I only know a few people from this area personally and from what i’ve seen on TV so i’m not an expert, but people from this area do not strike me as of strict indian descent. A central or southern american doesn’t look much like a north american full blooded indian. I’m assuming that 500 years ago north & south american indians looked the same though. So my question is, what is the descent of most southern and central americans? Are they 3/4 spanish/european, 1/4 indian or something along those lines? They seem to be a mix of european and indian from what I can tell but I assume other ethnicities have been there too.
As a generalization, most Latin Americans are of mixed European and Indian (Native American) ancestry, with some African ancestry in some areas. But Latin America is a vast area, and the proportions of different ancestry varies from place to place. For example, in Guatemala and Bolivia a relatively large percentage of people are of nearly pure Indian ancestry. In Costa Rica, Argentina, and Uruguay, European heritage predominates. In the West Indies and the coastal Caribbean, there is relatively greater proportion of African ancestry and less Indian (because the Indians were killed off more completely there).
Ancestry varies quite a bit even within a country. Here in Panama there are districts that have predominantly Indian, European, or African heritage. In Panama City many people are a tri-racial melange of all three.
I also want to point out that ‘I’m assuming that 500 years ago north & south american indians looked the same though.’ isn’t true.
The matter of appearance in terms of coloration, size, features, etc vary enormously between say, an Amazonian Native American and a Great Plains Native American and an Arctic Circle Native American.
Sure, each groups tends to have black hair and dark eyes and skin darker than Europeans. But that’s true for pretty much ALL non-Europeans.
The CIA World Factbook has the info you want.
For instance,
Mexico = mestizo (Amerindian-Spanish) 60%, Amerindian or predominantly Amerindian 30%, white 9%, other 1%
Argentina = white (mostly Spanish and Italian) 97%, mestizo, Amerindian, or other nonwhite groups 3%
As Jonathan mentions, indians differ in appearance not only between North, Central, and South America but between tribes in specific areas living in close proximity to each other.
Different migration times by different groups and all that.