Keralid Phenotype - Face Features & Origin
Indid subtype, with a position intermediate between North Indid and Gracile Indid, mainly found in the plains of Malabar. Its reference coordinates sit near 10.4° N, 76.5° E in South Asia. Rather than a single portrait, the Keralid composite below is a statistical average, and the surrounding sections — traits, distribution, research history, references — give that average its context.
Average Face
What you see below is a statistical construction of the Keralid reference population. Faces recorded from the Keralid sample were overlaid and merged; the result keeps the features most members shared and discards personal variation. It reads like a Keralid portrait, but it works like a histogram.
Composite source: Human Phenotypes — Keralid
Geographic Distribution
The reference center for Keralid sits near 10.4° N, 76.5° E in South Asia. 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
Medium brown skin, strait or wavy hair.
- Rather short, mesoskelic, ectomorph
- Dolicho-mesocephalic, mildly hypsicranic
- Mildly leptorrhine, prominent, straight, and long nose
- Overall coarse, angular facial features, but gracile bodies
- Faces are long with the lower face appearing short, especially in women
Historical Background
Indid subtype, with a position intermediate between North Indid and Gracile Indid, mainly found in the plains of Malabar. Typical for Tiyer / Ezhava, Mukkaver, Kammalan, Nairs, and similar medium ranked castes of Kerala. The special features of this type have usually not been regarded as a result of mixture, but as a local variety.
Research History & Naming
Every label in the historical catalogue has an author and a date, and Keralid has accumulated its share of competing attributions. For Keralid, the literature extract below shows the naming chain — from the first definition through the later revisions that shaped the current entry.
Eickstedt ( 1929 , 1934 , 1937 ) identified this variety after he had traveled India for three years and measured thousands of individuals, he placed it between North and Gracile Indid. Usually part of Gracile Indid ( Bernhard, 1983 ) or Peninsular Indid ( Biasutti, 1967 ).
Comparison With Nearby Phenotypes
The five phenotypes whose documented centers lie closest to Keralid, ranked by great-circle distance. They are the types players most often confuse with Keralid in the quiz, precisely because their distributions overlap.
| Phenotype | Region | Distance | Distinguishing trait |
|---|---|---|---|
| Malabarese | South Asia | 50 km | Dark brown skin, black, often wavy hair. |
| Malid | South Asia | 63 km | Brown-blackish skin, curly, sometimes wavy hair. |
| Toda | South Asia | 120 km | Medium brown skin, usually wavy black hair. |
| Karnatid | South Asia | 254 km | Dark brown skin, darker than Veddids, except for Malids. |
| Sinhalesid | South Asia | 567 km | Brown skin that variety from light to very dark brown, straight or wavy hair. |
Keralid in the Game
Keralid is one of the faces that can appear in Classic Daily and Challenge Mode. When it does, the winning pin lands near 10.4° N, 76.5° E in South Asia — and because the scoring decays with distance, recognizing the region matters more than pixel-perfect placement.
Keralid Phenotype FAQ
- Where does the Keralid phenotype come from?
- The reference coordinates for the Keralid phenotype sit near 10.4° N, 76.5° E, in South Asia. That point marks the center of the South Asia distribution documented roughly 1500 years ago — actual prevalence spread well beyond it, toward entries such as Malabarese 50 km away, and modern migration has blurred those boundaries further.
- What does the Keralid phenotype look like?
- In the historical literature, medium brown skin, strait or wavy hair. For Keralid these are statistical tendencies across a population, not a checklist every individual matches.
- Is the Keralid phenotype a race or a nationality?
- No — and the Keralid naming history above shows why. Keralid 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 Keralid label says nothing about where any individual's ancestors were born.
- How does Keralid appear in the game?
- In Classic Daily and Challenge Mode, the Keralid 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 10.4° N, 76.5° E. The post-round review then shows the correct location, your distance error, and this Keralid entry.
References & Literature
Primary sources for the Keralid entry, listed as cited in the historical literature. The naming and classification debates around Keralid referenced above run through these works.
- Eickstedt, E. von. 1929. Anthropologische Forschungen in Südindien . In: Anthropologischer Anzeiger (6), 64-85.
- Eickstedt, E. von. 1934. Rassenkunde und Rassengeschichte der Menschheit. Ferdinand Enke. Stuttgart.
- Eickstedt, E. von. 1937. Geschichte der anthropologischen Namengebung und Klassifikation. In: Zeitschrift für Rassenkunde. Band 5, 209-282, Band 6, 36-96, 151-210.
- Bernhard, W. 1983. Ethnogenesis of South Asia with special reference to India. Anthropologischer Anzeiger 41, 2, 93-110.
- Biasutti, R. 1967 (1941). Le Razze e i Popoli della terra. 4th Ed. Vol 1-4. U.T.E.T., Torino.
Related Phenotypes
More entries from the same region of the historical map as Keralid, each with its own composite and trait profile.
Malabarese
South Asia · 50 km away
Indid-Veddid influenced type of Southwestern India, found in its most typical form in Kerala, e.g. in Malabarese and related people. Common ...
Malid
South Asia · 63 km away
Very ancient phenotype native to the mountains of South India, common in isolated groups of Kanikkaran, Kadar, and Paniya. Mixed with Melani...
Toda
South Asia · 120 km away
Indid subtype, native to the Nilgiri Hills of Southern India. Shows morphological affinities with North Indids and has sometimes been includ...
Karnatid
South Asia · 254 km away
South Indian type, found in its purest form in Tamil Nadu and Northern Sri Lanka, called Melanid according to its dark skin tone (melanin). ...
Sinhalesid
South Asia · 567 km away
Indid subtype, similar to Gracile Indid, mainly found in South-West and Central Sri Lanka. Typical for Sinhalese and related people. This ty...
Further Reading
Background articles from the blog that explain where the Keralid type fits, how these composites are built, and what a face can and cannot tell you.
Guess My Ethnicity: What One Guess Can Carry
When someone types guess my ethnicity, they are asking a stranger to place a bet, and the odds depend far more on the list of labels...
Geography Games Like GeoGuessr: Six Kinds of Clue
Street panoramas, country outlines and average faces all answer one question. Here are six geography games sorted by the clue they hand...