Shatova Polina
human races
The modern racial image of mankind was formed as a result of a complex historical development racial groups living apart and mixing, evolving, disappearing. It is of particular importance for us to study all that we can learn about the human races in order to understand what really defines the human race. Even without outside clues, by observing, one can be sure that people in the world are divided into different groups. The members of each are in some way more closely related to each other than to the members of the other group. For this reason, they are more similar to each other than to others.
The section of anthropology - racial studies - summarizes data on the study of the anthropological composition of the peoples of the globe in the present and past, that is, on the formation and distribution of races on Earth; considers the problems of classification of races, their origin, settlement around the globe, development and interaction in connection with the specific history of human populations, based on data from morphology and physiology, genetics and molecular biology. The main problems of this section are the history of the formation of races, the relationship between them at different stages of historical development, the disclosure of the causes and mechanisms of racial differentiation.
A large place in racial science is occupied by the study of delimiting racial characteristics, their heredity, dependence on the surrounding natural-geographical and socio-cultural environment, gender differences, age dynamics, geographical variations and epoch-making changes. Racial data are used to refute pseudoscientific racist concepts and form a correct idea of the differences in the morphological appearance of people.
The origin of the term "race" is not exactly established. It is possible that it is a modification of the Arabic word "ras" (head, beginning, root). There is also an opinion that this term is associated with the Italian razza, which means "tribe". The word "race" in approximately the sense in which it is now used is already found in the French scientist Francois Bernier, who published in 1684 one of the first classifications of human races.
Races exist predominantly in a social sense and are one of the forms of social classification that is used in a particular society. However, in the biological sense, a clear division into races does not exist. Anthropology does not deny the existence of a distinct morphological and genetic diversity of mankind. Different researchers in different periods under the "race" meant different concepts.
Races are historically formed groupings (population groups) of people of different sizes, characterized by the similarity of morphological and physiological properties, as well as the commonality of the territories they occupy.
Large races of man
Since the 17th century, many different classifications of human races have been proposed. Most often, three main, or large, races are distinguished: Caucasoid (Eurasian, Caucasoid), Mongoloid (Asian-American) and Equatorial (Negro-Australoid). The Caucasoid race is characterized by fair skin (with variations from very light, mainly in Northern Europe, to swarthy and even brown), soft straight or wavy hair, horizontal slit eyes, moderately or strongly developed hair on the face and chest in men, prominently protruding nose, straight or slightly sloping forehead.
In the Mongoloid race, the skin color varies from dark to light (mainly in North Asian groups), the hair is usually dark, often coarse and straight, the protrusion of the nose is usually small, the palpebral fissure has an oblique incision, the fold of the upper eyelid is significantly developed and, in addition to in addition, there is a fold (epicanthus) covering the inner corner of the eye; hairline is weak.
The equatorial race is distinguished by dark pigmentation of the skin, hair and eyes, curly or broadly wavy (Australian) hair; the nose is usually wide, slightly protruding, the lower part of the face protrudes.
Small races and their geographical distribution
Each major race is subdivided into minor races, or anthropological types. Within the Caucasoid race, the Atlanto-Baltic, White Sea-Baltic, Central European, Balkan-Caucasian and Indo-Mediterranean minor races are distinguished. Now Caucasians inhabit virtually the entire inhabited land, but until the middle of the 15th century - the beginning of the great geographical discoveries - their main range included Europe, North Africa, Western and Central Asia and India. In modern Europe, all small races are represented, but the Central European variant prevails numerically (often found among Austrians, Germans, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Russians, Ukrainians); in general, its population is very mixed, especially in cities, due to migrations, miscegenation and the influx of migrants from other regions of the Earth.
Within the Mongoloid race, the Far Eastern, South Asian, North Asian, Arctic and American small races are usually distinguished, the latter sometimes being considered as a separate large race. The Mongoloids inhabited all climatic and geographical zones (Northern, Central, East and Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, Madagascar, North and South America). Modern Asia is characterized by a wide variety of anthropological types, but various Mongoloid and Caucasoid groups predominate in number. Among the Mongoloids, the Far Eastern (Chinese, Japanese, Koreans) and South Asian (Malays, Javanese, Probes) small races are most common, among Caucasians - the Indo-Mediterranean. In America, the indigenous population (Indians) is a minority, compared with various Caucasoid anthropological types and population groups of representatives of all three major races.
The equatorial, or Negro-Australoid, race includes three small races of African Negroids (Negro, or Negroid, Bushman and Negrillian) and the same number of Oceanic Australoids (Australian, or Australoid, a race that is distinguished in some classifications as an independent large race, as well as Melanesian and vedoid). The range of the equatorial race is not continuous: it covers most of Africa, Australia, Melanesia, New Guinea, and partly Indonesia. In Africa, the Negro minor race is numerically predominant; in the north and south of the continent, the proportion of the Caucasoid population is significant.
In Australia, the indigenous population is a minority in relation to migrants from Europe and India, and representatives of the Far Eastern race (Japanese, Chinese) are quite numerous. Indonesia is dominated by the South Asian race.
