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    Contents

    [edit] Religion of Tamils before Hinduism

    Yes, there were indigenous animistic faiths amongst the ancient Tamils and other ethnic groups in Southern India. Todays version of Hinduism in Southern India is a mixture of indigenous faiths and Vedic faiths to an extent. The reason you are going on this campaign is the fact that you cannot stomach the idea that we are all indigenous aboriginals of South Asia. All you have to do is take a look at our distant cousins in Australia and parts of the Indonesian archipelago. Apart from that, I would like to leave a famous quote:

    "We are fit to think of `Self-Respect' only when the notion of superior and inferior caste is banished from our land." - Periyar Ramaswamy
    Wiki Raja 20:54, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

    LOL, yeah right. Gnanapiti 21:07, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
    This is the most weakest come back I have ever heard. Enough with this nonsense. Wiki Raja 21:25, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
    Comeback? Do you even expect a comeback for your cruft stemmed out of illusions? Gnanapiti 21:44, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
    At least I support my info with legitimate sources. End of discussion. Wiki Raja 23:22, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
    Legitimate sources where? Are we provided with different versions of Wikipedia here? Gnanapiti 16:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Hindu.net

    User:0scalefactor has tried to add back the Hindu.net website as a reliable source. It is not a reliable source. Its arguments for Dravidians and Aryans being the same race are primarily religious. The physical anthropology reasons it gives are uncited and do not explain their reasonings. They state that it is well-known that Dravidians are Mediterranean Caucasoids. The expertise of the author to assert such a statement is in question.----DarkTea© 05:54, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

    User:0scaelfactor has a sockpuppet named User:Excel 2008 who made this edit which reverted the article. I am sure that the citations it removed were accidental and were just a part of the reversion. The other parts misrepresent the sources. --DarkTea© 07:56, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
    “ User:0scalefactor's version --- Carleton S. Coon (Ph.D Harvad University), in his book he published in 1969, "The Living Races of Man," he said, "India is the easternmost outpost of the Caucasian racial region." ”
    “ What Coon really said ----Caucasoid race there is a "third division [Mediterraneans which]... included... southern India" but remarked this group had "facial features of a Veddoid character which in some instances suggest Australoid affinities." He further elaborated that in India there are "Veddoids... individuals who are to all extents and purposes Australoid" Over the exact racial composition of India Coon admitted, "[t]he racial history of southern Asia has not yet been thoroughly worked out, and it is too early to postulate what these relationships may be...[I] shall leave the problems of Indian physical anthropology in the competent hands of Guha and of Bowles." ”
    “ User:0scalefactor's version --- Johann Friedrich Blumenbach claimed that most Indians are members of the Caucasian Race, (which includes the Dravidians.) ”

    This statement about Blumenbach is uncited original research.--DarkTea© 07:56, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

    “ User:0scalefactor's version --- Thomas Huxley wrote that all Indians are Australoid.[1] ”

    This misrepresents Huxley. Huxley considered Mongoloids, Australoids, and Mesochroi to exist in India. He didn't say they were all Australoids.--DarkTea© 07:56, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

    “ User:0scalefactor's version--William Henry Boyd claimed that most Indians are members of the "European Race." ”

    This is uncited original research.----DarkTea© 07:56, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

    0scalefactor added back Egon Eickstadt's racial classification of India. The problem is I made that map and I did not cite it, making it original research. I can't trust the map I made, because I realize that even if Eickstadt says Mediterraneans live in India, it doesn't necessarily mean all of India. The source I found the map was a poor summary and a secondary source. From that source, I could not gather the extent of Mediterraneans in India. Also, Eickstadt never said Oesteropoids, Mediterraneans, Alpines and Nordics belong to the same race. Not all anthropologists recognize a grand racial classification that includes Nordics and Mediterraneans.----DarkTea© 08:04, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

    “ User:0scalefactor's version--However the term "Aethiopians" does not imply that members are all of the Negroid race. In Genisis (10:6-32), all Ethiopians are said to be descended from both Shem (father of brown Caucasoid people)and Ham (father of black Negros.) ”

    This is in reference to Chandler claiming that "Ethiopian Negritos" founded India. While it may be true that the term "Ethiopian" may not imply membership in the black race, Chandler specifically says these Ethiopian Negritos are a part of the black race, making the above critical distinction irrelevant.----DarkTea© 08:04, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

    “ User:0scalefactor's version-- Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau claimed that most Indians are members of a so-called "Degenerative Race" ”

    0scalefactor is misrepresenting Gobineau. Indians were classified as racially "degenerative" by Gobineau because they incorporated the black, yellow and white races. Gobineau did not define a "Degenerative Race".----DarkTea© 12:11, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Racial classifications

    the "Racial classifications" part is too long, even longer than Genetic classification, as for these are just theories. And have nothing to do with serious science. Someone should re-edit it or just remove it.Asian2duracell 01:44, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

    It seems to be part of the scope of this article. I see no reason for removing it.----DarkTea© 15:39, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
    Yeah its a part of this article but way to long for its relevance, most of this statement have nothing to do with science. Some are political and some racist statement. If Dravidians fall under Caucasoid/Asiatic (we talk about scinece, not ones own opinion)....why do we need a statement from the 18th century which sais that they are negroid or veddoid or australoid or whatever. A few sentences like.... "the Dravidians have been mistaken or classified as other races in the past".. is enough.Asian2duracell 21:51, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
    Your original research opinion that all past and present anthropologists have been wrong is irrelevant.----DarkTea© 21:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

    It is indeed quite long, and is covered in detail in the main article Historical definitions of races in India. The summary in this article should be limited to a length and level of detail comparable to the other topics in this article per WP:Summary_style. --JWB 03:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

    Many of these citations are just about Dravidians without racial classifications about the rest of India. In places where I can find the characterizations for the rest of India by the anthropologists, I will add them to the races of India article. When all the anthropologists here are represented in the "Historical definitions of races in India" article, I will make a summary in the Dravidian article. The summary will be, "Although the historical racial classifications of Dravidians have differed, they were by and large regarded as a type of black race whether it be a Negrito, Negro, Malay or Australoid or some mixture of the three often with Caucasoid admixture from the Aryan invader and less frequently ascribed Mongoloid admixture."----DarkTea© 04:04, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

    Negro? when were Dravidians ever thought to have Negro admixture?. I mean from phenotypes from what ive seen (being a dravidian and having been to South India) there are Australoid influences (possibly from mixture with Mundas and Adivasis) and prevalently caucasoid phenotypes but no Negroid at all. It is highly unlikely we have any negroid admixture, I don't see the point of putting such a misleading statement whether a dated scientifically racist view now changed or not. People claiming Dravidian speakers are of the Negroid race or have a mixture of Negro because of their overall slightly darker skin than Indo-Aryans is like saying that Mongoloids are more prone to down syndrome due to their appearance similarity with people from other races who suffer down syndrome. I would think that genetic facts and phenotypes would suggest that Dravidians are overall of the same stock as our Indo-Aryan counterparts and that the dark skin is partly due to the evolution occurring within a close proximity to the equator, also that "regarded as a type of black race whether it be a Negrito, Negro, Malay or Australoid or some mixture of the three often with Caucasoid admixture from the Aryan invader and less frequently ascribed Mongoloid admixture. " is misleading, false to a point, and falsely suggesting all Dravidian language speakers as distinct race from Indo-Aryans of India. Is this largely outdated and mostly false appearing information on racial classifications of Dravidians worth putting in this article? i.e are previous overridden claims worth knowing about by readers of this article? or at least a statement about actual phenotypes should be made at the end of the section or a stress on the greater credibility of genetic classification over historical racial classifications to give a better idea to readers about the peoples who historically speak Dravidian languages. Please reassess the relevance of your edits Dark. Cheers 211.30.222.155 13:08, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

    The term "negro" is Spanish for "black". Many Indians have a glaring similarity to other blacks. It is generally undisputed that Dravidians came from Africa, thus having Negroid ancestry. They have Negroid ancestry and a Negroid appearence, ergo they are Negroids. The Mongoloid analogy is poor, because it compares a disorder which could be found on all peoples with a permanent racial classification. In your point of view, the Aryan invasion theory is false, but many experts endorse the theory. I find the arguments for the homogeneity of the Indian populace unconvincing. I doubt the genetic classifications if they do not verify the black racial nature of Dravidians. Anyways, geneticists are not anthropologists and they are talking outside of their field of expertise when they try to define race.----DarkTea© 13:45, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

