Rare races of people. The origin and unity of the human races. Mongoloid, Equatorial and Caucasoid races

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.

Race- this is a group of people united on the basis of their mutual relationship, common origin and some external hereditary physical characteristics (skin and hair color, head shape, structure of the face as a whole and its parts - nose, lips, etc.). There are three main races of people: Caucasoid (white), Mongoloid (yellow), Negroid (black).

The ancestors of all races lived 90-92 thousand years ago. Starting from that time, people began to settle in territories that differ sharply from each other in terms of natural conditions.

According to scientists, in the process of the formation of modern man in Southeast Asia and neighboring North Africa, which are considered the ancestral home of man, two races arose - southwestern and northeastern. Subsequently, Caucasoids and Negroids descended from the first, and Mongoloids from the second.

The separation of the Caucasoid and Negroid races began about 40 thousand years ago.

Displacement of recessive genes to the outskirts of the population range

The outstanding geneticist N. I. Vavilov in 1927 discovered the law of the exit of individuals with recessive traits beyond the center of origin of new forms of organisms. According to this law, forms with dominant traits dominate in the center of the species distribution area, they are surrounded by heterozygous forms with recessive traits. The marginal part of the range is occupied by homozygous forms with recessive traits.

This law is closely connected with the anthropological observations of N. I. Vavilov. In 1924, the expedition members led by him witnessed an amazing phenomenon in Kafiristan (Nuristan), located in Afghanistan at an altitude of 3500-4000 m. They found that most of the inhabitants of the northern highlands had blue eyes. According to the hypothesis prevailing at that time, northern races were widespread here from ancient times and these places were considered a center of culture. N. I. Vavilov noted the impossibility of confirming this hypothesis with the help of historical, ethnographic and linguistic evidence. In his opinion, the blue eyes of the Nuristanis are a clear manifestation of the law of the exit of the owners of recessive genes to the outskirts of the range. Later this law was convincingly confirmed. N. Cheboksarov on the example of the population of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The origin of the signs of the Caucasian race is explained by migration and isolation.

All mankind can be divided into three large groups, or races: white (Caucasian), yellow (Mongoloid), black (Negroid). Representatives of each race have their own distinctive, inherited features of the body structure, hair shape, skin color, eye shape, skull shape, etc.

Representatives of the white race have light skin, protruding noses, people of the yellow race have a cheeky face, a special shape of the eyelid, and yellow skin. Blacks, who belong to the Negroid race, have dark skin, wide noses, and curly hair.

Why are there such differences in the appearance of representatives of different races, and why do each race have certain characteristics? Scientists answer this as follows: the human races were formed as a result of adaptation to different conditions of the geographical environment, and these conditions left their imprints on representatives of various races.

Negroid race (black)

Representatives of the Negroid race are distinguished by black or dark brown skin, black curly hair, a flattened wide nose and thick lips (Fig. 82).

Where blacks live, there is an abundance of sun, it's hot - people's skin is more than adequately exposed to sunlight. And overexposure is harmful. And so the body of people in hot countries for thousands of years has adapted to an excess of sun: a pigment has been developed in the skin that retains part of the sun's rays and, therefore, saves the skin from burns. Dark skin coloration is inherited. Hard curly hair, which forms an air cushion on the head, reliably protects a person from overheating.

Caucasian race (white)

Caucasians are characterized by fair skin, soft straight hair, a thick mustache and beard, a narrow nose and thin lips.

Representatives of the white race live in the northern regions, where the sun is a rare visitor, and they really need the sun's rays. In their skin, pigment is also produced, but at the height of summer, when the body, thanks to the sun's rays, is replenished with the right amount of vitamin D. At this time, representatives of the white race become swarthy.

Mongoloid race (yellow)

People belonging to the Mongoloid race have dark or lighter skin, straight coarse hair, sparse or undeveloped mustaches and beards, prominent cheekbones, lips and nose of medium thickness, almond-shaped eyes.

