What races of people inhabit the Earth? People differ from each other in skin color, facial features and many other characteristics. The population of our planet is divided into three large races. Caucasians have fair skin, wavy or straight soft hair, narrow lips and a protruding nose.

What are transitional races? Over many centuries of human history, races have mixed many times. From marriages between representatives different races Children were born bearing the appearance features of both parents. So, for example, mestizos are descendants of Indians and Europeans,

Races of Dwarfs Almost all ancient mythologies remember dwarf people. The Greeks called them myrmidons and believed that dwarfs originated from ants nesting in the holy oak tree. Ulysses led their army to the gates of Troy. Aegean priest considering them short stature, came to the idea of

Races of freaks Ancient people believed in the existence of entire races of freaks. Historians of that time talk about tribes of sirens, centaurs, faunas, sphinxes and countless tribes of dwarfs and giants. All historians of ancient Greece believed in the existence of a mythical race of people with

Human races The Sovereign of All Rus', the twelve-year-old Tsar Peter II, upon his accession to the throne, immediately, long before the official coronation, ordered his subjects that in letters and requests addressed to him, the “lowest slave” should be placed before the signature of the giver. No more and

Races Australian (Australoid) Asian-American (Mongoloid) Americanoid, American Arctic Armenoid Atlanto-Baltic Balkan-Caucasian White Sea-Baltic Bushmen Veddoid Grimaldian Far Eastern Eurasian

Today, there are quite a lot of theories about the origin of human races, but, unfortunately, the existence and dominance of many concepts depended and depends not so much on the well-reasonedness of scientific developments, but on the presence of a particular ideology in society. Historically, anthropology is one of the most ideological sciences.

In Ancient Egypt, it was customary to divide all races into two groups: the Egyptians (white), who were considered directly human, and the rest, lower races, some of which were not considered human at all15. 3,500 years ago, in the Asian steppes and in the three powerful Iranian empires that subsequently emerged, polygenism was widespread: Zoroastrians believed that all of humanity arose from two independent races - northern and southern16. The first of them - the Aryan peoples - was created by Ahuramazda (the bright principle), and the second by Angra-Manyu (the dark principle). The Zoroastrians included blacks, gorillas and chimpanzees among the Angra-Manyo “virgin races”17. Any attempt to violate this concept, developed over centuries, was recognized as the machinations of the virgins and was harshly suppressed as an action of evil forces directed against a person18.

IN medieval Europe with the adoption of Christianity, on the contrary, the monogeistic theory of the origin of human races and monocentrism based on biblical stories (the origin and settlement of different races from one area) prevailed. All scientific works could only justify this concept. An attempt to propose other hypotheses was considered heresy and could, as we know, end in a fire. And the more convincing the evidence base was, the greater the chances of getting on this fire.

In the 18th – 19th centuries, in connection with liberalization public relations The theory of polycentrism is gradually beginning to strengthen in science. Supporters of this concept were Voltaire (1694-1778), John Atkins (1685-1757), David Hume (1711-1776), Edward Long (1734-1813), the head of the French anthropological school Armand de Cotrefages, the great German philosopher and anthropologist Christoph Meiners (1743-1810), author of the book

“Natural History of the Human Race” by Jean-Joseph Virey (1774-1847) and many others. By the second half of the 19th century, the development of natural sciences

15 I.V. Cancer, “Legends and Myths of Ancient Egypt”, Publishing House “University Book”, St. Petersburg, 1997, p. 50

16 I.V. Cancer, “Avesta”, St. Petersburg, 1997, publishing house “Neva” magazine, Videvdat, p. 70

17 Ibid., p. 76

18 Abd-Ru-Shin, Zoroaster, Grail Message Publishing House, Stuttgart, 1994, p. 94

has advanced so much that polycentrism has actually become the dominant concept. Suffice it to say that evidence base This theory was developed by such outstanding anthropologists as Charles Darwin and professors Huxley, Ranke and others.