    Wow, now I'm convinced you are POV, how Dravidians have a Negroid appearance, i can never fully understand, honestly ive seen many Dravidians and at most ive seen a Dravidian who looks like a full blood Australian Aboriginal but no African appearance ie not the same hair, physical stature, size of lips and roundness of head, people like that can be spotted of a mile away, figuratively speaking, in a Dravidian area. If you mix Dravidians with a cross -section of Indo-Aryan peoples you genuinely cant really tell who's what. I mean its a fact that Adivasis in Kerala are racially abused. In fact Dravidian speakers are also multi-racial, Kodagu people are Dravidians speculated to be of Indo-Scythian racial origin and gonds(Dravidian speakers) are of the Aboriginal race. I mean look at the variability, some look like Aishwarya Rai, most look like Mohan Lal and Anil Kumble i.e Caucasoid with Australoid influence, though some have none and some can have a large amount (i.e some Tamils and South Keralites), a minority look like I.M Vijayan (a dalit), and Kerala Nasrani have Syrian-Arab blood. I mean i understand from a foreigners perspective that we can somewhat resemble Africans ( how can we fully? i mean some are Australoid looking but Indigenous Aboriginals are not racially Africans)the same way as it is hard for most people except maybe natives themselves to tell apart racially east and south-east Asians. I agree we are not homogeneous but racial variability in India cant be grouped by language family, but more by caste or smaller communities.. racial variability isn't even important as Indians are all mixed. Overall Dravidian speakers resemble more their Indo-Aryan counterparts than anyone else and are largely Caucasoid from phenotypes. "Many Indians have a glaring similarity to other blacks. It is generally undisputed that Dravidians came from Africa, thus having Negroid ancestry. They have Negroid ancestry and a Negroid appearence, ergo they are Negroids". This is laughable, im sure few Dravidians have ever thought this but please show me the proof apart from the fact that all humanity came out of Africa. I hope you will refrain from placing such rubbish, in my view, in the main article. I never said Aryan-Invasion was false so i dont understand how you came to that conclusion, though speaking of that i personally believe in group by group "Aryan" migration not invasion. Besides the concept of race has largely been abandoned by modern scientists as the term race is a social construct and you seem to be very keen on it judging by you talk page211.30.222.155 14:48, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

    I was just summarizing the anthropologists I cited. They back my assertion and they are the evidence. The Dravidian race can either be conceived as the culmination of the racial mixes which formed it (Wayne Chandler) or the first black migrants who formed it (K Than). Anthropologists, not all mind you, have classified the original stock of the Dravidians as Negroid. Now, they may not look exactly like West Africans, but it is not clear that that is a requirement to be part of the Negroid race. I have certainly seen people from India who are tall, black-skinned, round-headed and with large lips, but with straight hair. Contrary to your assertion, Indians with a strong West African appearence can't be discerned from West Africans a "mile away". The Dravidian language is different from the Dravidian race. The Indo-Aryans in India are mixed with the Dravidians and likewise the Dravidians are mixed with the Aryans, so if you juxtaposed a community of Indo-Aryan speakers and Dravidian speakers you couldn't necessarily tell them apart. Maybe our bone of contention is my definition of a Dravidian as the original Negroids of the Indian Subcontinent whose civilization was invaded by the Aryans and your definition of Dravidians as people who speak the Dravidian languages today.----DarkTea© 16:54, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

    Well, in that case your definition is less relevant as the article itself states, Dravidian people refers to populations who speak languages belonging to the Dravidian language family. Populations of speakers are found mostly in Southern India and some minor populations are found in Brahui[1]-speaking parts of Pakistan, Kurukh[2]-speaking parts of Bangladesh, and Tamil-speaking parts of Sri Lanka. "I have certainly seen people from India who are tall, black-skinned, round-headed and with large lips, but with straight hair". Are you sure you are not confusing Dravidians with Munda peoples? Munda peoples are the indigenous peoples of India and have a different racial origin to Dravidians. I have never seen a Dravidian matching your description, perhaps a Gond or Kurukh (Adivasis) might match that description but they are the tiny minority of Dravidians in India with possible different origins and you cannot apply that to all Dravidians. Anyway the whole racial classifications section should be removed and if you feel you must, be placed into a different article called, Proto-Dravidian race(theories) or Dravidian race(theories). Like the Indo-Aryan peoples page racial origin theories should not be more than barely mentioned as race is not relevant to the more than average mixed Indian races and the fact that race itself is a vague social construct and genetics is more valid as a description: "Many anthropologists contend that while the features on which racial categorizations are made may be based on genetic factors, the idea of race itself, and actual divisions of persons into groups based on selected hereditary features, are social constructs.", to dispute your earlier point concerning genetics and race. 211.30.222.155 03:51, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

    The anthropologists cited do not define the Dravidian people as the people who speak the Dravidian languages. You cite this same Wikipedia article as defining the term "Dravidian" to be solely linguistic which may not even be cited, but many more citations in this article define Dravidians as purely racial in nature. I don't know whether the black-appearing Indian was Dravidian. S/he was from Bombay and I didn't pry any further. Regardless of his/her ancestral location or the language s/he spoke, Dravidians are the founding black race of India who were dispersed and mixed into the Aryans. Therefore, this person is probably also a Dravidian. I have seen someone from Kerala who matches Huxley's description of a Dravidian, "have dark, usually chocolate-colored skins; fine dark wavy hair; dark eyes overhung by beetle brows;coarse, projecting jaws;broad and dilated but not especially flattened noses, and lips which, though prominant, are eminantly flexible. The skulls of these people are always long and narrow... [f]or the most part, fair stature, erect and well built, except for an unusual slenderness in the lower limbs". In Chandler's hypothesis, some Dravidians may have more Negrito or Australoid typological features due to being less mixed with later Mongoloid and Caucasoid stocks, so there may be no fine distinction between thse Munda Dravidians and other Dravidians. If there were a new article which soley dealt with the Dravidian racial theories it couldn't be called "Proto-Dravidian" anything since all of the citations are for the term "Dravidian". It also couldn't be called "Dravidian race", since the citations are not for a distinct Dravidian race. The citations are for Dravidians being constituted of the black race or races i.e. the Malays, Negritos, Australoids, Negroids or a combination of the four, often with Mediterranean Caucasoid, Nordic Caucasoid, and Southern Mongoloid racial admixture.----DarkTea© 04:24, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

    Well don't know what Huxley is talking about when he says prominent lips, haven't seen anything like that. Also Munda peoples are as different to Dravidians as Dravidians are to Indo-Aryans. "Dravidians are the founding black race of India who were dispersed and mixed into the Aryans", i dont believe this is true because Dravidians are not the indigenous peoples of India, the Mundas and tribals are, also that Dravidians are not a black race, whatever that suggests. I am from the Nair race, which I believe within most sub-castes are pure-blood Dravidians also like Bunts, Naidus etc, because of our separate long history and our policy of only marrying within the community with the penalty of exclusion from the community if marrying outside it, even till lately, unlike other people classified in the Dravidian race, who were probably wrongly being studied by anthropologists as a representative sample of the Dravidian population, such as most Tamils who i believe have racial mixture from Adivasis and Mundas. Which means that Nairs, Bunts and Naidus have no tribal Adivasi or Munda mixture. Nair people can exhibit very "Aryan" looks, I have people in my family with very light brown skin and rare occurrences of light eyes(green, hazel) with most having aquiline noses and medium brown skin, with a minority of people having very dark skin with flared wide bulbous noses, hooked noses and rounded small foreheads. I believe based on these phenotypes that the real unmixed Dravidian race are an earlier version of Indo-Aryan ie a proto-Caucasoid, such as the Ancient Egyptians, who settled the Indus Valley from West Asia, possibly linked to the Elamites, and later moved to south India. The Indo-Aryans Caucasoids who evolved differently from the Dravidians, from the common proto-Caucasoid ancestor, due to stronger sexual selection who also came from West Asia migrated later group by group. The Kerala Brahmins are a mixture of both which gives them an overall Mediterranean Caucasoid appearance. I think there is proof of this theory of mine, because I have read the many facts supporting this on wikipedia, and other sources. It is not likely people like Aishwarya Rai(Bunt), Shilpa Shetty(Bunt) and Shashi Tharoor(Nair) have any Indo-Aryan admixture due to the facts concerning their communities histories, with the only other likely possibility that Dravidians are descended from proto-Caucasoids who are closely related to todays Indo-Aryans. 211.30.222.155 05:14, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

    Your caste rules, I gather from, "our policy of only marrying within the community", only suggests endogamy after the caste system was imposed by the Aryans. If the "Nair people can exhibit very "Aryan" looks", then their caste or ethnic group were formed from a mixture of the Dravidian and Aryan races. Since this happened long ago, the Nairs may have reached an equilibrium of Dravidian and Aryan traits without a sharp distinction of races. Your theory about Egyptian origins is very interesting. Maybe you'll find an anthropologist you can cite to get it in the article. I agree with your statement, "Dravidians are descended from proto-Caucasoids". These proto-Caucasoids are called Negroids. Dravidians are descended from Negroids and are still Negroids.----DarkTea© 05:42, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

    "By 50,000 years ago the population that had remained in southern Iran had evolved into proto-Caucasoids and began to expand -- to the east into Pakistan and northern India". I highly doubt any populations in Iran belonged to the Negroid race and your statement "These proto-Caucasoids are called Negroids. Dravidians are descended from Negroids and are still Negroids" is POV and possibly entirely inaccurate, please refrain from placing such ridiculous claims on the main article. All the racial theories that place Negroid elements in the Dravidian peoples are dated to the early 20th century and are not relevant to the description of Dravidian people.211.30.222.155 06:35, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

    Understand that the acronym "POV" means point of view. On Wikipedia, multiple point of views are welcome. Also note that the policy for a neutral point of view abbreviated NPOV does not stand for "no point of view". Too often people unfamiliar with the policy confuse its meaning. I confused the prefix "Proto" which means "first". The proto-Caucasoids were not Negroids. The pre-Caucasoids were Negroids.----DarkTea© 17:53, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

    Confusion of language and race is typical of late 19th and early 20th century racial ideas up through the Nazis. After WWII it was scrupulously avoided, like the typological view of race.

    "Aryan" was used originally for the Indo-Aryan languages and then for Proto-Indo-European and then for the race supposed to have spoken Proto-Indo-European. It was placed in opposition to "Semitic" which is also a language family and was then also assumed to be a racial type. Both concepts went out of fashion with the Nazis and the words have very restricted use today.