Where the representatives of the yellow race live, winds are frequent, even storms with dust and sand. And the locals endure such windy weather quite easily. Over the centuries, they have adapted to strong winds. Mongoloids have narrow eyes, as if on purpose, so that sand and dust get into them less, so that the wind does not irritate them, and they do not water. This sign is also inherited and is found in people of the Mongoloid race and in other geographical conditions. material from the site

Among people there are those who believe that people with white skin belong to the higher races, and those with yellow and black skin belong to the lower races. In their opinion, people with yellow and black skin are incapable of mental work and should only do physical work. These harmful ideas are still guided by racists in a number of third world countries. There, the work of blacks is paid lower than whites, blacks are subjected to humiliation and insults. In civilized countries, all peoples have the same rights.

Studies by N. N. Miklukho-Maclay on the equality of races

The Russian scientist Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklukho-Maclay, in order to prove the complete inconsistency of the theory of the existence of "lower" races incapable of mental development, settled in 1871 on the island of New Guinea, where representatives of the black race lived - the Papuans. For fifteen months he lived among the islanders, became close to them, studied their language and customs. The traveler-nick enjoyed great prestige among the locals, his word was considered law. In New Guinea, he fell ill with dengue fever and settled on the island of Java for treatment.

Racial differences have been and continue to be the cause of different studies, as well as conflicts and discrimination. A tolerant society tries to pretend that racial differences do not exist, the constitutions of countries state that all people are equal among themselves ...

However, there are races and people are different. Of course, not at all in the way that supporters of the "higher" and "lower" races would like, but differences do exist.

Some research by geneticists and anthropologists today reveals new facts, which, thanks to the study of the emergence of human races, allow us to take a different look at some stages of our history.

Racial trunks

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.

According to the data of molecular biology and genetics, the division of mankind into races occurred about 80 thousand years ago.

First, two trunks stood out: Negroid and Caucasoid-Mongoloid, and 40-45 thousand years ago there was a differentiation of proto-Caucasoids and proto-Mongoloids.

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

In the main and secondary features of the external appearance and internal structure, people are very similar to each other. Therefore, from a biological point of view, most scientists consider humanity as one species of "reasonable man."

Mankind, now inhabiting almost the entire land, even in Antarctica, is not homogeneous in composition. It is divided into groups that have long been called races, and this term has established itself in anthropology.

The human race is a biological group of people similar to, but not homologous to, the subspecies group of zoological taxonomy. Each race is characterized by a unity of origin, arose and formed in a certain initial territory, or area. Races are characterized by one or another set of bodily features, related mainly to the external appearance of a person, to his morphology and anatomy.

The main racial features are as follows: the shape of the hair on the head; the nature and degree of development of hair on the face (beard, mustache) and on the body; hair, skin and iris color; the shape of the upper eyelid, nose and lips; the shape of the head and face; body length, or height.

Human races are the subject of special study in anthropology. According to many Soviet anthropologists, modern humanity consists of three large races, which are in turn subdivided into small races. These latter again consist of groups of anthropological types; the latter are the basic units of racial systematics (Cheboksarov, 1951).

In the composition of any human race, one can find more typical and less typical representatives of it. In the same way, races are found that are more characteristic, more pronounced, and comparatively little different from other races. Some races are intermediate.

The large Negroid-Australoid (black) race as a whole is characterized by a certain combination of features that are most pronounced in Sudanese blacks and distinguish it from the Caucasoid or Mongoloid large races. Among the racial characteristics of Negroids are: black, spirally curled or wavy hair; chocolate brown or even almost black (sometimes yellowish brown) skin; Brown eyes; a rather flat, slightly protruding nose with a low nose bridge and wide wings (some have a straight, narrower one); most have thick lips; very many have a long head; moderately developed chin; protruding forward dental section of the upper and lower jaws (maxillary prognathism).

On the basis of geographical distribution, the Negroid-Australoid race is also called the Equatorial, or African-Australian. It naturally falls into two small races: 1) the western, or African, otherwise Negroid, and 2) the eastern, or Oceanian, otherwise Australoid.

Representatives of a large European-Asian, or Caucasian, race (white) are generally characterized by a different combination of signs: pinkness of the skin, due to the translucence of blood vessels; some have a lighter skin color, others are darker; many have light colored hair and eyes; wavy or straight hair, medium or strong development of hair on the body and on the face; lips of medium thickness; the nose is rather narrow and protrudes strongly from the plane of the face; high bridge; poorly developed fold of the upper eyelid; slightly protruding jaws and upper face, moderately or strongly protruding chin; as a rule, a small width of the face.