The development and strengthening of the position of polygenism continued until 1945. From this moment on, everything changes dramatically. Polygenism is beginning to be considered an element of racism, and, therefore, part of fascist ideology. At this time, only the simial theory of anthropogenesis and monogenism were allowed in the USSR. Supporting atheism and promoting, as the leadership believed communist party, the development of internationalism and the mixing of all peoples into a single Soviet super-ethnic group. Any attempt to defend opposing theories automatically entailed accusations of fascism, racism and inciting ethnic hatred.

Since 1945, the world has returned to medieval concepts. Monogenism is considered to this day, as in the 13th century, the only true scientific doctrine. Any other points of view on this issue, to put it mildly, are not approved. Dissenting scientists come under a certain amount of pressure, just like in the good old days.

In 1964, a meeting of experts on the biological aspects of the racial problem, convened by UNESCO, was held in Moscow, where a group of anthropologists adopted in their narrow circle the main sections of the declaration on race and racial prejudice, in which this group explains to the rest of the scientific world in which areas of anthropology it is possible work, and in which not, which scientific discoveries what can be done and what not.

Here are just a few points from this document19: Point 1. Affirms the inviolability of monogenism.

Point 5. Even considered dangerous scientific classification variability of people.

Clause 13. Prohibits attributing special psychological properties of a particular people to its heredity, etc. etc.

Publication of views contrary to these points is considered racist propaganda, which means it may fall under articles of the criminal code20.

19 E.N. Khrisanova, “Anthropology”, Moscow University Publishing House, 1991, (Proposal on the biological aspects of the UNESCO racial problem), p. 315

20 The deepening of ideological dogmatism brings it to the judicial pulpit. An example is the case of the young scientist Yuri Bekhchanov, which was heard in the Moscow City Court with an attempt to link scientific research to the article “For inciting ethnic hatred.” By the way, academician V. Kozlov participated in this case on behalf of the defense, brilliantly

This purely ideological declaration in our country is even included in anthropology textbooks for medical schools.

Despite attempts to ideologically limit anthropological research, the extreme form of monogenism - monocentrism - was convincingly destroyed. In defiance of supporters of monocentrism, who believe that different races are not only one species, but also have one common center of sapientation, it will be enough to name the famous American scientist Vandenreich, who published his works in 1938, and who today is considered the founder of this modern scientific concept of polygenism.

Vandenreich identified four regions of race formation: Southeast Asia (Australoids), South Africa (Kaloids and Negroids), East Asia (Mongoloids), Western Asia (Caucasoids).

Today, a number of works by scientists who are consistent supporters of polygenism are known. Anthropologist A. Tom identified three main centers of sapienization. The American anthropologist K. Kuhn, studying and classifying racial differences, identified, like F. Smith, five centers of sapienization with the independent emergence of Homo sapiens from local Neanderthals in North Africa, the southern regions of Central Africa, Western Asia, East Asia, and Europe.

It is worth considering in more detail the controversy in this area among domestic scientists.

For many years in the USSR, the concept of monogenism was defended by Professor Ya. Ya. Roginsky. Roginsky's arguments were based on finds in Palestine made in the early 30s by archaeologists Rene Neuville and Dorothy Terrod, who excavated the Tabun, Skhul, and Qafzeh caves. Roginsky considered the Neanderthals of the Skhul and Qafzeh caves to be the ancestors of all modern races. Finding Negroid and Caucasoid features in several skulls, he adjusted the data to fit his theory and found Mongoloid features in skull No. IX from the Skhul cave. But subsequent speeches by Russian polycentrists V.P. Alekseev and A.A. Zubova proved the complete inconsistency of this theory.

V.P. Alekseev convincingly proved that the skull of Skhul IX is so poorly preserved and fragmentary that any judgments about its type will be controversial and, ultimately, meaningless. Moreover, the remains of Sinanthropus, found near Beijing in the 20s, had spade-shaped incisors ( characteristic feature Mongoloids), according to V.P. Alekseev, are a more than solid argument against monocentrism. Today, almost the entire scientific world agrees with this opinion.

Over time, the hypothesis of “dicentrism” began to prevail in Russian anthropology, distinguishing two primary foci of sapientation: Western and Eastern. A Collaborative Effort among Anthropologists

who proved that judgments considered racist in a democratic environment are considered completely justified in the scientific world.