    "Dravidian" was another term coined to name a language family and then applied to race. The usage for the language family is the original meaning, is precise, and has persisted to the present. The usage for a racial type is derivative, imprecise, varies with each writer, and has fallen out of use, though it is not as stigmatized in the West as "Aryan" simply because Westerners are less familiar with it and its political implications. I have seen people from India stiffen at the mention of the word "Dravidian", apparently due to its political associations.

    DT says "Dravidian" for race was used by W. E. B. Du Bois in 1972, when the biographical article says in the first sentence that he lived 1868-1963. The other writers quoted from 1985 to the present are racist extremists with marginal views contrary to present and post-WWII science.

    There is no alternative name for the language family, as "Indo-European" is alternative to "Aryan", so "Dravidian" continues to be the name of the language family. However, the history of the various ideas of a black race in India belongs in the articles on the history of racial ideas. Not all of these ideas used the word "Dravidian", and the word is not basic to the idea. "Dravidian" only makes sense in the eras and places where Dravidian languages are known to have been spoken. --JWB 06:15, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

    The 1972 date was probably the date the original book was reprinted. If this is in error, then change it. The citations which do not use the word "Dravidian" shouldn't be in the article, because it is considered original research to equate other terms with "Dravidian". I don't see evidence that all the writers from 1985 to the present are "racist extremists". McCulloch and Loganathan may be considered extremists for their racial politics, but I do not know of evidence for Naidu's role in racial politics. Than and Chandler seem to be good sources.----DarkTea© 18:03, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
    I'm not equipped to correct your DuBois citation - you're the one in possession of the source! It is your responsibility to understand the source and what it says and cite it correctly, rather than leaving a trail of incorrect, pseudo-cited material for other editors to clean up. I've corrected your stuff many times when the source is available online, which this is not.
    DuBois is given considerable attention, often more than any other author, in most introductory courses on African-American literature or Black Studies, and having a little basic knowledge of these fields would avoid howlers like getting his era completely wrong.
    Many of your quotes themselves equate other terms with "Dravidian". Almost all of them only mention "Dravidian" in conjunction with other "racial types".
    On Uthaya Naidu, "Sudroid", "Sudrastan", "Dalitstan" etc. are coinages of some of the most far-out parts of the Dravidian and Dalit movements who want to ally with worldwide Black or Afrocentric movements. If you had followed the wikilink Dravidian movement from this article you would have read about "ethnocentrism consisted of pseudohistory,national mysticism,hate-speech". The Dalitstan article mentions Uthaya Naidu by name.
    Chandler is in the same Afrocentrist anthology we discussed earlier. I won't repeat that discussion; if there is some statement you can actually find scientific justification for, feel free to bring it up.
    Use of "Malay" to refer to all Southeast Asians is a tipoff that material is very old or or is someone with little knowledge of the field parroting very old material. In the latter case, uncritical citation and a late citation date is misrepresenting obsolete material as current.
    Than's book appears to be a personal essay covering religious/spirituality topics that incidentally quotes some old anthropological material as background.
    McCulloch appears to be getting the "Australoid Subspecies" etc. from Coon. The phrasing is typical of Coon, and this would be consistent with the rest of his site which reproduces large parts of Coon's work. --JWB 20:03, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
    Chandler is an anthropologist who is a reliable source. Than's book which he refers to as an "ethno-historical journey" appears to be a book about history and ethnography, making it a reliable source. If McCulloch merely republishes Coon, then we shouldn't have Coon reprsented twice. Indian historian Uthaya Naidu seems to have enough notability that his/her detractors feel threatened enough to call his/her reconstructed timeline of Aryan invasions the work of an "ethnocentrist consisted of pseudohistory, national mysticism, hate-speech".----DarkTea© 23:15, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
    Yes, and you supply the reductio ad absurdum yourself with your banal description of McCulloch as a history and anthropology major, instead of what he is actually notable for, which is being the leader of a well-known racist extremist organization. Just because someone identifies themself as an anthropologist does not mean that their statements can be taken uncritically as representative of the relevant scientific community. There are all kinds of cranks, and most of them claim some credential or other. Reporting on the current scientific consensus or viewpoints with credibility in the scientific community takes critical thinking and evaluation.
    Uthaya Naidu does seem to be notable - as a political extremist, not as a scientist, much less a scientist with views respected by the scientific community. Documenting extremist racial ideologies can certainly be material for Wikipedia, but it should be presented as such, in the appropriate articles. --JWB 02:51, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
    I have already conceded that McCulloch's racial classification scheme is a redundant recitation of Coon and that he is a racial separatist who is not a reliable source. Naidu also does not have expertise in classifying race as far as I know at this time, however, I don't see how his political activity invalidates him as a source.----DarkTea© 08:12, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
    Unless he has notable scientific expertise, or is a secondary source reliably reporting such expertise, he is not a reliable and notable scientific source. He may well be a notable source for a certain fringe political viewpoint. --JWB 10:53, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

    Strange, Tea seems to be only interested in unreliable sources that claim Dravidians are of the "Negroid" or "Black race". I am sure there should be more sources claiming that Dravidians are caucasoid(as visible from dravidian populations) migrants from the west, like their proto-Caucasoid descended cousins the Indo-Aryans, but i understand that racial science is barely interested in the actual racial origins/grouping of Dravidians and racial extremists/separatists and Afrocentric Anthropologists or others who claim, will only study samples concerning their only hypothesis of interest to them: of a black race or element present in Indian populations, and since race is such a vague concept and work on race is few and far between, these few fringe theories presented as facts are the mostly all the data available on the "Dravidian race". I'm sure David Frawley's conclusion on the "Dravidian race" as Mediterranean Caucasoid will be shot down by Tea because of his/her POV(not NPOV mind you), thanks for explaining, and commitment to falsely show the Dravidian race, for whatever motive, as "These proto-Caucasoids are called Negroids. Dravidians are descended from Negroids and are still Negroids", I mean this is not a valid description of the Dravidian populations of India at all, the Australoid past classifications are heavily doubted, but Negroid, apart from Naidu, the only valid source, who obviously has some political motivation(Dalitstan, Afrocentric) for claiming outright that Dravidians are Negroids, is completely inaccurate. There should be more work done, or more work to be found, done by politically neutral individuals and I would bet my life savings, so to speak, that they would find the "Dravidian race" as predominantly Caucasoid, however this is unlikely as racial work has mostly been abandoned due to its out-of-favor status among scientists due to its social construct nature, and no one would be interested except for somehow proving the Black/Negroid element in Indian populations it seems. B Nambiar 01:43, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

    I earlier used the term black race or races to include Malays, Negroids, Australoids, Veddoids or Negritos. Later on, I stated that Dravidians were Negroid which I understood to be casually synonymous with the black race. Some of the anthropologists cited used the term "Negroid" broadly while some used it exclusively. Frawley is primarily a Hindu researcher who is not an expert in race and is not a reliable source for determining race. I grant that Naidu may not have expertise in defining race. You claim that there exists Afrocentric anthropologists, but have you considered the possibility of Eurocentric anthropologists' having their bias pervade so broadly that it makes it seem normative? Chiekh Diop clarified the over differentiation of black typological racial groups as follows,
    “ A racial classification is given to a group of individuals who share a certain number of anthropological traits, which is necessary so that they not be confused with others...It is the physical appearance which counts...Now, every time these relationships are not favorable to the Western cultures, an effort is made to undermine the cultural consciousness of Africans by telling them, "We don't even know what a race is."...It is the phenotype which as given us so much difficulty throughout history, so it is this which must be considered in these relations. ”
    The primary reason I think they are Negroid is because they look like other blacks. Now, you're going to recollect a "Dravidian" who doesn't look like a black who bore predominantly Aryan physical traits. In this instance when I talk about the Dravidians, I'm talking primarily about the original black racial group(s) of India. Any anecdotal Dravidian speaker from South India with Aryan features who you would consider a poster child for the proto-Caucasoid theory on Dravidians the Aryan Invasion camp sees as a partially Aryan multiracial.----DarkTea© 08:07, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