Along with the above, there are races with a less definite position, formed as a result of a long-term mixing of the population of certain regions, for example, the Lapanoid and Ural races, combining the features of Caucasoids and Mongoloids, or the Ethiopian race - intermediate between the Equatorial and Caucasoid races.
| Races of man | ||
| Negroid race | Mongoloid race | Caucasian race |
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| There are two major branches - African and Australian: West African Negroes, Bushmen, Negritos Pygmies, Hottentots, Melanesians and Australian Aborigines. | The indigenous population of Asia (with the exception of India) and America (from the northern Eskimos to the Indians of Tierra del Fuego) | The population of Europe, the Caucasus, southwest Asia, northern Africa, India, as well as in the composition of the population of America |
Race and psyche
From time immemorial sharp psychic differences have been incorrectly attributed to races. The famous Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) was the first of the scientists to propose a more or less scientific classification of human races according to their physical characteristics, but at the same time he vainly attributed, for example, cruelty, melancholy, stubbornness and stinginess to the “Asiatic man”; "African" - anger, cunning, laziness, indifference; "European" - mobility, wit, ingenuity, that is, high mental abilities. Thus Linnaeus extolled the "white" race over the others.
Darwin, unlike Linnaeus, recognized the existence of a fundamental similarity in the manifestations of higher nervous activity in people of different races.
Darwin was very far from explaining the low cultural level of the Fuegians by their mental racial characteristics. On the contrary, he sought explanations for this in social factors.
Speaking about the expression of emotions, or emotional experiences, with the help of the mimic muscles of the face, Darwin comes to the conclusion that representatives of different races have a striking similarity or identity in this respect.
In another place, Darwin draws attention to the fact of the extraordinary similarity of the forms and methods of producing stone tips for weapons, collected from the most diverse countries of the earth and belonging to the ancient eras of mankind. He explains this by the closeness of the inventive and mental abilities of the most diverse human races in past times.
The opinion about the natural fundamental difference in the psyche of different races is often tried to be substantiated by the fact that the weight of the brain in different racial groups varies within several hundred grams. However, a person's abilities cannot be judged by the weight of his brain.
Outstanding people come from a variety of races. Mao Tse-tung is the greatest statesman of the new China, where the people of 600 million, having overthrown the yoke of the foreign imperialist invaders and completely freed themselves from the yoke of feudalism, are engaged in the peaceful construction of a new, happy life. The world-famous singer Paul Robeson is a prominent fighter for peace, laureate of the Stalin Prize "For strengthening peace among peoples." There are many such examples.
Reactionary bourgeois scientists, with the help of special psychotechnical tests, the so-called tests, seek to show the alleged mental superiority of one race over another. Such attempts were made more than once and, moreover, without taking into account the difference in social status, in the education received and upbringing among the groups examined and compared with each other. Genuine scientists, of course, are sharply negative about these toasts, as they are means unsuitable for determining mental abilities.
Some reactionary German anthropologists at the International Congress on Anthropology and Ethnography, held in Copenhagen in August 1938, tried to prove the existence and inheritance of mental racial traits in their reports and speeches. racial psyche" have almost died out, while the Maori from the island of New Zealand successfully perceive European culture, since, according to these anthropologists, they belong to the Caucasoid race.
At the same congress, however, strong objections were raised by a number of its more progressive members. They denied the presence of natural racial traits in the psyche and pointed to differences in the level of culture, which are reflected in the mental makeup of tribes and peoples. The scientific evidence is inconsistent. with statements about the existence of a special "racial instinct", which allegedly causes enmity between the races of mankind. Under favorable social conditions, peoples of any racial composition can create an advanced culture and civilization. The psyche of individual people, their national character, behavior are determined and shaped under the predominant, decisive influence of the social environment: racial characteristics in the development of mental activity do not play any role.
The outstanding Russian ethnographer and anthropologist Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklukho-Maclay set as one of the chains of his study of the uncultured peoples of Oceania the determination of the level of their natural intelligence. Having spent many years in friendly communication with the Papuans, he met with many striking facts confirming that these inhabitants of New Guinea have the same high mental characteristics as the Europeans. For example, when Miklukho-Maclay was drawing a map of the area in which he lived, a Papuan who was watching his work and who had not known the map before immediately discovered the mistake made when drawing the coastline and corrected it very accurately.
Miklukho-Maclay characterizes the Papuans as intelligent people, not devoid of artistic taste, skillfully carving figurines of their ancestors and making various ornaments.
As a result of many years of anthropological and ethnographic research, which made the works of Miklouho-Maclay classic, he irrefutably proved that the Papuans are quite capable of unlimited cultural development. In this respect, they are in no way inferior to Europeans.
The studies of Miklouho-Maclay revealed the unscientific and biased opinion of the racists about the natural inability of the dark-skinned races to creatively master the spiritual wealth accumulated by mankind.
