Man represents one biological species, but why are we all so different? It's all the fault of various subspecies, that is, races. How many of them exist and what are mixed races of people, let's try to figure it out further.
The concept of race
The human race is a group of people who have a number of similar traits that are inherited. The concept of race gave impetus to the movement of racism, which is based on the belief in the genetic difference between races, the mental and physical superiority of some races over others.
Research in the 20th century showed that it is impossible to distinguish them genetically. Most of the differences are external, and their diversity can be explained by the characteristics of the habitat. For example, white skin promotes better absorption of vitamin D, and it appeared as a result of a lack of daylight.
Recently, scientists more often support the opinion that this term is irrelevant. Man is a complex creature, his formation is influenced not only by climatic and geographical factors, which largely determine the concept of race, but also by cultural, social and political ones. Latestcontributed to the emergence of mixed and transitional races, further blurring all boundaries.
Big races
Despite the general vagueness of the concept, scientists are still trying to figure out why we are all so different. There are many concepts of classification. All of them agree that man is a single biological species of Homo sapiens, which is represented by various subspecies or populations.
Differentiation options range from two independent races to fifteen, not to mention many sub-races. Most often in the scientific literature they talk about the existence of three or four large races, which include small ones. So, according to external signs, they distinguish the Caucasoid type, Mongoloid, Negroid, and also Australoid.
Caucasoids are divided into northern - with blond hair and skin, gray or blue eyes, and southern - with swarthy skin, dark hair, brown eyes. The Mongoloid race is characterized by a narrow slit of the eyes, protruding cheekbones, coarse straight hair, vegetation on the body is insignificant.
The Australoid race has long been considered Negroid, but it turned out that they have differences. By signs, the Veddoid and Melanesian races are much closer to it. Australoids and Negroids have dark skin, a wide nose, and dark eye color. Although some Australoids may have fair skin. They differ from Negroids in their abundant hairline, as well as less wavy hair.
Minor and mixed races
Big races is too strong a generalization, because the differencesbetween people are more subtle. Therefore, each of them is divided into several anthropological types, or into small races. There are a huge number of them. For example, the Negroid race includes the Negro, Khoisai, Ethiopian, Pygmy types.
The classification of anthropological types is largely complicated by the relationship between representatives of different races. In this regard, there are basic and mixed races. The latter are often called contacts. Often, historical and political processes, such as migration, conquest, resettlement, contribute to their appearance.
Approximately 30% of the population are of the contact type. Their phenotype (external features) reflects the features of several races at the same time. These include transitional races, mixed in the distant past and entrenched in the features of individual peoples, for example, the South Indian, South Siberian, Ural race.
The term "mixed races" more often means populations of people that arose as a result of recent (since the 16th century) contacts of large races. These include mestizos, sambos, mulattoes.
Metis
In anthropology, mestizos are all descendants of marriages of people belonging to different races, regardless of which ones. The process itself is called metization. History knows many cases when representatives of mixed races were discriminated against, humiliated and even exterminated in the course of Nazi policy in Germany, apartheid in South Africa and other movements.
In many countries, descendants of specific races are also called mestizos. In America they are the children of Indians and Caucasians,in this meaning the term came to us. They are mainly distributed in South and North America.
The number of mestizos in Canada, in the narrow sense of the term, is 500-700 thousand people. Active mixing of blood here took place during colonization, mainly European men entered into a relationship with Indian women. Having isolated themselves, the mestizos formed a separate ethnic group speaking the Mythic language (a complex mixture of French and Cree).
Mulatto
Descendants of Negroids and Caucasians are mulattoes. Their skin is light black, which is what the name of the term conveys. The name first appeared around the 16th century, coming into Spanish or Portuguese from Arabic. The word muwallad used to be used to refer to unpurebred Arabs.
In Africa, mulattoes live mainly in Namibia, South Africa. A fairly large number of them live in the Caribbean region and Latin America. In Brazil, they make up almost 40% of the total population, in Cuba - more than half. A significant number live in the Dominican Republic - more than 75% of the population.
Mixed races used to have other names, depending on the generation and proportion of Negroid genetic material. If Caucasoid blood was related to Negroid as ¼ (mulatto in the second generation), then the person was called a quadroon. The ratio 1/8 was called octon, 7/8 - marabou, 3/4 - griff.
Sambo
The genetic mixture of Negroids and Indians is called sambo. On thethe Spanish term sounds like "zambo". Like other mixed races, the term periodically changed its meaning. Previously, the name sambo meant marriages between representatives of the Negroid race and mulattoes.
Sambo first appeared in South America. The Indians represented the indigenous population of the mainland, and blacks were brought as slaves to work on sugar cane plantations. Slaves were brought from the beginning of the 16th century until the end of the 19th. Approximately 3 million people were transferred from Africa during this period.