    I definately agree about the phenotypes determining the social construct racial type and disagree about the negroid/black phenotypes of South Indians, if you go to South India you will see for yourself, and I dont think you are in any position to judge based on phenotypes until then. Also most Non-Brahmin South Indian Dravidians do not have any Aryan admixture, which is a fact, and still look prevalently Caucasoid. Also i sense some confusion from you differentiating from the indigenous Black/Mongoloid race Adivasis(origins in South-East Asia), "Ādivāsīs (in Devanagari script: आदिवासी), literally "original inhabitants" who comprise a substantial indigenous minority of the population of India", who predominantly speak Munda languages, a different language family to Dravidian, with a minority speaking Dravidian languages and a minority speaking Indo-Aryan languages, and Dravidians, who Frawley accurately based on facts, which has as much credibility as the forgotten anthropologists mind you, has concluded that Dravidians are migrants who came along the same way as Aryans, from the west much longer ago. Please take time to read about them and also the races who descend from them, Indo-Aryan/Adivasi Biharies and Bengalis who phenotypically look similar to Dravidian/Adivasi Tamils, the conclusion being that both Indo-Aryans and Dravidians are similar Caucasoids. I have read Naidus work recently, the only source I'm bothered by and there is clear bias and wrongly misinterpreted facts, which is typical of politically motivated individuals of India, who work differently to the rest of the world, such as Ambedkar, Periyar who feast on a communities uncertainty of origin, inferiority complex, or indulging victim mentality to get themselves political support. You can read for yourself the works of Naidu and realize this. There is nothing in the Aryan texts which refer to a different race except for the Dasas (who had no nose), which is heavily disputed and most likely symbolism, or migrated Munda peoples who moved in from the east after the Dravidians migrated south from the abandoned Indus. Adivasis look significantly different from the Dravidians, and the only fact i cant find of this is this fact "Some 63% of Adivasis reside in the eastern districts of Wayanad (where 35.82% are Adivasi), Palakkad (11.05%), and Idukki (15.66%).[2] These groups, including the Irulars, Kurumbars, and Mudugars,[3] speak their own native languages and experience hardships such as racial discrimination, economic exploitation, and poverty.[4][5][6]" to persons who have not seen many of either ethnic group, but i believe it sufficiently supports my point. Pure Dravidian groups such as Nairs, Bunts and Naidus, with no Aryan or no likely Adivasi admixture as facts dictate, phenotypically resemble Caucasoids most of which though pure Dravidians can pass for an Indo-Aryan North Indian. This seems to support numerous facts and Dravidian migration from the same area. And though you earlier mentioned caste, pre-caste Nairs and Bunts were still an endogamous community before being converted to a caste, then upon which other ethnic groups joined the caste (for the Nair, Bunts are still a community)such as Tamil Padam Nairs, though still a minority, anyways excluding them from my phenotypical argument. I would like David Frawley cited in the racial classifications as most would agree he is as or more credible then early 20th century "scientific" anthropologists or Naidu. You should read for yourself how how he interprets his facts and the facts used and conclusion he derives from them and see if there are any faults in the process or conclusion, tell me what you think. You predictably will say he is not in the field and has Hindu ulterior motives but please see if there is any problems with his conclusion and how he has arrived to them. Only Hindu scholars would not be studying with the motive of proving black/Negroid elements in the population. That reminds me that this article assumes the disputed Aryan Migration Theory which is not fact even after the Indus script has been deciphered, and there are quotes concerning the "Dravidian race" from other Hindu scholars such as Sri Aurobindo and Sri Swami Vivekananda that can be included if the racial classification theories section is. Anyways you earlier claimed current Dravidian speakers now resemble Aryans due to Aryan mixture. Even if thats the case, though not true, then what relevance is this whole racial classification section of "ancient Negroid Dravidians" to todays Dravidian speaking populations i.e Dravidian peoples. It should be deleted because of irrelevance or moved to another theoretical article if you just cant let it go.According to you are Southern Europeans, Italians a different race to Northern Europeans due to their slight difference in melanin production, quite possibly due to their being in closer proximity to the equator, which is known as a fact to darken unrelated populations over generations ? "racialists" like McCulloch would agree, maybe you do too. I would like to juxtapose this similarity to Indo-Aryans and Dravidians. Anyways black is not synonymous with Negroid, it can be Australoid too, such as the Munda/Adivasis and Dravidian/Adivasi mixes, who are a different race and I believe the only Negroids in Indian history are the Goan Arab slave migrant community, the Siddis, so again you make wild claims. Also how would you explain the racist word "kafir" used by Indians(including Dravidians) on Africans? are you suggesting that Indians are mass deluded to not realise that they themselves are Negroids?. Please take time to process what I have written and hopefully you will realize some truths.B Nambiar 10:24, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

    I've seen a bunch of blacks whose origins are from India, some of whom have stated South Indian origin. There are pictures on the internet of whole villages where everyone looks black. I doubt that these are all Adivasis. Frawley is a Hindu researcher who is not a reliable source in determining race. Hindu religous texts are not a reliable source for determining if the indigenous black racial group was invaded by Aryans. These purported pure Dravidian groups, "Nairs, Bunts and Naidus," are not pure Dravidian if they resemble Aryans. Indo-Aryans speakers are necessarily purer Aryans in name only. If the , "pure Dravidians can pass for an Indo-Aryan North Indian", then it shows the extent of the mixture between the Aryan and black races. How do you know that the Nairs and Bunts have remained endogamous before the imposition of the caste sytem? The Aryan Invasion Theory is largely regarded as a fact outside of Hinducentric biased literature promoted on such sites as Hindu.net. The fact that you can recall examples of black Indians being racist toward black Africans does not make you whites. The term "Negroid" can either be used broadly for an inclusive black race or exclusively for one of the black races or subraces such as Australoids, Veddoids, Malays, Negroids and Negritos. With regards to your edit on the Dravidian article, one point of view is that genetics is more reliable than past racial classifications while the other point of view, supported by the likes of Diop and others, is that physical appearence is the most reliable way to classify race.----DarkTea© 20:07, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
    You may think all blacks look alike, but don't be surprised if the people involved disagree with you. South Indians (or any other group I know of in India) who would be mistaken for African-Americans are the exception, and those who would be mistaken for actual Africans are even rarer. I do not have details of the anthropometric differences between Indians and Africans at hand, but they were recognized by traditional physical anthropology.
    The extremely broad redefinition of Negroid or Negro or African is not the standard meaning of the word. It is a polemical device of Afrocentrists and not used at all outside that small circle. It is appropriate to mention this definition when discussing Afrocentric writing, but not appropriate to use the nonstandard definition in articles in general. At a minimum, it is confusing and dilutes the meaning of the words. There is adequate existing terminology to describe darker-skinned people in general, and the "Afrocentric" redefinition of "African" to redundantly mean all dark-skinned people ironically erases any terminology to refer to Africans in particular.
    Both the Indo-European and Dravidian language families are thought to have entered India from the northwest (see Elamo-Dravidian languages) and if so the original speakers would have been non-Indian Caucasoids. However Genetics and Archaeogenetics of South Asia makes it clear that except possibly in the far northwest, the genetic impact (as opposed to linguistic) of all the immigrations combined was slight and the great majority of the genetic legacy is native to South Asia on a scale of tens of thousands of years. --JWB 02:41, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
    I know there are differences within the black race or races. I didn't say that all the blacks looked alike. I can certainly distinguish between two black people if I was introduced to them. There are many Indians who are blacks. They are mistaken for real Africans. Measurements mean nothing if you can barely discern their features because they are really black. First, you see a black silohoutte in the distance, then you can discern their features when they are close. Anthropologists who are of African descent have been fighting an uphill battle against Eurocentrism by correcting the over differentiation of the black races. JWB, quit tossing away the opinions of anthropologists of African descent due to their race. For your information, everything made by the European anthropologists is Eurocentric. The bias is just so pervasive that it is considered normative. It is embaressing to our intellect that your rejection of thoughts created by Africans due to their racial background passes off as a legitimate argument. If most of the ancestry in India is indigenous, then the Aryan component is rather small after all.----DarkTea© 03:11, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
    You didn't say they looked alike, but now you say "you can barely discern their features because they are really black"??? Please stop embarrassing yourself.
    You are the one who can't even place one of the most major figures in Black Studies in the right era, and doesn't seem to have knowledge of or interest in Africa, Africans, or African thought other than a small group of crackpots who are preoccupied with discussing Asians, who are your basic interest.
    There have been both European anthropologists who see a "small" white race (e.g. Nordic supremacists), as well as ones who see a "big" inclusive Caucasoid category. There have also been both Africans who see an African race consisting of Africans (the obvious and most common viewpoint), as well as some who are interested in global solidarity with people of color and even appropriate the term "African" itself for this purpose.
    "If most of the ancestry in India is indigenous, then the Aryan component is rather small after all." Yes, and if both the Indo-Aryan and Dravidian language families were brought by immigrants, than both the Aryan and Dravidian genetic components are rather small, and the label "Dravidian" for the preexisting genetic component is imprecise and confusing. This is different from the distribution of Indo-Aryan speakers (about 3/4 of Indians) and Dravidian speakers (about 1/4 of Indians) today, which is tangible and is this article's primary subject. --JWB 08:13, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