Within the large Caucasoid race (white), three small races are distinguished by the color of their hair and eyes: the more pronounced northern (light-colored) and southern (dark-colored), as well as the less pronounced Central European (with an intermediate color). A significant part of the Russians belongs to the so-called White Sea-Baltic group of types of the northern minor race. They are characterized by light blond or blond hair, blue or gray eyes, and very fair skin. At the same time, their nose is often with a concave back, and the nose bridge is not very high and has a different shape than that of the northwestern Caucasoid types, namely the Atlanto-Baltic group, whose representatives are found mainly in the population of the countries of Northern Europe. With the latter group, the White Sea-Baltic has many features in common: both of them constitute the northern Caucasoid minor race.

Darker-colored groups of southern Caucasians form the bulk of the population of Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, southern Germany and the countries of the Balkan Peninsula.
The Mongoloid, or Asian-American, large (yellow) race as a whole differs from the Negroid-Australoid and Caucasoid large races in its inherent set of racial characteristics. So, in its most typical representatives, the skin is swarthy, yellowish; dark brown eyes; hair black, straight, tight; on the face, a beard and mustache, as a rule, do not develop; on the body, the hairline is very poorly developed; for typical Mongoloids, a highly developed and peculiarly located fold of the upper eyelid is very characteristic, which covers the inner corner of the eye, thereby causing a somewhat oblique position of the palpebral fissure (this fold is called the epicanthus); their face is rather flat; cheekbones are wide; the chin and jaws protrude a little forward; the nose is straight, but the bridge of the nose is low; lips are moderately developed; growth at the majority average and below average.

Such a set of features is more common, for example, among the northern Chinese, who are typical Mongoloids, but taller. In other Mongoloid groups one can find less or thicker lips, less tight hair, shorter stature among him. A special place is occupied by the American Indians, for some signs, as it were, bring them closer to the large Caucasoid race.
There are also groups of types of mixed origin in humanity. The so-called Lapland-Urals include the Lapps, or Sami, with their yellowish skin, but soft dark hair. According to their bodily features, these inhabitants of the far north of Europe connect the Caucasoid and Mongoloid races.

There are also such groups which at the same time bear a great resemblance to two other races that differ more sharply from each other, and the similarity is due not so much to mixing as to ancient family ties. Such, for example, is the Ethiopian group of types, linking the Negroid and Caucasoid races: it has the character of a transitional race. This appears to be a very ancient group. The combination in it of the signs of two large races clearly testifies to very distant times, when these two races still represented something unified. The Ethiopian race includes many inhabitants of Ethiopia, or Abyssinia.

In total, humanity falls into about twenty-five to thirty groups of types. At the same time, it represents unity, since among the races there are intermediate (transitional) or mixed groups of anthropological types.

It is characteristic of most human races and groups of types that each of them occupies a definite common territory in which this part of mankind has historically arisen and developed.
But due to historical conditions, it happened more than once that one or another part of the representatives of a given race moved to neighboring or even very distant countries. In some cases, some races have completely lost contact with their original territory, or a significant part of them have undergone physical extermination.

As we have seen, representatives of one race or another are characterized by approximately the same combination of hereditary bodily features related to the external appearance of a person. However, it has been established that these racial characteristics change during individual life and in the course of evolution.

The representatives of each human race, as a result of their common origin, have a somewhat closer relationship with each other than with representatives of other human races.
Racial groups are characterized by strong individual variability, and the boundaries between different races are usually not pronounced. So. some races are connected by imperceptible transitions with other races. In a number of cases it is very difficult to establish the racial composition of the population of a given country or population group.

The definition of racial characteristics and their individual variability is based on the techniques developed in anthropology and with the help of special tools. As a rule, hundreds and even thousands of representatives of the studied racial group of mankind are subjected to measurements and inspection. Such techniques make it possible to judge with sufficient accuracy the racial composition of a particular people, the degree of purity or mixing of a racial type, but do not give an absolute opportunity to attribute some people to one or another race. This depends either on the fact that the racial type in a given individual is expressed unsharply, or on account of the fact that this person is the result of mixing.

Racial characteristics in a number of cases vary markedly even during a person's life. Sometimes, over a period of not very long time, the signs of racial divisions also change. So, in many groups of mankind, the shape of the head has changed over the past hundreds of years. The largest progressive American anthropologist Franz Boas found that the shape of the skull changes within racial groups even over a much shorter period, for example, when moving from one part of the world to another, as happened with immigrants from Europe to America.