Miklouho-Maclay devoted his entire short life to the struggle for the idea of the biological equivalence of human races. He considered people of all races fully capable of the highest achievements in the field of culture. The principles of progressive scientific and social activity of Miklukho-Maclay developed at the time when the revolutionary-democratic views of the greatest Russian thinker Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky, who was especially interested in questions of human races, were taking shape. Chernyshevsky, dwelling on the features of racial difference and similarity, denied the claims of the racists about the physical and mental inequality of human races. He rejected the influence of race on historical development and, using the example of Negro slavery in the USA, revealed the reactionary essence of racism. In his views on race and racism, Chernyshevsky relied on solid scientific data. Among the latter, he especially highly valued the achievements of the physiology of the nervous system, which were clearly marked in Russian science thanks to the brilliant works of Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov.
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RACES OF HUMANS We - people differ from each other in eye color, hair, skin tones, height, body weight, facial features. All of these are individual differences. But there are signs that distinguish entire communities of people - races. A race is a historically established group of people united by: - a common origin; - the territory of residence; - common morphological and physiological - hereditary features; - traditions and customs. Francois Bernier
The question of the origin and classification of races has a long history. The first attempt to describe the human races was made in the 17th century. French Bernier. Carl Linnaeus
Later, K. Linnaeus singled out four races: American, European, Asian, African. At present, most scientists distinguish three large races and several dozen small ones. Large races - equatorial (Australian-Negroid), Eurasian (Caucasian), Asian-American (Mongoloid). Representatives of the equatorial race live mainly in some tropical regions of the Old World. They are characterized by dark skin, wavy or curly hair, a wide flattened nose with large nostrils, and thick lips. The area of distribution of the Eurasian race is Europe, part of Asia, North Africa, America. Its representatives are characterized by light, sometimes swarthy skin, straight, sometimes wavy soft hair, a long nose, thin lips, and usually well-developed facial hair (mustache, beard). The Asian-American race is common in America, Central and East Asia. The representatives of this race have straight, black, coarse hair, and their mustaches and beards grow weakly. The skin is more dark than fair. The nose of the Mongols is of medium width, protrudes little, while the nose of the American Indians is long, strongly protruding. The most characteristic features of this race are a wide face, protruding cheekbones, a narrow palpebral fissure, lips of medium thickness, and an upper eyelid closed with a leathery fold (“third eyelid”). However, even within the same race there are groups of people who differ from each other. For example, a Malay does not outwardly look too much like a Buryat or an Evenk. The Negroid Pygmies of the Congo River are different from the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert. Caucasoids of Northern Europe (Norwegians, Swedes) - light-eyed, fair-haired, fair-skinned - bear little resemblance to southerners, mostly brown-eyed and dark-skinned. Therefore, scientists distinguish several dozen smaller races - the second and third order. Currently, people are actively moving around the world, moving from place to place. Representatives of different races intermarry. Races have been around for a very long time. The first division into two large trunks, the Mongoloid and the Caucasian-Negroid races, occurred 90-92 thousand years ago. It is believed that the separation of Caucasians and Negroids occurred 50 thousand years ago. Scientists are still arguing about the mechanism of formation of races. Many characteristics of races are clearly adaptive in nature. So, the dark skin of Negroids protects them better from ultraviolet rays than the light skin of Caucasians. Curly hair is a good heat insulator in the sun. An important factor in the formation of races could be their isolation. In groups of people living in isolation from the rest of the world, some new signs arose - the shape of the nose, lips, etc. e People - carriers of this trait married only within their group. Their offspring also intermarried within this group. Over time, the new sign became the property of all members of this group. Despite the differences between races, all modern humanity is represented by one species - Homo sapiens. Races should not be confused with the concepts of "nation" and "people" Representatives of different races can be members of a single state and speak the same language. The presence of speech centers is a biological feature of the human species. What language a person speaks does not depend on belonging to a particular race or nationality, but on social factors - on who the person lives with and who will teach him. Through speech, the ability to control one's behavior is realized: an adult, mature, intelligent person first sets goals, plans his actions, and only then acts.
A race is a group of people that has historically developed under certain geographical conditions and has some common hereditary-conditioned morphological and physiological characteristics.
Racial features are hereditary, being adaptive to the conditions of existence / survival.
Three main races:
Mongoloid (Asia) 1. The skin is swarthy, yellowish. 2. Straight coarse black hair, narrow slit eyes with a fold of the upper eyelid (epicanthus). 3. Flat and rather wide nose, lips are moderately developed. 6. Growth of the majority is average or below average.
→Steppe landscape, high temperature, sharp drops, strong wind.
Caucasoid (Europe) 1. Light-skinned (to absorb the sun's rays). 2. Straight or wavy light blond or dark blond soft hair. Grey, green or brown eyes. 3. Narrow and strongly protruding nose (to warm the air), not thick lips. 4. Medium or strong development of hair on the body and on the face.
Australo-Negroid (Africa) 1. Dark skin. 2. Curly dark hair, brown or black eyes. 3. Wide nose, thick lips. 4. Tertiary hairline is poorly developed.
→High humidity and temperature.
Racial differences of the 1st order - morphological (skin color, nose, lips, hair).
Racial differences of the 2nd order: adaptation to the environment, isolation over vast expanses as a result of sharp borders between the continents, social isolation (endogamy, isolation of the group), spontaneous mutation (for example, head index, blood composition, bone composition).
