ABSTRACT
Scholarly ideas and scientific hypotheses tend to become digested by society at large and become part of popular lore. However, there is often a considerable time lag between the dawning of scientific insights and their popular acceptance. Consequently, some ideas live on in the popular imagination long after they have outlived their usefulness in scholarly discourse. In this way, obsolete conceptual frameworks can determine the content of popular discourse and shape political agendas and even societal developments. One such idea is the myth of the Mongoloid race, which continues to play a role today in the psyche of many people, especially in northeastern India. New insights from both historical linguistics and population genetics enable us to dispel the Mongoloid myth and at the same time highlight the importance of the Eastern Himalaya as a cradle of ethnogenesis in the primeval past.