The founder of the modern simial theory of anthropogenesis, Charles Darwin, considering modern races as various types, this is how he argued for this polygenetic hypothesis22.

Firstly, large races are very different from one another, for example, in the structure of hair, the relationship of all parts of the body, lung capacity, shape and capacity of the skull, convolutions of the brain, etc.

Secondly, races have different abilities for acclimatization, a tendency to different diseases, different mental abilities, character and level of emotionality.

Thirdly, the various species of people have retained their distinctive characteristics for several thousand years, and the Negroes of today are identical with those Negroes who lived in Africa 4,000 years ago; and if you prove that all biological forms long time remained different from each other, then this alone is an important argument in favor of recognizing these forms as different species.

At the same time, human skulls found in Northern Europe and Brazil, together with the remains of many extinct mammals, belong to the same type as the predominant population living in that locality.

Fourthly, all human races are distributed on earth into the same zoological regions where they indisputably live independent species and genera of mammals. This fact, according to Darwin, is most clearly expressed in the Australian, Mongoloid and Negro races.

Sixthly, Charles Darwin gives various facts, indicating the premature death of a large number of mulattoes. “And both animal and plant bastards are subject to premature death,” he concludes.

Seventhly, the very first rapprochement of distant and heterogeneous races gives rise to disease. Which is also typical for different species.

At the end, Charles Darwin concludes that any natural scientist, having taken into account his arguments, can confidently consider all human races as separate species.

21 Ibid., p. 80

22 C. Darwin, Complete collection works, publishing house of Yu. Lepkovsky, M., 1908, vol. 5, p. 132

For the great scientist, the division into higher and lower races was natural. He considered the intellectual differences between races to be much greater than between people of the same race23. And today, speaking about race, we must take into account the conclusions of this indisputable authority on issues of anthropogenesis.

Today, according to defenders of the politically dominant version of the simiality of anthropogenesis, the origin of Homo sapiens looked like this: somewhere around 25-30 million years ago (in the Oligocene), the common branch of primates split into Old World monkeys and hominids. As a result of the improvement of the second branch through natural selection and mutations, somewhere around 500-100 thousand years BC (according to various hypotheses), “Homo sapiens” appeared, who is our direct ancestor.

Paleoanthropological finds have connected the chain from the first hominids to Homo sapiensa with the following links: Dryopithecus (30 million years ago) ® Ramapithecus (14 million years ago) ® Australopithecus (7 million years ago) ® Homo habiles (1.5-2 million years ago) years ago) ® Homo erectuc ® Homo sapiens (200 thousand years ago).

Two possible options hominid evolution24

In all these individuals, there is a tendency to gradually develop their ability to walk upright, the development of the hand and

23 Ibid., p. 159

24 J. D. Clark, “Prehistoric Africa”, Nauka publishing house, M., 1997, p. 56

an increase in brain volume associated with the ability to move and communicate.

The transition from Homo habilis to the mass settlement of the planet by sapiens lasted from 2 to 0.04 million years. This period is the most interesting, controversial and problematic assumption both for individual scientific versions and for the entire simial theory of anthropogenesis. The thing is that the volume of the brain habilis was only 660-645 cm3, and without a transitional form it is impossible to explain this theory. The supposed intermediate link between Habilis and Sapiens is Archontropus and Paleoanthropus.

Let us describe these types in more detail:

Archontrope- belongs to the taxon Homo erectus - the earliest representatives are known from the tropical regions of East Africa. The average brain volume is 1029.2 cm3 (on average for classical and Asian erecti). Craniological indicators of erectus: long-headed, prognathen (the upper jaw protrudes above the lower), low skull, sloping forehead, strong occipital relief, flat nasal bones, large teeth, height 160-170 cm;

Paleoanthropus– belongs to the taxon Homo neanderthalensis – the earliest representatives were found in Europe, the main zone of settlement is there. Brain volume is 1500-1600 cm3. He has a long head, a nose, a sloping forehead, no prognathism, a high skull, the back part is somewhat elongated (in the shape of a chignon), the front part is high, massive and elongated, with an average height of 180 cm.