The problem of the number of main races is still actively debated. In almost all schemes of racial classifications, at least three general groups (three large races) are necessarily distinguished: Mongoloids, Negroids and Caucasians, although the names of these groups may change. The first known classification of human races was published in 1684 by F. Bernier. He singled out four races, the first of which is common in Europe, North Africa, Asia Minor and India, and to which the indigenous people of America are also close, the second race is common in the rest of Africa, the third in East Asia, the fourth in Lapland.
K. Linnaeus in the tenth edition of "The System of Nature" (1758) described four geographical variants within the species Homo sapiens introduced by him: American, European, Asian, African, and also proposed a separate version for the Lapps. The principles for distinguishing races were then still vague: in the characterization of races, K. Linnaeus included not only signs of appearance, but also temperament (the people of America are choleric, European people are sanguine, Asia are melancholic and Africa are phlegmatic) and even such cultural and everyday features as tailoring, etc.
In similar classifications by J. Buffon and I. Blumenbach, the South Asian (or Malay) race and the Ethiopian race were additionally distinguished. For the first time, an assumption was made about the emergence of races from a single variant as a result of settlement in climatically different regions of the Earth. I. Blumenbach considered the Caucasus to be the center of racial formation. He was the first to apply the method of anthropological craniology to build his system.
In the 19th century racial classifications became more complicated and supplemented. Within the large races, small ones began to stand out, but the signs of such a distinction in the systems of the 19th century. often served as features of culture and language.
The famous French naturalist and naturalist J. Cuvier divided people into three races according to skin color: the Caucasian race; Mongolian race; Ethiopian race.
P. Topinar also distinguished these three races by pigmentation, but determined the width of the nose in addition to pigmentation: light-skinned, narrow-nosed race (Caucasoid); yellow-skinned, medium-broad-nosed race (Mongoloid); black, broad-nosed race (Negroid).
A. Retzius introduced the term "cranial index" into anthropology, and his four races (1844) differed in the combination of the degree of protrusion of the face and the head index.
E. Haeckel and F. Müller based the classification of races on the shape of the hair. They identified four groups: tufted (lofokomy) - mainly Hottentots: woolly-haired (eriokomy) - Negroes; wavy-haired (euplocomas) - Europeans, Ethiopians, etc .; straight-haired (euplokoms) - Mongols, Americans, etc.
Three main approaches to the classification of races:
a) without regard to origin - three large races are distinguished, which include 22 small ones, some of which are transitional, depicted as a circle;
b) taking into account the origin and kinship - highlighting signs of archaism (ancient) and evolutionary advancement of individual races; depicted as an evolutionary tree with a short trunk and divergent branches;
c) based on the population concept - based on the data of paleoanthropological studies; the essence is that large races are huge populations, small races are subpopulations of large ones, within which specific ethnic formations (nations, nationalities) are smaller populations. It turns out a structure that includes levels of hierarchy: an individual - an ethnic group - a small race - a large race.
The classification system of I. Deniker is the first serious system based only on biological characteristics. The groups singled out by the author practically unchanged, although with different names, passed into later racial schemes. I. Deniker was the first to use the idea of two levels of differentiation - the selection first of the main, and then of the minor races.
Deniker identified six racial trunks:
group A (woolly hair, wide nose): Bushman, Negro, Negro and Melanesian races;
group B (curly or wavy hair): Ethiopian, Australian, Dravidian and Assyrian races;
group C (wavy, dark or black hair and dark eyes): Indo-Afghan, Arab or Semitic, Berber, Southern European, Ibero-Islandic, Western European and Adriatic races;
group D (wavy or straight hair, blondes with light eyes): North European (Nordic) and East European races;
group E (straight or wavy, black hair, dark eyes): Ainos, Polynesian, Indonesian and South American races;
group F (straight hair): North American, Middle American, Patagonian, Eskimo, Lopar, Ugric, Turko-Tatar and Mongolian races.
Among the European races, in addition to the above, Deniker singled out certain sub-races: northwestern; sub-nordic; whistulian or eastern.
For more than a century, various expeditions of anthropologists have been working in various parts of the globe, studying the diversity of forms of mankind. Tribes have been studied in the most remote areas (in tropical forests, deserts, in the highlands, islands), and as a result, modern humanity has been studied, in morphological and physiological terms, perhaps better than any other biological species. Research has revealed the exceptional diversity of the physical and genotypic characteristics of human populations and their subtle adaptation to living conditions. Studies have also shown that, although modern humanity belongs to one single species Homo sapiens, this view is polymorphic , since it forms several different intraspecific groups that have long been called races.
Race(fr. race- "genus", "breed", "tribe") is a historically established intraspecific grouping, consisting of populations Homo sapiens, characterized by the similarity of morphophysiological and mental properties. Each race is distinguished by a set of hereditarily determined traits. Among them: the color of the skin, eyes, hair, features of the skull and soft parts of the face, body size, height, etc.
The external structural features of the human body were the main criteria for the division of mankind into races.