Individual and general forms of variability of racial characteristics are inextricably linked and lead to continuous, although usually hardly noticeable, modifications of the racial groups of mankind. The hereditary composition of the race, while sufficiently stable, is nevertheless subject to constant change. We have so far talked more about racial differences than about similarities between races. However, we recall that the differences between races appear quite clearly only when a set of features is taken. If we consider racial characteristics separately, then only very few of them can serve as more or less reliable evidence of an individual's belonging to a particular race. In this regard, perhaps the most striking feature is the spirally curled, or, in other words, curly (finely curly) hair, so characteristic of typical Negroes.

In very many cases it is completely impossible to establish. to which race a particular person should be attributed. Thus, for example, a nose with a rather high back, bridge of medium height and medium wide wings can be found in some groups of all three large races, as well as other racial characters. And this is regardless of whether this person came from a marriage between representatives of two races or not.

The fact of the interweaving of racial characteristics is one of the proofs that the races have a common origin and are blood related to one another.
Racial differences are usually secondary or even tertiary features in the structure of the human body. Some of the racial characteristics, such as skin color, are largely related to the adaptability of the human body to the natural environment. Such features took shape in the course of the historical development of mankind, but they have already lost their biological significance to a large extent. In this sense, the human races are not at all similar to the subspecies groups of animals.

In wild animals, racial differences arise and develop as a result of the adaptation of their organism to the natural environment in the process of natural selection, in the struggle between variability and heredity. Subspecies of wild animals, as a result of long or rapid biological evolution, can and do turn into species. Subspecific features are vital for wild animals, have an adaptive character.

Breeds of domestic animals are formed under the influence of artificial selection: the most useful or beautiful individuals are taken to the tribe. The breeding of new breeds is carried out on the basis of the teachings of I. V. Michurin, often in very short periods of time, over the course of only a few generations, especially in combination with proper feeding.
Artificial selection did not play any role in the formation of modern human races, and natural selection played a secondary role, which it has long lost. It is obvious that the process of origin and development of human races differs sharply from the ways of origin of breeds of domestic animals, not to mention cultivated plants.

The first foundations for a scientific understanding of the origin of human races from a biological point of view were laid by Charles Darwin. He specifically studied the human races and established the undoubted very close similarity between them in many basic characteristics, as well as their blood, very close relationship. But this, according to Darwin, clearly indicates their origin from one common trunk, and not from different ancestors. All further development of science confirmed his conclusions, which form the basis for monogenism. Thus, the doctrine of the origin of man from different monkeys, i.e., polygenism, turns out to be untenable and, consequently, racism loses one of its main supports (Ya. Ya. Roginsky, M. G. Levin, 1955).

What are the main features of the type of "reasonable man" that are characteristic of all modern human races without exception? The main, primary features should be recognized as a very large and highly developed brain with a very large number of convolutions and furrows on the surface of its hemispheres and a human hand, which, according to Engels, is an organ and a product of labor. The structure of the leg is also characteristic, especially the foot with a longitudinal arch, adapted to support the human body when standing and moving.

Important features of the type of modern man include the following: the spinal column with four bends, of which the lumbar, which developed in connection with upright posture, is especially characteristic; the skull with its rather smooth outer surface, with a strongly developed brain and a poorly developed facial region, with high frontal and parietal areas of the brain region; strongly developed gluteal muscles, as well as the muscles of the thigh and lower leg; weak development of hair on the body with the complete absence of tufts of tactile hair, or vibrissae, in the eyebrows, mustache and beard.

Possessing a combination of these features, all modern human races are at the same high level of development of physical organization. Although in different races these basic species features are not quite equally developed - some are stronger, others are weaker, but these differences are very small: all races completely have features of the type of modern man, and none of them is Neanderthaloid. In all human races, there is not one that is biologically superior to any other race.

Modern human races have equally lost many of the simian traits that the Neanderthals still had, and acquired the progressive traits of Homo sapiens. Therefore, none of the modern human races can be considered more ape-like or more primitive than others.