    "This is also the case with some "Caucasoid" peoples of the Indian subcontinent, whom some Afrocentrists regard as Africoid, as well.[8]", "Negroid is a general term referring to the people of Sub-Saharan Africa.". Well I see you have confused me with your wording, you probably meant to say Africoid peoples rather than Negroid whom I picture as the Maasai etc. If Australoid falls under Africoid then there can be no doubt phenotypically there is that element among the primarily Indigenous peoples of India i.e the Munda, Adivasis and some parts of the Dravidian and Indo-Aryan peoples of India who have mixed with these types ie Dalits all over India, Biharies and some Dravidian communities. My argument at this point is that Dravidians are not the indigenous black race of India, they are an earlier migratory group who moved in, similar to the Aryans from the west, into a land sparsely populated by South-East Asian originated Munda/Adivasi groups. You say Hindu religious tests are not reliable, well they are the only written records of the supposed "Aryan Invasion period" and it is very likely if there has been a huge invasion to see some reference to an Invasion in the texts or at least destroyed remains of war, neither of which is available. There are political motivations for the Aryan Invasion, ie left wingers will leap on to it as a way to say the minorities of India as as foreign as the founders and thus deserve their special status and their homeland as India as much as anyone, which of course left-wingers have done very early even till now, and that Eurocentrics get to have some credit from the Indian civilization. Also there are political motivations for the Afrocentric, though I agree with their view that historically Eurocentrics try to belittle their race, though Afrocentrics make huge unlikely claims with little evidence such as Ancient Egypt belonged to Africoid peoples etc and most Africoid claims are generally rubbish, just a hearted but little evidenced claim for glory for the "Africoid race",on the other hand though you don't see the Persian people taking glory in the achievements of the British people even though they are as closely related as peoples within the Africoid group who seem thrown together based on their skin colour. "Chief among these physical characteristics are limited or nonexistent prognathism, a brachycephalic cranium". This is quite variable even in South Indian Dalit populations so I think non-Adivasi/Munda peoples of India are out their possible claiming reach, though I guess they can claim a small Africoid element in some different non Munda/Adivasi populations of India. Finally to take Diops view on phenotypes discerning race, which is a convenient view for his political motivations, then that would falsely suggest Southern Europeans or Iranians to be of a different race to Northern Europeans. Also the problems with phenotypes is that members of an community or even a family can still vary in esp Indian populations i.e a dark skinned person and a light skinned person, also in Southern Europeans, a middle eastern looking person and a northern European resembling person. So this can distort the facts i.e if you see the dark skinned odd one out of the family such as a dark Chinese person and assume him/her to be of the Thai ethnicity. Therein lies the flaw within phenotypical jugdement of "race" also that the judgement can vary slightly depending on the eye of the beholder. Genetics would therefore be more accurate as it precisely shows a communities genetic racial inputs, and racial/biological history and origins. If you mind taking the time to read Indian genetic studies i don't think you will see any Black/Africoid links, apart from the intial migration from Africa of course, and you cant argue because genetics are facts, it even suggest the origins of Eurasian MtDNA, R1a1, is India (including the South), which obviously disagrees with the "Aryan Invasion Theory". "The fact that you can recall examples of black Indians being racist toward black Africans does not make you whites" what kind of an idiotic assumption is that. That's like saying "just because white East Asians are racist towards the dark South-East Asians, it does not make them even remotely Caucasoid or much different", it has no relevance to the aims of this argument. The populations of India are a unique melting pot some are "white" i.e in the North-West some are Africoid i.e tribal groups and others, most are not either. To conclude genetics are more relevant that phenotypes to determine "race". In fact it is wrong that anthropologists are studying Dravidian people with the underlying assumption of a different race, the same race, i.e the neighboring Finns and Swedes, can also belong to different language families.B Nambiar 03:57, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

    The terms "Africoid", "Australoid" and "Negroid" are vague, but they all connote a black race or races. Hindu religious texts and other religious texts are not reliable sources on history. I think Munda and Adivasis are indigenous, because I have no reason at this point in time which shows that they aren't indigenous. That being said, I haven't looked into it. I don't believe that lack of written evidence for an Aryan invasion necessarily indicates that there was no Aryan invasion. The Spanish destroyed the indigenous writing in Mexico as part of a Christian cleansing mission. The Aryans, being of a separate religious persuasion than the Dravidians, probably destroyed Dravidian religious writings. Like the Spanish who recorded the history of their invasion in terms that would aggrandize their bravery and minimize their brutality, the Aryans likely didn't desire to record the exact process of their invasion. In India, people may use the Aryan invasion theory as a political tactic to vilify the Brahmins and Indo-Aryan speakers and to nudge sympathy for the Adivasis, Dalits, Dravidians and others. Diop's reasonings for his functional definition of race may imply that the majority of Southern Europeans are a different race from other Europeans. This does not "falsify" his reasoning. They may, in fact, be considered a separate race. Generally Persians don't take pride in English accomplishments because they don't consider themselves the same race; however, I'm sure some Persians do consider themselves the same race and take pride in English accomplishments. Yes, everybody looks different and a "dark skinned odd one out of the family" may be considered racially different from the rest of the family. I have known two siblings from the same parents, a family of my relatives, and they look like separate races. This happens a lot. I consider my cousins who come from the same family to be separate races, one being a white due to having fair skin, brown hair and green eyes and the other being a non-white due to having black hair, black eyes and dark skin. If the difference between the siblings is large enough to qualify as a typological difference, then they are different races, typologically speaking. I don't think that genetic similarity is a good way to determine race. For instance, if you got a Norwegian and altered only their DNA that dealt with color to make them look black, then I will consider them black or Negroid.----DarkTea© 05:10, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
    Munda languages are part of the Austro-Asiatic family and distantly related to Vietnamese and Cambodian. They are thought to have come with an early migration from the east. This is even said already in the Dravidian people article, so you haven't even read the article you're editing.
    "The terms "Africoid", "Australoid" and "Negroid" are vague, but they all connote a black race or races." They are not interchangeable except in the jargon of the Afrocentric school who are determined to obscure the differences. "Australoid" was coined specifically to recognize the separate features of some Indians and Native Australians and the similarity of the two. "Australoid" and "Negroid" were both coined to refer to traits not restricted to color, such as body or skeletal measurements, so it is incorrect and confusing to use "Negroid" merely to say someone's skin color is dark. --JWB 08:38, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

    Ok, I sense two POV's here firstly Negroid: "Negroid is a general term referring to the people of Sub-Saharan Africa." to which you respond: "The terms "Africoid", "Australoid" and "Negroid" are vague, but they all connote a black race or races.", this implies you don't really care what actual race and racial origins one belongs to, if they have dark skin, eyes and hair they automatically get placed into the black race or races. The people of Sub-Saharan Africa can look substantially different to an Australian Aboriginal or a Polynesian, I have seen groups of each, with the only similarity being skin,eye and hair color (though some Australian Aboriginal communities have occurrences of blond hair), so i sense a deliberate ignorance, perhaps underlying racism, to pigeonhole all these peoples into a similar group based on the dark skin, eyes and hair phenotype only(ignoring build, facial features, skull shape, cephalic index and hair type which can vary from community to community) which similarly Afrocentrics and Eurocentrics both also indulge to support their political/ideological purposes. Secondly your rather interesting unique POV "If the difference between the siblings is large enough to qualify as a typological difference, then they are different races, typologically speaking", well "race" is basically determined by loose typology, so you are always talking about typology when talking about race, but to consider the two examples of the same genetic stock as different races depending on phenotypes is illogical, and not really what most people are talking about when they mean race. A half European half Native American who looks European and his/her sibling who looks Native American does not mean one is racially Caucasoid and one is racially Mongoloid(maybe to you they do) and they are both equally likely to produce a child phenotypically resembling either race with another similar multi-racial. Therein lies the futility of phenotype determined "race" with genetics a more accurate description of the actual general racial group an individual or community belongs to. I don't know how you would consider two siblings different races and I hope these two POV's do not influence any of the information on the Dravidian peoples article. Also what you claim above concerning the "Aryan Invasion" is a loose theory with no real facts supporting it whereas they actually are facts countering the theory, Im sure if you actually read the Aryan Invasion article objectively you would realize there are more that tips the scale against "Aryan Invasion" then for and in fact a lot of the Aryan Invasion theory is supported by far-fetched misinterpretations of what you claimed " Hindu religious texts and other religious texts are not reliable sources on history.".B Nambiar 06:06, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

    The terms Negroid, Veddoid, Australoid, and Negrito are all ambiguous, but they all connote the black race or races. The actual race or races are sometimes confused with the over differentiation of the black race as identified by Diop and Rahsidi. They do not look substantially different. West Africans, East Africans, Australians, Negritos and the original, unmixed Dravdians primarily look the same. They are all blacks or Negroids. Native North Americans are not Mongoloids. According to morphological anthropologists P. Menozzi and A. Piazza The History of Geography of Human Genes. Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1994. Native North American are morphologically closest to French and Scandinavians. Unless you are arguing that French and Scandinavians are also Mongoloid, I would have to say that typologically-speaking based on experts in morphology North American Indians are not Mongoloids. These two morphologists group South American Indians as morphologicaly similar to East Asians, so they would be properly classified as Mongoloid. Probably to the same degree of Mongoloid as South Africans and Southeast Asians are Mongoloid, seeing as they differ primarily in their skin color. The Aryan Invasion theory is a well-established fact, some of which is supported by Hindu religious texts.----DarkTea© 19:00, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

    "The terms Negroid, Veddoid, Australoid, and Negrito are all ambiguous, but they all connote the black race or races. The actual race or races are sometimes confused with the over differentiation of the black race as identified by Diop and Rahsidi. They do not look substantially different. West Africans, East Africans, Australians, Negritos and the original, unmixed Dravdians primarily look the same. They are all blacks or Negroids.". No they are not ambiguous terms, black races is the ambiguous term, no community deserves to be slapped by that tag as their race description as it falsely suggests similar racial origin or relations due to their light brown to predominantly dark brown skin colors or similar non-melanin related racial features, they actually refer to different racial types hence the creation and research behind the terms, and no they do not all look alike. Similarly to me Native Americans and Inuits(more so) look similar to East Asians, despite as the fact you presented suggests that they look like the French and Scandinavian and somehow not mongoloid, but this I know is a POV probably shared by many but I wont be pursuing it and editing the Native American article anytime soon to push this POV. And putting past personally your rather uninteresting Native American racial origin sidetrack, this article is racially misleading, does not represent me or the majority of the Dravidian peoples I have seen as we are not Negroids, we do not share same features as them though the skin tones are similar though unrelated racial groups as shown in history can evolve lighter or darker skin( Europeans and East Asians), and we are primarily Caucasoid in features. I think we are being hard done if our racial origins are being summarized by an Asian American with hints of Afrocentrism who I assume has never been to India or seen many Indians, or whether the Indians themselves that have been seen by the said person were Dravidian peoples and thinks her "They do not look substantially different. West Africans, East Africans, Australians, Negritos and the original, unmixed Dravdians primarily look the same. They are all blacks or Negroids" POV is justified. In any case there should be more classifications that assume Dravidians as Caucasoids or all Indians as Caucasoid(as it is biased to automatically assume different racial origin for speakers of a different language family, as history has shown us languages can be adopted and discarded by populations over time) that you must have come across with your racial obsession which you can include, or are you just including the sources that classify Dravidian peoples as "black race" to suit your motives?. B Nambiar 09:19, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