Modern humanity is divided into three main races: Negroid, Mongoloid and Caucasoid.
Races of man |
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Negroid race |
Mongoloid race |
Caucasian race |
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distinguish two large branches - African and Australian: West African Negroes, Bushmen, Negritos Pygmies, Hottentots, Melanesians and Australian Aborigines |
the indigenous population of Asia (with the exception of India) and America (from the northern Eskimos to the Indians of Tierra del Fuego) |
population of Europe, the Caucasus, southwestern Asia, northern Africa, India, as well as in the population of America |
Negroid race characterized by dark skin color, curly, spirally twisted hair (on the head and body), a wide and slightly protruding nose, thick lips. The Negroid race includes West African Negroes, Bushmen, Negritos Pygmies, Hottentots, Melanesians and Australian Aborigines. In the Negroid race, two large branches are distinguished - African and Australian. The Australian branch groups are characterized, in contrast to the African branch, by a wavy hair type.
Mongoloid race characterized by swarthy or fair skin, straight and rather coarse hair, a flattened face, prominent cheekbones, protruding lips, a narrow palpebral fissure, a strong development of the fold of the upper eyelid and the presence of an epicanthus, or "Mongolian fold".
epicanthus - skin fold in the corner of the human eye, covering the lacrimal tubercle; especially strongly developed in children and women and occurs more often in women than in men.
The Mongoloid group includes the entire indigenous population of Asia (with the exception of India) and America. As a special branch in the Mongoloid race, Americanoids stand out, i.e. the indigenous population of America (from the northern Eskimos to the Indians of Tierra del Fuego). They differ from the Asian Mongoloids in two ways - a significant protrusion of the nose and the absence of an epicanthus, which brings them closer to the Caucasoids.
Caucasian race characterized by light or dark skin, straight or wavy soft hair, a narrow protruding nose, light (blue) eye color, thin lips, a narrow and wide head. Caucasoids inhabit Europe, the Caucasus, southwestern Asia, northern Africa, India and are part of the population of America.
Within each race allocate small races , or subraces (anthropological types) . For example, in the Caucasoid, the Atlanto-Baltic, Indo-Mediterranean, Central European, Balkan-Caucasian and White Sea-Baltic are distinguished. Inside the Mongoloid - North Asian, Arctic, Far Eastern, South Asian and American. Several subraces are also distinguished within the Negroid race. According to the concept, which does not take into account the origin, large races are divided into 22 small ones, some of which are transitional.
The very existence of transitional races testifies to the dynamism of racial characteristics. Transitional small races combine not only morphological features, but also the genetic characteristics of large ones. Social factors and characteristics of the environment have led to differences between races and their subraces in connection with the spread of man around the globe.
Racial characteristics are hereditary, but at present they are not essential for human life. Therefore, now representatives of different races often live in the same territory. But in the distant past, when the effect of social factors was still small, of course, many of the characteristics characteristic of a particular race were an adaptation to certain physical, geographical and climatic conditions of the external environment and were developed under the influence of natural selection.
H For example, the dark coloration of the skin and hair of the inhabitants of the equatorial regions of the Earth arose as a protection against the burning action of the ultraviolet rays of the sun. The blacks of Africa have formed a high elongated cranium, which is heated less than round and low. Curly hair, which creates an airy layer around the head, developed as a protection against overheating under the action of hot sunlight; thick lips, a wide nose, and elongated body proportions with low weight appeared as ways to increase the surface of the body, useful for thermoregulation (heat loss) in hot climates. A type with wider body proportions in relation to volume developed in a climate with significant negative temperatures. The flat face of the Mongoloids with a slightly protruding nose turned out to be useful in conditions of a sharply continental climate and strong winds, moreover, a smooth, streamlined surface is less prone to frostbite.
Many morphological features of races serve as evidence that the natural environment, its abiotic and biotic factors, had a great influence in race formation. Like the whole living world, in a person during his formation, external conditions caused variability and the appearance of various adaptive properties, and natural selection retained the most successful variants of fitness. The adaptive properties of the race manifested themselves not only in appearance, but also in human physiology, for example, in the composition of the blood, the characteristics of fat deposition, and the activity of metabolic processes.
These differences arose in connection with the resettlement of people in new habitats. It's believed that Homo sapiens formed off the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea and in northeast Africa. From these areas, the first Cro-Magnons settled in southern Europe, across South and East Asia up to Australia. Through the northeastern tip of Asia they came to America - first to the west of North America, from where they descended to South America.
The centers of race formation and the ways of settling races: 1 - the ancestral home of man and resettlement from it; 2 - focus of degeneration and dispersal of Australoids; 3 - the center of race formation and the resettlement of Caucasians; 4 - the center of racial formation and the resettlement of Negroids; 5 - focus of race formation and settling of the Mongoloids; 6.7 - centers of race formation and resettlement of Americanoids
Races began to form in the process of human settlement of different territories of the Earth about 40-70 thousand years ago, that is, at the stage of the early Cro-Magnon. At that time, many racial traits were of great adaptive significance and were fixed by natural selection in a certain geographical environment. However, with the development of social relations (communication, speech, joint hunting, etc.), the intensification of the action of social factors, the influence of the environment, as well as the pressure of natural selection, ceased to be a formative force for a person. Despite the emergence of numerous racial differences in morphological and physiological characteristics, reproductive isolation between human races did not occur. In terms of intellectual potential and mental abilities, the races also do not have differences.