Adherents of the false doctrine of superior and inferior races claim that Negroes are more like monkeys than Europeans. But from a scientific point of view, this is completely wrong. Negroes have spirally curled hair, thick lips, a straight or convex forehead, no tertiary hairline on the body and face, and very long legs relative to the body. And these signs indicate that it is Negroes who are more sharply different from chimpanzees. than Europeans. But the latter, in their turn, differ more sharply from monkeys in their very light skin coloration and other features.

Instruction

The Caucasoid race (less often called the Eurasian or Caucasoid) is common in Europe, Western and partially Central Asia, North Africa, and northern and central parts of India. Later, Caucasians settled in both Americas, Australia and South Africa.

Today, about 40 percent of the world's population belong to the Caucasian race. The face of Caucasians is orthognathic, the hair is usually soft, wavy or straight. The size of the eyes is not a classifying feature, but the superciliary arches are quite large. Anthropologists also note a high nose bridge, a large nose, small or medium lips, and a fairly rapid growth of a beard and mustache. It is noteworthy that the color of hair, skin and eyes is not an indicator of race. The shade can be either light (among the northerners) or rather dark (among the southerners). The Caucasian race includes Abkhazians, Austrians, Arabs, British, Jews, Spaniards, Germans, Poles, Russians, Tatars, Turks, Croats and about 80 other peoples.

Representatives of the Negroid race settled in Central, East and West Africa. Negroids have curly thick hair, thick lips and a flat nose, wide nostrils, dark skin color, elongated arms and legs. Mustache and beard grow quite badly. Eye color - but the shade depends on genetics. The facial angle is acute, since there is no chin protrusion on the lower jaw. In the last century, Negroids and Australoids were attributed to a common equatorial race, but later researchers managed to prove that, with external similarities and similar conditions of existence, the differences between these races are still significant. One of the opponents of racism, Elizabeth Martinez, proposed calling representatives of the Negroid race Kongoids based on geographical distribution (by analogy with other races), but the term never took root.

"Pygmy" is translated from Greek as "a man the size of a fist." Pygmies or negrils are called undersized Negroids. The first mention of pygmies dates back to the third millennium BC. In the 16th-17th centuries, West African explorers called such people "matimba". The pygmies were finally identified as a race in the 19th century thanks to the work of the German researcher Georg Schweinfurt and the Russian scientist V.V. Juncker. Adult male pygmies usually do not grow above one and a half meters. All representatives of the race are characterized by light brown skin, curly dark hair, thin lips. The number of pygmies has not yet been established. According to various sources, from 40,000 to 280,000 people live on the planet. Pygmies belong to the underdeveloped peoples. They still live in huts built of dried grass and sticks, hunt (using bows and arrows) and gather, and do not use stone tools.

The Kapoids ("Bushmen" and "Khoisan race") live in South Africa. These are short people with yellow-brown skin and almost childish features throughout their lives. The characteristic features of the race include coarse curled hair, early wrinkles and the so-called "Hottentot apron" (saggy fold of skin above the pubis). Bushmen have a noticeable deposition of fat on the buttocks and a curvature of the lumbar spine (lordosis).

Initially, representatives of the race inhabited the territory that is now called Mongolia. The appearance of the Mongoloids testifies to the centuries-old need to survive in the desert. Mongoloids have narrow eyes with an additional fold at the inner corner of the eye (epicanthus). It helps to protect the organs of vision and dust. Representatives of the race are distinguished by thick, black straight hair. Mongoloids are usually divided into two groups: southern (dark, short, with a small face and high forehead) and northern (tall, fair-skinned, with large features and a low vault of the skull). Anthropologists believe that this race appeared no more than 12,000 years ago.

Representatives of the Americanoid race settled in North and South America. They have black hair and a nose like an eagle's beak. The eyes are usually black, the slit is larger than that of the Mongoloids, but smaller than that of the Caucasians. Americanoids are usually tall.

Australoids are often referred to as the Australian race. This is a very ancient race, whose representatives lived in the Kuriles, Hawaii, Hindustan and Tasmania. Australoids are divided into Ainu, Melanesian, Polynesian, Veddoid and Australian groups. Indigenous Australians have brown, but fairly light skin, a large nose, massive brow ridges, and strong jaws. The hair of this race is long and wavy, apt to become very coarse in the sun. Melanesians often have spiral hair.