Monogenists believe that paleoanthropes are an intermediate link between erectus and sapiens. Is this really true?

The first thing that catches your eye is the great similarity of the anthropological features of the Negroid race with the erectus and the paleoanthropes with the Caucasian race. Prognathism, small brain volume, flat nasal bones, and sloping forehead constitute a characteristic complex unique to Negroids. Nose, long head, large brain volume, sloping forehead, high skull, complete absence prognathism - even for an inexperienced reader, these signs can only evoke the image of a classic representative of the Caucasian race.

Professor Ranke examined Neanderthal skulls taken from the Engiss, Neanderthal, Chave and Cro-Magnon caves and some other European burials. Having identified a certain pattern in the shapes of skulls, their volume, the structure of facial bones and other features, the professor came to the conclusion, based on the listed data, that the brain volume of almost all representatives of this protorace significantly exceeded the brain volume of modern inhabitants of Europe.

Comparative table of brain volumes of deluvial man and modern European25

So, the brain volume of Neanderthals exceeds that of Europeans by 200-300 cm3. If these indicators are combined with the indicators of the Negroid race, the difference will be 350-450 cm3.

The totality of data shows that the Negroid race is much closer to erectus than to Caucasians and Neanderthals. And a simple comparison of the shapes of skulls will finally dispel doubts about the origin of races for any unbiased anthropologist.

And these conclusions are supported by numerous works by the most authoritative scientists, considering all types of craniums dating back to the Middle and Upper Pleistocene period, found in Cro-Magnon, Prenost, Aurignac, Engisse and Solutre. Professor I. Ranke divided them into three main groups: dolichocephalic, brachycephalic and mesocephalic. In his opinion, they all had craniological characteristics absolutely identical to modern Europeans already in the Middle Pleistocene26. From this it was concluded that the population

Europe, according to basic anthropological characteristics, was almost completely identical to the modern population. Neanderthal was, therefore, a typical representative of the European proto-race.

The reader probably saw in Soviet textbooks an image of a Neanderthal in the form of a strange, sickly creature with crooked arms, an uneven gait and a non-standard skull shape. How to compare these images, anthropological data available in the same textbooks, with the data given in this article?

Everything is explained quite simply. Even at the beginning of the 20th century, Professor Virchow argued that the skeleton found in Neanderthal belongs to an elderly person who apparently suffered from rickets in childhood, which is confirmed by painful changes in the entire skeletal system of this individual. The narrowness of its posterior half of the skull is due to early

25 Data from I. Ranke, “Man (modern and prehistoric human races)”, publishing house “Prosveshchenie”, St. Petersburg, 1903, vol. 2, p. 544

fusion of the sagittal suture, the cranial sutures inside are completely smoothed out. The left elbow joint is affected; the elbow on the articular surface is so worn out that, as a result, a noticeable shortening has formed. Full shoulder flexion was not possible. All appearance of this elderly Neanderthal man represents a typical pathology still found throughout Europe today27. At the same time, Virchow believed that the Neanderthal skull can only be considered in conjunction with

skulls from Engiss, Chauves, Cro-Magnon and some other places. Many modern researchers, obviously without this information, define the skeleton from Neanderthal as typical shape characteristic of that time.

Professor Huxley, known as one of the main supporters of Darwinism in England, argued that the skull of deluvial man (Neanderthal) could well belong to the philosopher28.

The St. Petersburg anatomist Landzet proved in his completed monograph that the Engis skull, based on the complex development of all its parts, should be ranked among the particularly well-developed skulls. He even compared it with the beautiful skull of a Greek of the classical Athenian era and proved that these skulls were almost identical, both in general and in individual elements29. The figure shows a comparative diagram of skulls from Engiss and the Athenian Acropolis (according to F. Landsert). The line shows

a classic skull from the Athenian Acropolis, the dotted line is a skull from Engissus.

The French anthropological school, in the first half of the 20th century, based on all the studied skeletons of deluvial people found by that time in Europe, divided all types into three main races: Kanstadt (which included skulls from Engiss and Neanderthal), Forphosian and Grinel. The most common race in Europe at that time was the Kanstadt race - dolichocephalic.