Active movement around the planet and the resulting joint settlements of many people in the same territories have shown that the isolation of human races, their morphological, physiological and mental differences as a result of mixed marriages are reduced and even lost. This is a convincing confirmation of the unity of the species Homo sapiens and proof of the biological equivalence of all human races. Racial differences concern only signs of morphology and physiology, but they are variations of the single heredity of man as a species.
Despite the diversity of races of modern man, they are all representatives of one single species. The presence of fertile marriages between people of different races confirms their genetic non-isolation, which indicates the integrity of the species. Unity of a Kind Homo sapiens It is ensured by the common origin, the unlimited ability to interbreed people of different races and ethnic groups, as well as the same level of their general physical and mental development.
All human races are at the same biological level of development.
The current appearance of humanity is the result of a complex historical development of human groups and can be described by highlighting special biological types - human races. It is assumed that their formation began to occur 30-40 thousand years ago, as a result of the settlement of people in new geographical zones. According to the researchers, their first groups moved from the region of modern Madagascar to South Asia, then Australia, a little later to the Far East, Europe and America. This process gave rise to the original races from which all subsequent diversity of peoples arose. Within the framework of the article, it will be considered which main races are distinguished within the species Homo sapiens (reasonable man), their characteristics and features.
Race Meaning
To summarize the definitions of anthropologists, a race is a historically established set of people who have a common physical type (skin color, structure and hair color, skull shape, etc.), the origin of which is associated with a certain geographical area. At the present time the relation of race to area is not always sufficiently clear, but it definitely took place in the distant past.
The origin of the term "race" is not reliably defined, but there has been much debate in scientific circles over its use. In this regard, initially the term was ambiguous and conditional. There is an opinion that the word represents a modification of the Arabic lexeme ras - head or beginning. There is also every reason to believe that this term may be related to the Italian razza, which means "tribe". Interestingly, in the modern sense, this word is first found in the writings of the French traveler and philosopher Francois Bernier. In 1684 he gives one of the first classifications of the major human races.
races
Attempts to put together a picture classifying the human races were made by the ancient Egyptians. They identified four types of people according to their skin color: black, yellow, white, and red. And for a long time this division of mankind was preserved. The Frenchman Francois Bernier tried to give a scientific classification of the main types of races in the 17th century. But more complete and constructed systems appeared only in the twentieth century.
It is known that there is no generally accepted classification, and all of them are rather conditional. But in the anthropological literature most often refer to Ya. Roginsky and M. Levin. They identified three large races, which in turn are divided into small ones: Caucasoid (Eurasian), Mongoloid and Negro-Australoid (Equatorial). When constructing this classification, scientists took into account morphological similarities, the geographical distribution of races and the time of their formation.
Race characteristics
The classical racial characteristic is determined by a complex of physical features related to the appearance of a person and his anatomy. The color and shape of the eyes, the shape of the nose and lips, the pigmentation of the skin and hair, the shape of the skull are the primary racial features. There are also minor features such as physique, height and proportions of the human body. But in view of the fact that they are very variable and depend on environmental conditions, they are not used in racial science. Racial traits are not interconnected by one or another biological dependence, therefore they form numerous combinations. But it is stable traits that make it possible to single out races of a large order (basic), while small races are distinguished on the basis of more variable indicators.
Thus, the main characteristic of a race includes morphological, anatomical and other features that are of a stable hereditary nature and are minimally subject to the influence of the environment.
Caucasian race
Almost 45% of the world's population are Caucasians. The geographical discoveries of America and Australia allowed her to settle around the world. However, its main core is concentrated within Europe, the African Mediterranean and southwestern Asia.
In the Caucasoid group, the following combination of signs is distinguished:
- clearly profiled face;
- pigmentation of hair, skin and eyes from the lightest to darkest shades;
- straight or wavy soft hair;
- medium or thin lips;
- narrow nose, strongly or moderately protruding from the plane of the face;
- poorly formed fold of the upper eyelid;
- developed hairline on the body;
- large hands and feet.
The composition of the Caucasoid race is distinguished by two large branches - northern and southern. The northern branch is represented by Scandinavians, Icelanders, Irish, British, Finns and others. South - Spaniards, Italians, southern French, Portuguese, Iranians, Azerbaijanis and others. All the differences between them are in the pigmentation of the eyes, skin and hair.
Mongoloid race
The formation of the Mongoloid group has not been fully explored. According to some assumptions, the nationality was formed in the central part of Asia, in the Gobi desert, which was distinguished by its harsh sharply continental climate. As a result, representatives of this race of people generally have strong immunity and good adaptation to cardinal changes in climatic conditions.
Signs of the Mongoloid race:
- brown or black eyes with a slanted and narrow slit;
- overhanging upper eyelids;
- moderately extended nose and lips of medium size;
- skin color from yellow to brown;
- straight coarse dark hair;
- strongly protruding cheekbones;
- poorly developed body hair.
