The current appearance of mankind 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 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 the 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.
Meaning of race
To sum up 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 found clearly enough, but it definitely hada place in the distant past.
The origin of the term "race" is not well 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.
Classification of human 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 persisted. The Frenchman Francois Bernier tried to give a scientific classification of the main types of races in the 17th century. But more complete and engineered systems only appeared in the 20th 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 accountmorphological similarity, geographical distribution of races and the time of their formation.
Characteristic of race
Classic racial characteristics are 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 distinguish races of a large order (main), 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 have a stable hereditary nature and are minimally influenced by 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 features is distinguished:
- clearlyprofiler;
- pigmentation of hair, skin and eyes from 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;
- weakly formed crease of the upper eyelid;
- developed body hair;
- large hands and feet.
The composition of the Caucasian 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 lie 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 slanting and narrow slit;
- hanging upper eyelids;
- moderately wide nose and medium lips;
- skin color from yellow to brown;
- straight coarse dark hair;
- highly protruding cheekbones;
- weakly 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.
Negro-Australoid race
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.
Specific features of the race, most researchers consider as a result of the development of the population in a hot and humid climate:
- dark pigmentation of the skin, hair and eyes;
- coarse curly or wavy hair;
- nose wide, little protruding;
- thick lips with significant mucus;
- protruding lower face.
The race is clearly divided into two trunks - eastern (Pacific, Australian and Asian groups) and western (African groups).
Small races
The main races, in which humanity has been successfully imprinted on all continents of the earth, branch into a complex mosaic of anthropological types 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-B altic, Atlanto-B altic,Middle European, 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, is considered to be 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 separate classifications it is put forward as the main race).
Mixed races
Besides second-order races, 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 the Ural mixed race, which is represented by Caucasoid and Mongoloid populations. She is characterized by the following distinctive features: dark straight hair, moderateskin pigmentation, brown eyes, medium hairline. Distributed mostly in Western Siberia.
Interesting facts
- 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 other major races, this ability is observed only in infancy.
- Genetic studies have determined that light-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 ancestors. In turn, Europeans may 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" makes no sense.