All three types had distinctly Caucasian features. Moreover, it was found that all these types of Neanderthal skulls are now typical of the population of Northern and Central Europe.

27 Ibid., p. 536

28 Ibid., p. 546

At the conclusion of his work “Man,” Professor I. Ranke wrote:

“The overwhelming majority of the deluvial skulls of Europe can compete with honor among the skulls of modern cultural peoples: in their capacity, shape and details, organization, they can be ranked alongside the best skulls of the Aryan race”30.

How to explain the Negroid features of one of the Neanderthals of the Skhul cave in Western Asia?

It's actually very simple. The Negroid and Caucasian races have, both before and now, the ability to interbreed, and it would be strange if for hundreds of thousands of years not a single bastard was found on the globe. This discovery by Dorothy Terode is the exception that proves the rule. The fact that there are only a few of these finds suggests that mixing between races at that time was an extremely rare phenomenon, and additional evidence of this is the Qafzeh cave, located very nearby: the Neanderthal skeletons found there date from the same time as the Neanderthals from Skhul caves, but at the same time they have, as V.P. notes. Alekseev, exclusively Caucasian features.

Then the second question arises: how could modern monogenist anthropologists ignore such a mass of factual material accumulated by European science over almost 250 years? How could the works devoted to this issue, starting with Charles Darwin and ending with Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, be consigned to oblivion?

In reality, even with complete ideological control, this would be impossible. All anthropology in this case would turn into complete profanation. And by that time, such a quantity of scientific papers had been published that it was simply impossible to remove them. It would also be absurd to close museums and storage facilities with the described finds. Therefore, it was necessary to somehow explain these facts. And, reluctantly, monogeists admit that perhaps paleoanthropes have already appeared

archaic sapiens, and Neanderthal was one of its groups31. That is, some sapiens descended directly from erectus.

Now you should think about what kind of sapiens these are? The only conclusion after viewing table No. 2 is that these are Negroids.

The modern simial theory of anthropogenesis completely and unambiguously proves the correctness of the theory of the origin of Negroids and Mongoloids from the lateral ancestor of the monkey. Striking similarity in the structure of the cranium, brain volume, underdevelopment calf muscle Negroid, characteristic of all monkeys, and, most importantly, the presence of a transitional form of erectus, prove this order of origin of these races.

Data from the analysis of mitochondrial DNA genes and other sireological studies also clearly prove the origin of the Negroid race from the lateral ancestor of the monkey.

Professor Huxley, comparing the brains of Negroids, macaques and white people, found that the structure and form of development of the brain convolutions of Negroids and macaques is very similar and in many ways identical, unlike the brain of a white person32.

Examining the skull of a Neanderthal, Professor Virchow wrote: “In any case, it can be considered decided that this Neanderthal skull shows no resemblance to a monkey.”

So, we have the following picture: 200-300 thousand years ago in East and Equatorial Africa through a complex evolutionary process, which took place over 30 million years, the Negroid race appears. After some time, she encountered in Southern Europe, Western Asia and North Africa the more developed white race, represented by the Neanderthal. Unlike the black race, which had animal origins, Neanderthals already at that time had complete human forms. The ancestors of the white race, sweeping away everything in their path,

moved, as the American professor J. Clark writes, from north to south33. Already 60 thousand years ago they dominated both North Africa and its southern tip (where the remains of the Neanderthal were later called Rhodesian man).

Now let's look at the Mongoloid race.

As noted above, the main ancestor of this race is Sinanthropus, which, like modern Mongoloids, has spade-shaped incisors.

The question of the origin of the Mongoloids has many mysteries. The original ancestors of the race who lived in the territory modern China and a little north of him, had other facial features that sharply distinguished them from a modern inhabitant of Asia, and were more like American Indians than modern Chinese.

According to the dominant theory in Russian anthropology today, both the Mongoloid and Americanoid races are united into a single American-Asian trunk. It is believed that, having arisen in Asia, paleoanthropes, descended from individuals of the Sinanthropus type, began to move north and populated the American continent through the Bering Strait, then, under the influence of local landscapes, two previously identical races began to change their morphological characteristics. The race living in Asia became more flat-faced and narrow-eyed, and the Americanoid race became longer-headed and nosed.