The Mongoloid race is divided into two branches: northern Mongoloids (Kalmykia, Buryatia, Yakutia, Tuva) and southern peoples (Japan, residents of the Korean Peninsula, South China). Ethnic Mongols can act as prominent representatives of the Mongoloid group.
The equatorial (or Negro-Australoid) race is a large group of people that makes up 10% of humanity. It includes Negroid and Australoid groups, which mostly live in Oceania, Australia, the tropical zone of Africa and in the regions of South and Southeast Asia.
Most researchers consider the specific characteristics of a race as a result of the development of a population in a hot and humid climate:
- dark pigmentation of the skin, hair and eyes;
- coarse curly or wavy hair;
- the nose is wide, slightly protruding;
- thick lips with a significant mucous part;
- protruding lower face.
The race is distinctly divided into two trunks - eastern (Pacific, Australian and Asian groups) and western (African groups).
Minor races
The main races in which humanity has been successfully imprinted on all the continents of the earth, branching out into a complex mosaic of people - small races (or races of the second order). Anthropologists distinguish from 30 to 50 such groups. The Caucasoid race consists of the following types: White Sea-Baltic, Atlanto-Baltic, Middle Caucasoid, Balkan-Caucasian (Ponto-Zagros) and Indo-Mediterranean.
The Mongoloid group distinguishes: Far Eastern, South Asian, North Asian, Arctic and American types. It is worth noting that the last of them in some classifications tends to be considered as an independent large race. In today's Asia, the Far Eastern (Koreans, Japanese, Chinese) and South Asian (Javanese, Probes, Malays) types are most prevalent.
The equatorial population is divided into six small groups: the African Negroids are represented by the Negro, Central African and Bushman races, the Oceanian Australoids are the Veddoid, Melanesian and Australian (in some classifications it is put forward as the main race).
mixed race
In addition to races of the second order, there are also mixed and transitional races. Presumably, they were formed from ancient populations within the boundaries of climatic zones, through contact between representatives of different races, or appeared during long-distance migrations, when it was necessary to adapt to new conditions.
Thus, there are Euro-Mongoloid, Euro-Negroid and Euro-Mongol-Negroid sub-races. For example, the Laponoid group has signs of three main races: prognathism, prominent cheekbones, soft hair, and others. The carriers of such characteristics are the Finno-Permian peoples. Or Ural which is represented by Caucasoid and Mongoloid populations. She is characterized by the following dark straight hair, moderate skin pigmentation, brown eyes, and medium hairline. Distributed mostly in Western Siberia.
- Until the 20th century, there were no representatives of the Negroid race in Russia. In the USSR, during the cooperation with developing countries, about 70 thousand blacks remained to live.
- Only one Caucasian race is capable of producing lactase throughout its life, which is involved in the absorption of milk. In the other major races, this ability is observed only in infancy.
- Genetic studies have determined that the fair-skinned inhabitants of the northern territories of Europe and Russia have about 47.5% of Mongolian genes and only 52.5% of European ones.
- A large number of people who self-identify as pure African Americans have European ancestry. In turn, Europeans can find Native Americans or Africans in their ancestors.
- The DNA of all the inhabitants of the planet, regardless of external differences (skin color, hair texture), is 99.9% the same, therefore, from the standpoint of genetic research, the existing concept of "race" loses its meaning.
Since the 17th century, science has put forward a number of classifications of human races. Today their number reaches 15. However, all classifications are based on three racial pillars or three large races: Negroid, Caucasoid and Mongoloid with many subspecies and branches. Some anthropologists add to them the Australoid and Americanoid races.
Racial trunks
According to the data of molecular biology and genetics, the division of mankind into races occurred about 80 thousand years ago.
First, two stems emerged: Negroid and Caucasoid-Mongoloid, and 40-45 thousand years ago, differentiation of proto-Caucasoids and proto-Mongoloids took place.
Scientists believe that the origins of the origin of races originate in the Paleolithic era, although the process of modification en masse humanity only from the Neolithic: it is in this era that the Caucasoid type crystallizes.
The process of formation of races continued with the migration of primitive people from continent to continent. Thus, anthropological data show that the ancestors of the Indians who moved to the American continent from Asia were not yet established Mongoloids, and the first inhabitants of Australia were "racially neutral" neoanthropes.
What does genetics say?
Today, questions of the origin of races are for the most part the prerogative of two sciences - anthropology and genetics. The first, on the basis of human bone remains, reveals the diversity of anthropological forms, and the second tries to understand the relationship between the totality of racial traits and the corresponding set of genes.
However, there is no agreement among geneticists. Some adhere to the theory of uniformity of the entire human gene pool, others argue that each race has a unique combination of genes. However, recent studies more likely indicate the correctness of the latter.
The study of haplotypes confirmed the relationship between racial traits and genetic characteristics.
It has been proven that certain haplogroups are always associated with specific races, and other races cannot obtain them except through the process of racial mixing.
