The main races of people characteristics features and types

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 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 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.