    The term "black" and the terms "Negroid", "Veddoid", "Australoid", "Negrito" are all somewhat ambiguous, but the term "black" is most clear. Black is a color which in this case references skin color. I'm sure that that went without saying, but Veddoid refers to the Vedas, Australoid refers to Australians, Negroid refers to the word "negro" which is Spanish for black, Negrito is similar to Negro but the suffix "-ito" makes it refer to something smaller in the Spanish language. You say, "black races is the ambiguous term, no community deserves to be slapped by that tag as their race description", but isn't it diasporic Indians who slap the term "brown" on all Indians regardless of their actual color. Now, I'm not talking about anyone here specifically, but sociologist Ann Morning has identified this occurance as a trend. Note that even in homogenous populations, people are not the same color, but in a heterogenous population formed by the mixing of black and lighter races such as Brazil and India this is definitely not the case. Based on a blog which is by default considered a non-reliable source, the Indian diaspora is primarily of Aryan stock. Why do these more Aryan Indians get to push for the "brown" title when they don't speak for majority of Indians with more black ancestry? Are they denying that the original inhabitants of India were black and that many blacks live in India? I also think Inuit look more like East Asians, but the source said they didn't. Inuits are as Mongoloid as the Japanese and Koreans from what I can see. The other native north Americans are radically different in appearence. I guage them to be no more than half Mongoloid. Anthropologists who practiced typological classification such as Bertram Thomas, James Prichard and others have identified Negroid features in the original black racial group of India. Personally, I can see physical features that look like West Africans among a proportion of Indians. Please, talk about the editor's contributions rather than the contributor. I used the search term "Dravidian" and I found the majority of experts considered them black. I didn't cite the sources that said they were Caucasoid because this is something I know to be false.----DarkTea© 18:46, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
    In general, people feel that being described by color is impolite and homogenizes their identity. Attempts to use color terms have usually come from racial activists, but sooner or later been rejected by the general population. "Black" was felt to be more impolite than "Negro" and other terms for most of American history, was "reclaimed" by activists in the 60s, and has since again been rejected in favor of "African-American". "White" was most popular in the white supremacy era and is much less used now and felt to be crude. "Brown" has been floated by both Hispanic and South Asian activists, but has never achieved any popularity and has always been disliked by those populations. I think your perspective is skewed because you are immersed in ethnic activist thought.
    Similarity in the Cavalli-Sforza and Martin anthropometric tree is not necessarily the same as "looks like". If "looks like" refers to facial features, Inuit and Northeast Asians appear more similar.
    Negro is the word for the color black in Spanish, but as an English word had more specific connotations. Negrito as an English word has only referred to the several tiny groups of short-statured indigenous people in Southeast Asia.
    Opinions classifying South Indians as Caucasoid or largely Caucasoid are a major POV. To simply delete them because you personally disagree is OR. At a minimum, they are on a par with the other political or unscientific opinions you cite, and more widespread. If we find scientific opinions addressing the question, they should also go in the appropriate Wikipedia article.
    There is no consensus that indigenous inhabitants of India were all black or always have been black. Other possibilities include that people with a variety of skin colors have inhabited India for as long as we can tell, and that dark skin color has intensified in some Indian populations relatively recently because of natural selection due to sun exposure. --JWB 19:18, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
    You (note: this is addressed to DT's comments above that are now separated by more responses) appear to be referencing the book ISBN 0691029059 but dropping the fact that Cavalli-Sforza is first author (which should be hard to miss) as well as getting the title slightly wrong and identifying Menozzi and Piazza as "morphological anthropologists" when their publications seem to be on genetics. How exactly are you accessing this book? The book itself and online editions both identify the author and title correctly. Are you getting a garbled quotation from some other web site you don't mention? Please say which text or chart you are referencing from the book. In the Abridged Paperback Edition I have here the physical anthropology section on American Indians is on pp. 316-317 and does not have anything resembling the result you state.
    Veddoid and Negrito are even more specific than the terms we covered earlier. They refer to very distinct populations in small areas. Afrocentric literature throws them all over the globe with flimsy, unscientific, anecdotal evidence, although oddly they give little attention to the Melanesians, who are the one major non-African population who do look considerably like Africans, but were apparently not situated close enough to major civilizations they want to associate with. --JWB 22:03, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
    I dropped Cavalli because I already know that he is not a morphologist. I got the citation from another anthropology book who referenced that book, Robert Boyd. How Humans Evolved UCLA: London, 1997. ISBN 0-393-97076-0 p. 560. I'm sure if they haven't covered the black racial nature of Melanesians, they consider them to be Negritos or Australoids which they have already affirmed to be situated in the black race.----DarkTea© 22:20, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
    Not having any information on Menozzi and Piazza does not mean you can apply some guessed or made-up identification or credential to them. In fact, nobody actually uses "morphological anthropologist"; it gets one false Google hit. Not liking Cavalli-Sforza also does not mean you can alter the authorship to your tastes.
    I've found what you are apparently referring to, Figure 2.2.3. It is in fact taken from a 1964 article by Cavalli-Sforza and Edwards, and not the work of Menozzi or Piazza. They constructed a tree from anthropometric data from Martin's 1957 classical handbook of anthropology, to compare to their work on genetic data, which was then in its infancy. Their conclusion was that many of the anthropometric parameters were subject to natural selection for adaptation to climate, rather than being conserved indicators of origin, as nonselected genes presumably are. They also note that the data came from a number of investigations using insufficiently standardized techniques. It does show Eskimos and "North American Indians" (no mention of which tribe, latitude of residence, or degree of post-Colombian white admixture) as grouping first with Swedish and French samples; however it shows East Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Ainu) as spanning most of the variation available in the tree, on a branch mixed in with Pacific Islanders and South American Indians, with the European+North American group only a slightly larger distance away, (contrary to much other work that shows northern North American natives as having more strongly Mongoloid features than South American Indians) and Papuans, Australians, and Africans only slightly farther than that. The conclusion is that Mongoloids do not emerge as a coherent group in this dataset, and that the traits defining "Mongoloid" phenotype do not form a large portion of the data being analyzed. --JWB 23:29, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
    I didn't include Cavalli because I assumed that his expertise drove the other parts of the book, so I assumed the remaining authors fathered the morphological section. This may have been too hasty a presumption. Yes, that seems to be the tree that was reprinted in the secondary source.----DarkTea© 00:08, 15 October 2007 (UTC)


    Dark Tea, why dont you go for a trip to India. I think that would make it less complicated for others to discuss with you. First thing you do not understand is that Dravidian is simply a linguistic term, as Semitic or Indo-European are. You yourself speak an Indo-European language (maybe its even ur mother tongue) but u are not Caucasian. The same thing we find in Dravidians, not everyone speaking a Dravidian language has to be of Dravidian origin. And the second thing u do not understand is that Dravidians are not indigenous to India. The Veddas and Mundas (yakkas/nagas...etc) are the true native people of India. Being Tamil myself I know what I'm talking about, and Nambiar (being probably Malayali) should also know how our people look alike. U being an African-American with little or allmost no knowledge of Indian people, should atleast listen what others have to say. By calling us Caucasian, we do not try to be "white". We differ between SouthAsians and Whites as much we do between SouthAsians and Blacks. In most countries people assume with "black people" the people of Sub-Saharan ancestry. And Indians do not fall under Africans. So ur argument about "black" means only the skin color of the people is not valid (actually noone has black skin) and de definiton of "Negro" might be black in Spanish, but not in the English speaking world. Therefore "Brown" isnt as bad as u might think, cause all Indians fall under one or the other shade of brown. Just because u want us to be of the same race, what ever ur goals might be, does not make wrong hypotheses true. I do not want to sound rude or some thing but India (and other SouthAsian countries) are probably the worst place for Africans to live, I'm talkin about discrimination and such things. There is even a word "Kapili" in Tamil, porbably derivated form "Kaffir" meaning Ni**er. And guess what, its as much used as "Karuppan"(Black/African person) in standard conversation. But finally what I want to say is that people themselve are the best indicator for ones race. SouthAsians know who is one of theirs and who isnt when they move to foreign countries. I would say that most Indians are not able to tell who is Aryan and who is Dravidian if the person wouldnt talk, like it is in my case.Asian2duracell 23:59, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

