population, not a checklist every individual matches.

Is the Barrinean phenotype a race or a nationality?

No — and the Barrinean naming history above shows why. Barrinean was defined, renamed, and regrouped repeatedly by different researchers, which is the opposite of how a fixed racial category would behave. A phenotype is a recurring bundle of visible traits recorded across a population; the Barrinean label says nothing about where any individual's ancestors were born.

How does Barrinean appear in the game?

In Classic Daily and Challenge Mode, the Barrinean composite face appears without a label. Your task is to drop a pin on the world map where you think that face is historically most common — the scoring uses the distance between your pin and the reference coordinates near 17.3° S, 145.6° E. The post-round review then shows the correct location, your distance error, and this Barrinean entry.

References & Literature

The Barrinean phenotype entry above is compiled from the 6 academic references. Readers are encouraged to consult the original Barrinean sources for verification and deeper context.

• Tindale, N. B. and B. Birdsell. 1941. Tasmanoid Tribes in North Queensland. Records of the South Australian Museum 7, 1. 1-9.
• Hooton, E.A. 1946. Up from the Ape. Rev. ed. Macmillan Company . New York.
• Birdsell, J. B. 1949. The Racial Origin of the Extinct Tasmanians. Rec. Q. Victoria Mus., Launceston 2,3. 105-122.
• Cole, S. 1965. Races of Man. Butler & Tanner Ltd. Frome and London.
• Drexel, A. 1955. Die Völker der Erde. 2nd Ed. Akademie Verlag. Zürich.
• Windschuttle K. and Gillin, T. 2002. The extinction of the Australian pygmies. Qadrant, June 2002.

Related Phenotypes

Other human phenotypes whose documented centers lie in the same part of the map as Barrinean.

• North Australid

  Australia · 546 km away

  Australid type of Northern and Central Australia typical for the Gulf of Carpentaria. Shows some similarities to Paleo Melanesids. By some a...

• Brachio Melanesid

  Melanesia · 1,067 km away

  Atypical brachycephalic Melanesid variety native to Melanesia and New Guinea. In its most pronounced form in the Kerewo of Goaribari Island ...

• Neo Melanesid

  Melanesia · 1,223 km away

  Melanesid subtype of New Guinea. Found especially in lowlands and river plains, with its highest concentration in the south of the island. M...

• Mountain Melanesid

  Melanesia · 1,243 km away

  Melanesian mountain variety, relatively ancient with similarities to Paleo Melanesid. Found mainly among New Guinean highlanders like Dani, ...

• Tapirid

  Melanesia · 1,362 km away

  Pygmy Melanesian type. In difference to many other Pygmies, it shares a common history with its taller neighbours and probably represents a ...

Further Reading

Background articles from the blog that explain where the Barrinean type fits, how these composites are built, and what a face can and cannot tell you.

• Human Phenotypes: A Field Guide to the 209 Types

  Nordid, Huanghoid, Bantuid, Andid - the named human phenotypes are a century-old vocabulary for visible variation.

• What Ethnicity Am I? Three Ways to Actually Answer It

  The question is personal, but the answers arrive from three different places: records, DNA, and appearance. Each can tell you something...