32 The Complete Works of Charles Darwin, Volume 5, “Professor Huxley's Remarks on the Similarities and Differences in the Structure and Development of the Brain in Man and the Ape,” p. 160

33 J. D. Clark, “Prehistoric Africa”, Nauka publishing house, M., 1997, p. 176

When comparing the Indians of North America and the Chinese, even an unenlightened person immediately has a number of doubts about the correctness of this theory.

Firstly, why did the shape of the skull change so much, because it is known that the Caucasian race, despite migration to Western Asia, North and even South America, practically did not change craniological parameters.

Secondly, among North American Indians, like Europeans, the first blood group predominates, which is not typical for the Mongoloid race. As is known, the group B gene predominates among Mongoloids. American Indians are almost completely devoid of this gene.

Even if we assume that the Mongoloids and American Indians belong to the same race, it will be difficult to understand why the proto-races went not to the south or west, but to the north, where they were forced to constantly change geographical zones, adapt to new climatic conditions, accordingly changing the form of farming.

This theory is refuted archaeologically, since man appeared in America 25-40 thousand years BC, and finds in Alaska date back to a maximum of 20 thousand years BC. (by the way, this argument was also recognized by V.P. Alekseev, a proponent of this theory).

Even if we assume that the settlement of America came from Asia, then the protomorphic type, formed on this territory by millions of years of adaptation, should have remained there, and part of the population that had become alien to it climate zone, change, adapting to it. Everything happened exactly the opposite. The American Indians almost completely preserved the type of paleoanthropes of Asia, and the modern population of Asia has completely changed it. A solution to the problem suggests itself, involving the settlement of Asia from America. But it is completely refuted by the simial theory, since in America there were no suitable types hominid.

But, nevertheless, the American race was in Asia, and its traces are recorded both in the southern and northern parts of this continent. Moreover, the culture of the American Indians was closely associated both in the Stone Age and in the Bronze Age not only with the Mongoloid race, but was also closely intertwined with Caucasian culture. The most typical example is the excavations of the Konetsgorsky settlement at the mouth of the Chusovaya River (1934-1936). Classical Caucasian culture dating back to the beginning Bronze Age, used dwellings of a type used exclusively in America by the Seneca-Iroquois tribe. Its length is over 40 meters, width from 4 to 6 meters34.

34 “In the footsteps of ancient cultures,” ed. A.I. Kandera, M., 1954, A.V. Zbrueva,

“The population of the banks of the Kama in the distant past”, pp. 106-108

After some time, a number of such buildings were discovered in the same area. Doctor A.V. Zbrueva found that these buildings from the early Bronze Age repeated more ancient local forms of dwellings.

A similar problem occurs in Europe. The most ancient finds of Homo sapiens are found in its northern regions, and if we trace the dynamics of the spread of Neanderthals, it turns out that

The main direction of their movement was from north to south. At the same time it was proven that most of Europe, especially in the central and northern regions, was covered with ice.

Where, then, was the epicenter from which the Caucasian and Americanoid races spread, and what could have influenced the spread of these races in the direction we described? In order to answer this question, we will need to remember what the climate on earth was like 250-300 thousand years ago?

Today, thanks to paleomagnetic, oceanological and geological studies of the planet, we know that the water level on earth was approximately 1000 meters lower than today. The geographic and paleomagnetic poles were shifted closer to the central part Pacific Ocean. Part of Northern Europe in the Upper Pleistocene was covered with ice, and a huge glacier covered North America. Around the ice sheets there were tundra steppes, which after several hundred kilometers turned into cereal-grass steppes.

The outlines of the northern coasts of Europe had completely different contours, the Bering and Kara Seas were absent, and in their place was a flat plain, divided in two by Novaya Zemlya. From

This territory stretched all the way to the Spitsbergen mountains, interrupted in several places by large lakes. The climate on this land was mild, as evidenced by the remains of lush vegetation and huge deposits of mammoths found by scientists in these regions. This is the center, the land from which the Caucasoid and Americanoid races emerged. The simultaneous settlement of both Asia and America from this region explains the earlier problems with the settlement of races. Sinanthropus has nothing to do with the Americanoid race, and is, apparently, like erectus, a transitional form for the Mongoloids, who, like the Negroid race, have animal origin.