    You may or not be amused to find that in other cases Dark Tea cites Wikipedia policy that ethnic groups should be called by the terms the group itself prefers. --JWB 01:55, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
    The correct interpretation of the Google hits which I realize now is that they represent the usage of the term, but not necessarily by the groups themselves. The Google hits represent the usage of the term alone but not necessarily in relation to other terms and not necessarily representative of the number of people using the term, but of the number of time it has been used. I don't think that East Asians call themselves Mongoloid in everyday speech.----DarkTea© 02:18, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
    Ok, glad we are in agreement on that. "Dravidian", however, is in use as a self-description by South Indians in the four states speaking languages of the Dravidian group. You should not argue that (19th century or marginal) anthropologists' use of "Dravidian" takes precedence over the Dravidian peoples' self-designation, which would be contrary to policy. --JWB 02:22, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
    I have already clarified that I am refering to the concept of Dravidian as used by the anthropologists I cited which was purely a racial term without linguistic criteria. It makes the most sense that the black race was the first to establish themselves in India, seeing as they are the priomordial race. The citations I found claim that Dravidians are indigenous to India. I agree that Indians are not Africans, but they are still blacks. The term "Black" is a color term while the term "African" is a geographic term. This is false, "all Indians fall under one or the other shade of brown". No matter how many times people repeat statements to the effect that all Indians are brown, it will continue to be false. Some Indians are clearly yellow, orange or black in color and a few may be considered white in color. It doesn't matter that Indians can discrinate against other blacks from Africa. It doesn't make the black Indians less black. If most "most Indians are not able to tell who is Aryan and who is Dravidian", then it just shows the extent of mixing between the black and Aryan races.----DarkTea© 01:50, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
    You have already said that race (which you are defining as color and nothing else) can change even within one generation of the same family. But, you want to insist that a "black" racial identity has remained unchanged since humans first left Africa almost 100,000 years ago!
    It is not even clear that the humans who left Africa were all "black". One recent suggestion (based on genetic evidence, though a simplistic interpretation) is that they looked like the brown-skinned Khoisan. --JWB 02:06, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
    I do not "insist that a black racial identity has remained unchanged since humans first left Africa". I'm sure there was no shared black identity when everyone was black.----DarkTea© 02:11, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
    Ok then, just what is your (unproven) assertion "that the black race was the first to establish themselves in India" supposed to show? There has been time for skin color of various populations to change many times since then, and for populations to migrate or be replaced many times since then. --JWB 02:17, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
    The unmixed Dravidians have remained black and were originally black when they entered India.----DarkTea© 02:20, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
    You have no idea if they were black or not, you have no idea of their skin color over tens of thousands of years from the initial modern human settlement of India up to historical times, and you have no idea when Dravidian-language speakers first entered India and who preceded them. --JWB 02:27, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

    Jablonski and Chaplin 2000 page numbered 77 or page 21/50 has a skin color map including most of India and much of Africa. This is more up to date than the Biasutti map. --JWB 02:41, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

    What is the relevance or requirement of the term "Black race" if melanin production can be similar in unrelated populations all over the world depending on latitude?. Why is the term so important to you Tea?. Is the term "White race or races" as important, relevant or descriptive? used to describe the white races over the world such as the Europeans, West Asians and the unrelated East Asians. It should be if Black races is a relevant term yet I fail to see much use of "White races" term. Dravidians should not be called "Black race" but due to variable from Dravidian community to community mixed race status, should not be summarised into any race, certainly not African, though I believe in predominant Caucasoidal feautures. Indians have every right to call themselves brown as most Indians have medium brown skin in the North and dark brown skin in the South, not the almost black, dark-dark brown that is predominant in non- North African populations which a minority of South Indians have, its easy to tell a thick lipped, round headed, wiry haired Negroid apart from a South Indian, even Mundas and Adivasis dont look like that. You have not seen many Indians, and their is hints of political motives and bias in your interpretations, so your visual opinions are rubbish. If you feel the urge to quote historical racial classifications include ALL of them, as your personal idiotic bias does not deserve to provide misleading information on wikipedia or withhold relevant information. Also how did you ever think Dravidians are indigenous?. If Dravidians are Indigenous like you claim so are the Aryans as there is no great difference in phenotypes as there should be under that claim. You'll have to show a whole heap of proof to prove that they are indigenous and, I'm sure you would also like to claim, that they are related to the Munda and Adivasi peoples. B Nambiar 06:34, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

    The significance of blacks being black is that it is the first thing people see when they look at them. Dravidians are the original blacks of India. They are related to other black populations and have never stopped being black by their own accord, not including foreign admixture. Most East Asians are not of the white race. Skin bleaching does not count in the determination of racial skin color. Chinese and Japanese are mixed to a small degree with whites. It is unclear if any pure indigenous East Asian flays in the sun the way whites do rather than getting tan. Europeans and West Asians are mixed with the white race to varying degrees. I didn't say that Dravidians should be categorized as Africans and when I speak of a uniform black race, I'm talking about the original Dravidians. Not all Dravidian speakers may have black ancestry and not all present day Dravidian speakers have black ancestry to the same degree. Indians are not all brown and some identify as white or black. Some are definitely yellow, orange, black or white in skin color. You say, South Indians do not have a "thick lipped, round headed, wiry haired" appearence, but I have certainly seen this. I know what you are saying about South Indian appearence is false because I have seen Indians with wire hair, big lips and round heads. Aryans are not indigenous to India. No matter how much mixing between the Aryans and Dravidians occurred in India and no matter how low our precision is when trying to visually distinguish an Aryan speaker from a Dravidian speaker, Aryans are not indigenous in the common definition of being indigenous. The anthropologists I cited said that they were indigenous.----DarkTea© 08:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

    My gosh, what lies. I see there is no convincing you but convincing one person shouldn't be the point. Anyway I oppose any edits on the main page article that claim Dravidian people are a "black" "race", are related to other black populations, that refer to Dravidian peoples physical appearance as wiry haired round-headed and big lipped, or that Dravidian peoples are indigenous peoples of India. The Andamanese clearly fit the bill but no living Dravidian peoples or I doubt even Adivasis who speak Dravidian languages I have ever seen fit all of this description. Thick lips and wide flattened noses are present in some Mongoloid populations in a small amount as with Dravidian peoples and occur in most "races". Wiry Africoid hair I swear have never seen in a Dravidian person so I wonder where you saw them. I will undo any changes suggesting such lies and am determined to do so for a time. Please include the classifications that put Dravidian peoples as Caucasoids if including other racial classifications in the article. B Nambiar 09:38, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

    DarkTea, even if Dravidians would fall under "blacks" by their skincolor, they still aint related to non-Indian population like u claim. We do not know much about the so called original Dravidians and how they looked alike. U claiming them to be black is just POV. I do not know where u see those "Indian" people with thick lips, flat noses and wiry hair. No "Dravidian" I've met has such an appearance, some have thick lips some might have a flattened nose but noone has wooly african hair. And I'm sure I've met more SouthIndians than u did. Most of the so called Dravidians have thin lips, a large nose, and straight/wavy hair. Except for the skincolor this description would also match for other caucasoid population like Semites and Europeans. Finally how do you know that Aryans are not indigenous to India and Dravidians are? If both populations have mixed a lot, how are u able to tell who is Dravidian and who is not, cause both population share both genes from both "races".Asian2duracell 18:35, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

    I added that they were also grouped in the black race by some anthropologists because some of the sources I cited didn't use any other term but the "black" race to describe Dravidians. Some of the sources said that Dravidians were indigenous to India. I have seen some Indians with hair like drawn-out steel wool. It is good that you admit that a proportion of Dravidian speakers you have seen bear sizeable lips and broad noses. You're on the path to admitting that the original people of India were black. To Asian2duracell, the sources I cited said that the original Dravidians are black. I haven't seen Indians with hair like the wool of sheep but hair like drawn out steel wool. The citations said that the Aryans were invaders into India. The Dravidians were the original black racial group in India, but today we can't visually distinguish Indo-Aryan speakers from Dravidian speakers with certainty due to miscegenation.----DarkTea© 05:49, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

    Ive, seen South-East Asians with thick lips, dark skin and broad flattened noses as a large amount of East and South-East Asian peoples have, in fact I think they have larger occurrences of wide flat noses then Dravidians, so they also share one Africoid factor as the Dravidian peoples (who have similar dark but generally lighter than Africoid skin color). This does not suggest recent Africoid origins for East Asians obviously as it doesn't for Dravidians. The lips are as thin overall among the Dravidian peoples as Europeans, never will a North Indian ever single out South Indians for lips, in fact no feature stereotypically defines a South Indian in India except generally darker skin and smaller build, but this can be influenced by vitamin d absorption and proximity to equator. Also the original inhabitants of India might have been Australoid/Mongoloid (or "black""race") but they are not the Dravidian peoples and most likely are related to the Munda and some Adivasi tribal populations currently present in India. I doubt most non-Brahmin Dravidians have any Aryan mixture, as there is no historical, oral, or written evidence though they still manage to look Caucasoid mostly suggesting only one thing, that they are also descendants of a common ancestor from West Asia as their lighter, slightly differently evolved cousins, the Aryans. Please cease your Nazi hunt. As for the drawn out steel wool, I don't believe it at all, are you sure you saw a Dravidian?. B Nambiar 08:58, 17 October 2007 (UTC)


    DarkTea, I'm not on the way to admit anything. Some Dravidians may have thick lips, like ie Angelina Jolie not like Jay-Z, but its less common among Dravidians than other people like EastAsians. The propotion we are talking about is less than 1%. So its not worth mentioning. Flat nose is not common among Dravidians we also talk about ~1%. More than 95% of the Dravdians I've met have straight and some wavy, like SouthernEuropean, hair. And the others didnt had hair at all to judge. I do not know to which race the original people of India belong to, but as far as we know Dravidians are just Immigrants to this country. So are the Aryans. The Aryans and Dravdians came from the same place, which is now in southern Iran. But the Dravidians left earlier than the Aryans did. Stop believing in that Afrocentric crap, I dont care what u read. I've read something else.. just because u read it somewhere it doesnt have to be true.Asian2duracell 16:13, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

