Shanid Phenotype - Face Features & Origin

Average Face

The Shanid composite below is not a photograph of a real person. Historical anthropologists aligned multiple individual portraits from the Shanid reference population and averaged them into one image, so recurring structures — skull outline, nose form, lip thickness, brow position — dominate while individual idiosyncrasies cancel out.

Composite source: Human Phenotypes — Shanid

Geographic Distribution

Shanid is documented across Southeast Asia, with its historical reference center near 20.8° N, 97.0° E. The coordinates mark where the type was most characteristic roughly 1500 years ago; population movements since then have scattered and blended the distribution far beyond that point.

Physical Characteristics

Yellowish light to medium brown skin with straight, sometimes wavy hair.

• Rather short, macro- mesoskelic, ectomorph
• Brachycephalic, hypsicranic
• Mildly leptorrhine
• Face is not as flat as in Sinid and more elongated than in Palaungid, but still round, features are more refined and gracile, skin slightly darker
• Mongolian fold common

Historical Background

Sinoid South Mongolid type, typical in the (Irrawaddy) plains and the Shan Plateau of Myanmar. The name derives from the Shan people, who migrated south from Yunnan in historic times and formed a powerful empire, soon outnumbering Palaungids and Veddoids. However, modern Shan are more mixed. Today most common in Burmese, but also in the hills of Yunnan, Southern China, and even Tibet (especially in the priest caste).

Research History & Naming

Typological names were coined, contested, and renamed repeatedly across the 20th century, and Shanid is no exception. The extract below records the researchers who defined Shanid, the alternative labels it accumulated, and where the modern consensus settled.

Eickstedt ( 1928 , 1944 ) defined the type during his expeditions in South Asia, this was kept later (e.g. Heberer et al., 1969 ) The proper Shanid variety can be separated from a eastern one ( Eickstedt, 1937 ). Lundman (1967) included it in Malaid. Biasutti (1967) called it "Birmana", Hooton (1946) in Malay-Mongolid, Montandon (1933) Tibetan-Sino-Indochinese.

Comparison With Nearby Phenotypes

Ranked by great-circle distance from Shanid's reference center, these are the five nearest documented phenotypes — the closest being Palaungid at 129 km. Overlapping distributions like these are exactly what makes the quiz hard, and the Palaungid row is where to start looking.

Shanid in the Game

When the Shanid composite shows up in the quiz, players who know the Southeast Asia distribution pattern have the edge. The reference answer sits near 20.8° N, 97.0° E; pins on the wrong continent score close to zero, so even a rough regional instinct beats a precise but misdirected pin.

Shanid Phenotype FAQ

Where does the Shanid phenotype come from?

Historical sources center the Shanid phenotype on 20.8° N, 97.0° E (Southeast Asia). Treat that as a rough anchor: the type appeared across a wider surrounding area — its nearest documented neighbors, Palaungid and East Shanid, sit 129 and 298 km from the reference point — and its present-day distribution no longer matches the historical map.

What does the Shanid phenotype look like?

The composite emphasizes recurring traits: yellowish light to medium brown skin with straight, sometimes wavy hair. The full trait list for Shanid appears in the physical characteristics section above.

Is the Shanid phenotype a race or a nationality?

No. A phenotype is a recurring bundle of visible traits documented by historical anthropologists across a population — for Shanid, patterns such as yellowish light to medium brown skin with straight, sometimes wavy hair. The Shanid entry is not a genetic ancestry, not a nationality, and not a statement about any individual person. Two people from the same country can match completely different phenotypes — one resembling Shanid, another closer to Palaungid — and one phenotype can span many modern borders.

How does Shanid appear in the game?

When the Shanid face comes up in Classic Daily or Challenge Mode, you pin the world map where you believe the type is historically most common, and the score decays with your distance to 20.8° N, 97.0° E. Fair warning: the nearest other entry in our dataset, Palaungid, sits just 129 km away, so this face rewards precise placement — the right country alone is not always enough.

References & Literature

Every claim on this page traces back to the sources below — the researchers who defined, measured, and argued over the Shanid type. The originals behind the Shanid entry are worth consulting directly.

• Eickstedt, E. von. 1928. Das Rassenbild des westlichen und zentralen Hinterindien. In: Anthropologischer Anzeiger (5), 176-187.
• Eickstedt, E. von. 1944. Rassendynamik von Ostasien. Walter de Gruyter. Berlin.
• Heberer, G., G. Kurth and I. Schwidetzky. 1969. Anthropologie. Das Fischer Lexikon.
• Eickstedt, E. von. 1937. Geschichte der anthropologischen Namengebung und Klassifikation. In: Zeitschrift für Rassenkunde. Band 5, 209-282, Band 6, 36-96, 151-210.
• Lundman, B. 1967. Geographische Anthropologie. Rassen und Völker der Erde. G. Fischer, Stuttgart
• Biasutti, R. 1967 (1941). Le Razze e i Popoli della terra. 4th Ed. Vol 1-4. U.T.E.T., Torino.
• Hooton, E.A. 1946. Up from the Ape. Rev. ed. Macmillan Company . New York.
• Montandon, G. 1933. La race, les races: mise au point d éthnologie somatique. Payot. Paris.

Related Phenotypes

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

• Palaungid

  Southeast Asia · 129 km away

  The proper Palaungid variety, typical for the Central Burmese hill tribes, also in Yunnan, Himalaya, South Tibet, Thailand, and parts of Ind...

• East Shanid

  Southeast Asia · 298 km away

  Eastern variety of Shanid, weakly influenced by Veddid. Typical for the plains and river valleys of Indochina, especially from North Thailan...

• Kachinid

  Southeast Asia · 584 km away

  Robust Proto Malayid subtype that probably originated in the Tibet/China border region and spread southwards some millennia ago. Named after...

• South Palaungid

  Southeast Asia · 666 km away

  Southern Palaungid variety, weakly influenced by Veddid. Typical for the hill tribes of Thailand, Laos, and parts of Vietnam. Occasionally i...

• East Palaungid

  Southeast Asia · 691 km away

  Eastern Palaungid variety, found in the hills of South China. Shows stronger Sinoid tendencies. Common along the China-Myanmar /-Vietnam bor...

Further Reading

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

• Ethnicity Guesser Game: How the Answer Space Shapes a Round

  A face-mapping game scores an answer three ways: a point on the map, a named catalogue entry, or a modern country.

• Ethnicity Guesser AI: Two Model Families, Two Kinds of Error

  Tools sold under the same name behave nothing alike. One prints a label from a fixed list; the other writes a sentence.