In particular, Luca Cavalli-Sforza, a professor at Stanford University, based on an analysis of the “genetic maps” of European settlement, pointed out significant similarities in the DNA of the Basques and the Cro-Magnon. The Basques managed to preserve their genetic uniqueness largely due to the fact that they lived on the periphery of migration waves and practically did not undergo miscegenation.
Two hypotheses
Modern science relies on two hypotheses of the origin of human races - polycentric and monocentric.
According to the theory of polycentrism, humanity is the result of a long and independent evolution of several phyletic lines.
Thus, the Caucasoid race was formed in Western Eurasia, the Negroid race in Africa, and the Mongoloid race in Central and East Asia.
Polycentrism involves the crossing of representatives of protoras at the borders of their ranges, which led to the emergence of small or intermediate races: for example, such as the South Siberian (mixing of Caucasoid and Mongoloid races) or Ethiopian (mixing of Caucasoid and Negroid races).
From the standpoint of monocentrism, modern races emerged from one region of the globe in the process of settling neoanthropes, who subsequently spread across the planet, displacing more primitive paleoanthropes.
The traditional version of the settlement of primitive people insists that the human ancestor came from Southeast Africa. However, the Soviet scientist Yakov Roginsky expanded the concept of monocentrism, suggesting that the habitat of the ancestors of Homo sapiens went beyond the African continent.
Recent studies by scientists from the Australian National University in Canberra have cast doubt on the theory of a common African human ancestor.
So, DNA tests of an ancient fossilized skeleton, which is about 60 thousand years old, found near Lake Mungo in New South Wales, showed that the Australian aborigine has nothing to do with the African hominid.
The theory of multi-regional origin of races, according to Australian scientists, is much closer to the truth.
An Unexpected Ancestor
If we agree with the version that the common ancestor of at least the population of Eurasia came from Africa, then the question arises about its anthropometric characteristics. Was he similar to the current inhabitants of the African continent, or did he have neutral racial characteristics?
Some researchers believe that the African species Homo was closer to the Mongoloids. This is indicated by a number of archaic features inherent in the Mongoloid race, in particular, the structure of the teeth, which are more characteristic of the Neanderthal and Homo erectus.
It is very important that the population of the Mongoloid type has a high adaptability to various habitats: from equatorial forests to the arctic tundra. But representatives of the Negroid race are largely dependent on increased solar activity.
For example, in high latitudes, children of the Negroid race have a lack of vitamin D, which provokes a number of diseases, primarily rickets.
Therefore, a number of researchers doubt that our ancestors, similar to modern Africans, could have successfully migrated around the globe.
northern ancestral home
Recently, more and more researchers claim that the Caucasoid race has little in common with the primitive man of the African plains and argue that these populations developed independently of each other.
Thus, the American anthropologist J. Clark believes that when representatives of the "black race" in the process of migration reached Southern Europe and Western Asia, they encountered a more developed "white race" there.
Researcher Boris Kutsenko hypothesizes that at the origins of modern humanity there were two racial trunks: Euro-American and Negroid-Mongoloid. According to him, the Negroid race comes from the forms of Homo erectus, and the Mongoloid race from Sinanthropus.
Kutsenko considers the regions of the Arctic Ocean to be the birthplace of the Euro-American trunk. Based on the data of oceanology and paleoanthropology, he suggests that the global climate changes that occurred at the border of the Pleistocene and Holocene destroyed the ancient continent - Hyperborea. Part of the population from the territories that had gone under water migrated to Europe, and then to Asia and North America, the researcher concludes.
As evidence of the relationship between Caucasians and North American Indians, Kutsenko refers to the craniological indicators and characteristics of the blood groups of these races, which "almost completely coincide."
fixture
The phenotypes of modern people living in different parts of the planet are the result of a long evolution. Many racial traits have obvious adaptive value. For example, dark pigmentation of the skin protects people living in the equatorial belt from excessive exposure to ultraviolet rays, and the elongated proportions of their bodies increase the ratio of body surface to its volume, thereby facilitating thermoregulation in hot conditions.
In contrast to the inhabitants of low latitudes, the population of the northern regions of the planet, as a result of evolution, acquired a predominantly light skin and hair color, which allowed them to receive more sunlight and satisfy the body's need for vitamin D.
In the same way, the protruding "Caucasian nose" evolved to warm the cold air, and the epicanthus of the Mongoloids was formed as a protection of the eyes from dust storms and steppe winds.
sexual selection
It was important for ancient man not to allow representatives of other ethnic groups into his range. This was a significant factor in the formation of racial characteristics, thanks to which our ancestors adapted to specific environmental conditions. Sexual selection played a large role in this.
In each ethnic group, focused on certain racial characteristics, their own ideas about beauty were fixed. Whoever these signs were more pronounced - he had more chances to pass them on by inheritance.
While the tribesmen, who did not fit the standards of beauty, were practically deprived of the opportunity to influence the offspring.
For example, from the point of view of biology, the Scandinavian peoples have recessive traits - skin, hair and light-colored eyes - which, thanks to sexual selection that lasted for millennia, formed into a stable form adaptive to the conditions of the north.