Caucasians and the American race had contact with these animal forms 70-30 thousand years ago. But by 10 thousand BC. Quite large masses of the population were thrown into the territory of Southern Europe, Asia and America, which led, firstly, to the displacement of Negroids and Mongoloids from their usual habitat in Southern Europe and Central Asia, and secondly, to the domestication wild peoples and to some mixing that occurred in North Africa and Central Asia. Many North African peoples still have Caucasian facial features and a blood type that is dominant only in Northern Europe. In Central Asia, transitional types have appeared that can truly be attributed to the Amero-Asian trunk.

But if this assumption is correct, then Caucasians and North American Indians should have similar anthropological characteristics. Indeed, the craniological indicators and characteristics of the blood groups of these races are almost completely the same, and small differences in other indicators could be caused by the large geographical isolation of these two branches of the same race, as well as local climate conditions. Any craniological analysis leaves no doubt. In terms of their racial characteristics, North American Indians are incomparably closer to Caucasians than to Mongoloids. And the connection between the Mongoloids and the Indians of North America, so different both in phenotype and genotype, seems simply ridiculous. The figure demonstrates the sharp difference between the Mongoloid skull (1) and the skull of a North American Indian (2) and a Caucasian (3).

So, there are two main racial trunks: Euro-American and Negroid-Mongoloid. The origin of the first group remains to be determined, the origin of the second group is already known to scientists: the Negroid and Mongoloid races arose 230 thousand years BC. from local forms of Homo erectus. If for the Negroids Homo erectus was already a transitional form, then for the Mongoloids it became Sinanthropus. Although it is possible, given the brain size of the latter and the latest intelligence test scores, that these two races of animal origin are also different species.

If there are practically no questions about the origin of the Mongoloid and Negroid races, then the Caucasoid and Americanoid races appear in

Eurasia is already in a perfect and complete form. Paleoanthropologists obviously need to look for the mystery of their origin in the very territory that we described above.

We find memories of this country among almost all Indo-European peoples. She was called Hyperborea, Arctogea, Arianam-Vaija, Eranvezha, Thule, Ariana. All sacred Indo-European sources stated that this country was located in the north. And the initial waves of settlers who founded modern civilizations in India, Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa also came from the north. So the location of the ancestral home, the cradle of Caucasian peoples, has long been found and is fully consistent with both the data of oceanology, paleoanthropology, and the sacred texts of the Aryans: Avesta, Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samoveda.

The reason for such a large-scale migration of the white race was the global climate changes that occurred at the border of the Pleistocene and Holocene. The displacement of the geomagnetic pole of the earth and global warming led to the flooding of most of Hyperborea and severe cooling in the once prosperous country. To survive, the Aryans were forced to move south, develop and conquer lands suitable for habitation.

According to paleoanthropologists, the first stone-tipped spears dating back to the Middle Pleistocene were found in Northern Europe. There are no known earlier finds of this weapon in the world. So, from approximately this period, the expansion of Hyperborea, associated in modern paleoanthropology with the culture of the Neanderthals, has been archaeologically recorded.

In the Upper Pleistocene, archaeologists begin to discover traces of funeral rites among proto-European peoples. Graves were found in which, already at that time, Neanderthals were placed in a certain way, and around the buried there were stones laid in a circle. These and many other discoveries led scientists to an unequivocal conclusion - by this time the first Europeans had already developed magic, cults (the most famous of them is the cult of the bear), rituals, legal norms, and had their own specific culture.

Skeletons of paleoanthropes with traces of early bone damage have been found in various regions of the world. Professor Virkhov and V.P. Alekseev, in different times and independently of each other, they concluded on the basis of these data that the described Neanderthals could not exist independently with such damage and were a serious burden for the entire tribe, but lived to a fairly old age. The remains of an elderly Neanderthal (“the old man from Neanderthal”) described by Virchow with traces of fractures, as well as the remains found by V.P. Alekseev, irrefutably testify to the development already at that time of ethical

normal There are no similar Paleolithic finds among both the Negroid and Mongoloid races during the described period.