    I have seen East Asians and Southeast Asians with broad noses, big lips and dark skin too. Filipinos, Thais, Malaysians, Indonesians were formed by a mixture of the Negrito race, (Rashidi, p. 355). Chinese were formed by a mixture of the Negrito race too, (Li Chi cited by Rashidi and Chandler cited by Rashidi, p. 355, p. 361). Japanese were formed by Negritos, (J.A. Rogers cited by Rashidi p. 328) We see that the black traits in East Asians and Southeast Asians are due to their admixture from the black race. I have already cited anthropologists who have confirmed that Dravdians are Negrito, Australoid, or Negroid or a combination of the three with other admixture. If Dravidians have Aryan traits, then it shows how strongly Dravidians have mixed with the Aryans during the formation of the caste system. To Asian2duracell, I know that a proportion of Indians have big lips a wide nose and hair like steel wool because I have seen them in person. Yes, Dravidians immigrated into India, but they were first or close to first, so they are considered indigenous to India. Dravidians were originally the black racial element in India who are largely considered to not be the same race as the Aryans, according to the anthropologists I cited.----DarkTea© 05:06, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

    Oh come now what nonsense, East Asians have no negrito ancestry. If the East Asians possibly have minute amounts of negrito blood then so does every race because of the original origins in Africa. This is ridiculous, this not science, this is politics, some grab for glory for the "black" "race", which some persons of African ancestry think because they also believe in a conspiracy theory concerning Eurocentrism of anthropologists, which is true to a point, but Afrocentrism contains more lies then Eurocentrism. The anthropologists you selectively cited lack credibility in their classification if their work is judged from phenotypes as Dravidians such as me and Asian2Duracell have seen for ourselves the actual phenotypes of non-Brahmin Dravidians with no Aryan ancestry which includes most of the populations of South India(this is fact, you cant challenge this). Dravidians have overall thin lips and minor occurrences of curly hair(not of the Negroid type) similarly to European and West Asian populations. This indicates nothing, and Dravidians overall still have slightly lighter skin than those other unrelated peoples that belong in the "Black Race". Dravidians came after the Munda/Adivasi peoples who were the first indigenous peoples as recognized by Indians (Adivasi = Original Inhabitants). If the anthropologists you cite believe Dravidians to be indigenous peoples than that further reduces their credibility, as they have false assumptions. Do your constant almost religious repetitive racial ranting, I have even less faith now in historical Athropologists, people such as McCulloch, must be like you in their views, assuming much and making conclusions that suit personal agendas or motives, regardless of the actual truth. I have a feeling you are lying when you claim "I know that a proportion of Indians have big lips a wide nose and hair like steel wool because I have seen them in person" to suit your argument, motives or agenda. B Nambiar 09:22, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

    East Asians have black ancestry from negritos. The Dravidians with Aryan features that you have deemed unmixed were in fact the result of an ancient mixture of Aryan and Dravidian races. Although you seem to believe Dravidians are "slightly lighter" than other blacks, I disagree. I have seen some very dark Indians, so I contest this statement. Some may be lighter and some may be darker than other blacks. Your statements regarding the physical features of Dravidians would be much more convincing to someone who hasn't already seen the black Indians first hand. I know that a proportion of Indians have big lips a wide nose and hair like steel wool because I have seen them in person.----DarkTea© 07:47, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

    I can guarantee you that the Dravidian peoples of India on average OVERALL are few shades lighter then peoples grouped under "Black race" despite some Dravidians having the same skin tone to Africans. In fact the Sinhalese Aryans of Sri Lanka are probably slightly darker on average due to their closer proximity to the equator. As for ancient mixture that is a rather far-fetched claim. Anyway the article now seems almost objective and I think should do. Although it would been good if you added the Caucasoid classification of Dravidians in the racial groups page but you do have a strong POV so I wont bother asking. I don't want to argue with what you think Dravidian people look like which I don't believe, unless you actually have been to South India. Of course I don't dispute the occurrences of wide noses but this does not suggest much, wide noses also occur in West Asian and East Asian races in a lesser and greater proportions respectively. Woolly Africoid hair I definately do not believe occurs in full-blood Dravidian or Aryan populations of India (curly hair does however in small amounts), perhaps in the Munda/Adivasi populations and the Andamanese and in their mixes with Dravidians and Aryan peoples. Anyway most people who have seen many Dravidians would agree with my physical description over your selective cherry picked for argument description of the Dravidian peoples, that much I'm sure of. Thats that. B Nambiar 09:19, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

    Dravidians may be overall darker than some blacks, but I don't know if they're lighter than the average of all blacks combined. "Sinhalese Aryans" probably aren't the best representatives of the original black racial group due to their mixture with Aryans. I have seen enough black Indians to realize that blackness is not an uncommon feature among Indians. I don't have to go to India to know this. West Asians are mixed with the Veddoids and East Asians are mixed with the Negritos who are both the original black races of those regions. Among some black Indians that I've seen, hair like steel wool is apparant, but there is also curly and straight hair.----DarkTea© 18:23, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
    Please take a look at the Jablonski and Chaplin map I linked above.
    I think Americans underestimate the blackness of most tropical Africans because of the many African-Americans with mixed heritage.
    I've worked with a lot of Indians and nobody had "hair like steel wool". A couple did have faces that might be mistaken for African-American, but they were the exception. For that matter, there are people who might be mistaken for African-American among any racial group in the US.
    I've already debunked the reports of Negritos in China based on laughable errors - please respond to the criticism I posted elsewhere before asserting it everywhere.
    Dravidian is best used for modern and verifiable historical speakers of Dravidian languages. The sloppy use of it for various ideas of a racial type is offensive and obsolete. It is like referring to various groups of white people as "Aryans" and "Semites" which is discredited and has been purged from usage. You are showing profound insensitivity to South Asian people, culture, and issues. --JWB 19:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
    Yes, I have seen Indians with hair texture like steel wool. A proportion also have West African faces. I think Negritos were an addition that formed the Chinese people. No, I'm showing respect for the original blacks of India.----DarkTea© 06:11, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

    Please cease with the POV Tea. No one agrees or cares and not much use for it in a wikipedia talk page, perhaps a Neo-Nazi or Black power forum.B Nambiar 05:29, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

    Dravidians Black? Ha, hardly. Listen, I am a black person with relatives straight from Africa, Nigeria to be exact. I know my own folk. Never in my life have I or anyone in my family or any other black person I know consider a Southern Indian Dravidian to be black and I don't know how anyone else can mistake an Indian for a black person. For heaven sakes, they don't even look like blacks from the horn of africa and everyone knows that horn blacks do tend to look somewhat different from blacks in most parts of africa. Indians are not white, but they are not black either. They are like their own race. Gosh, Afrocentrics are wack ,man. If you see a black person going around, embarrassing himself, saying that Indians and other non-black people are black, please forgive him for his foolishness.-----Kimberly —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.136.47.28 (talk • contribs)

    [edit] DNA Tribes

    User:82.5.117.20 removed DNA Tribes information from on this edit, on the grounds that it is a commerical organization which involved many people testing DNA ancestry for a price which is odd because its commercial nature doesn't lower its credibility. DNA Tribes does its work into the present and incorporates multiple experts, making it a reliable source. User:82.5.117.20 did not remove Cavalli Sforza whose work represents one person's opinion and was done in th 1980's even though it was not as reliable a source. User:82.5.117.20 gripe seems to be disingenuous in attacking the stronger reliable source when the weaker source disagrees with them. I see nothing unreliable about the DNA Tribes source.----DarkTea© 14:22, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

    In [1] Valaitis says nothing about his methods and data except that he is using autosomal short tandem repeats, but says they are proprietary. This is the key difference between proprietary commercial work and open scientific publication where methods and data are detailed for peer review. In particular, different statistical methods, even on the same data, can give different branching trees. It is impossible to evaluate the DNA Tribes work without any information.

    You interpret Valaitis as saying "India is genetically closest to East and Southeast Asians with little genetic similarity to Europeans". His tree diagram appears to say the distance between Indians and Europeans is about .61 and the distance between Indians and East Asians is about .53, which does not justify "little genetic similarity". "About 15% less similarity" would be a more accurate representation.

    Cavalli-Sforza publishes with a large number of co-authors and it is not accurate to represent his work as more "one person's opinion" than Valaitis.

    There is plenty of work in the open scientific literature and you should look for support for your POV there. --JWB 03:53, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] WikiProject Dravidian civilizations

    Image:Qxz-ad96.gif

    Wiki Raja 08:15, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Dravidian people picture

    I have added a collage of pictures to the Info-Box, similar to the ones on Punjabi people, Bengali, etc. I have chosen notable South Indian (Dravidian) figures of cinema (Aishwariya Rai), politics (Abdul Kalam, Periyar Naicker), and art (Raja Ravi Varma). I have also tried to cover all the states which made up Dravidian area. Daavir 09:54, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

    Removing racial classifications section due to irrelevance and speculative nature.B Nambiar 09:54, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

    I placed it unded see also instead Taprobanus 21:10, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

    Great idea. Why does the collage have to be removed? It is a descriptive addition to an encyclopedic article.B Nambiar 04:52, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

    i did not remove it, may be it was not made out of wiki commons, but we can create one out of wiki commons Taprobanus 06:36, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
    Why not put Periyar Ramaswamy's picture? Wiki Raja (talk) 06:39, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
    Feel free to add more photos to the image, as long as the collage doesn't become too big (no more than 10 for example). It might also be relevant to include pictures of Brahui people from Pakistan, who are also Dravidians (people who speak a Dravidian language)Daavir 00:13, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

    Good idea. Periyar would be a good addition as well, as would a picture of Aishwarya Rai.B Nambiar 08:35, 3 December 2007 (UTC)