Only together with the development of the continent and the expansion of cultural space, the Neanderthals passed on to the Negroid and Mongoloid races a more advanced culture of stone processing (Mousterian), a culture of handling fire, the basics of warfare, a spear, a bow (the bow appeared in Africa only in the 6th millennium BC). e, in Central and Northern Europe it was known already in the 9th millennium BC), basic moral and ethical concepts, the development of cults, its own ethical standards.

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 molecular biology and genetics, the division of humanity into races occurred about 80 thousand years ago.

First, two trunks emerged: Negroid and Caucasoid-Mongoloid, and 40-45 thousand years ago, differentiation of proto-Caucasoids and proto-Mongoloids occurred.

Scientists believe that the origins of the races begin in the Paleolithic era, although the massive process of modification swept humanity only from the Neolithic: it was during this era that the Caucasoid type crystallized.

The process of race formation continued during 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 fully formed Mongoloids, and the first inhabitants of Australia were “racially neutral” neoanthropes.

What does genetics say?

Today, questions of the origin of races are largely the prerogative of two sciences - anthropology and genetics. The first, based on human bone remains, reveals the diversity of anthropological forms, and the second tries to understand the connections between a set of racial characteristics 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 rather indicate that the latter are right.

The study of haplotypes confirmed the connection between racial characteristics 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, Stanford University professor Luca Cavalli-Sforza, based on an analysis of “genetic maps” of European settlement, pointed out significant similarities in the DNA of the Basques and 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 were practically not subject to cross-breeding.

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 lineages.

Thus, the Caucasoid race 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 proto-races at the borders of their areas, which led to the emergence of small or intermediate races: for example, such as the South Siberian (a mixture of Caucasoid and Mongoloid races) or the Ethiopian (a mixture of Caucasoid and Negroid races).

From the standpoint of monocentrism, modern races emerged from one area of ​​the globe in the process of settlement of neoanthropes, which subsequently spread across the planet, displacing more primitive paleoanthropes.

The traditional version of the settlement of primitive people insists that the human ancestor came out of Southeast Africa. However, the Soviet scientist Yakov Roginsky expanded the concept of monocentrism, suggesting that the habitat of the ancestors of Homo sapiens extended beyond the African continent.

Recent research by scientists from the Australian National University in Canberra has completely cast doubt on the theory of a common African ancestor of humans.

Thus, DNA tests on an ancient fossilized skeleton, about 60 thousand years old, found near Lake Mungo in New South Wales, showed that the Australian aborigine has no relation to the African hominid.

The theory of multiregional 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 comes 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 of 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 Neanderthals and Homo erectus.

It is very important that the Mongoloid-type population is highly adaptable 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 experience 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 across the globe.

Northern ancestral home

Recently, more and more researchers have stated that the Caucasian 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 there the more developed “white race”.

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 forms of Homo erectus, and the Mongoloid race comes from Sinanthropus.

Kutsenko considers the regions of the Arctic Ocean to be the birthplace of the Euro-American trunk. Based on data from oceanology and paleoanthropology, he suggests that global climate changes that occurred at the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary destroyed the ancient continent of Hyperborea. Part of the population from the territories that went 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 craniological indicators and characteristics of the blood groups of these races, which “almost completely coincide.”

Device

The phenotypes of modern people living in different parts of the planet are the result of long evolution. Many racial characteristics have obvious adaptive significance. For example, dark skin pigmentation protects people living in the equatorial belt from excessive exposure to ultraviolet rays, and the elongated proportions of their body increase the ratio of body surface to 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 predominantly light skin and hair color, which allowed them to receive more sunlight and satisfy the body's needs for vitamin D.

In the same way, the protruding “Caucasian nose” evolved to warm the cold air, and the epicanthus among the Mongoloids was formed as a protection for the eyes from dust storms and steppe winds.

Sexual selection

For ancient people it was important not to allow representatives of other ethnic groups into their habitat. This was a significant factor that contributed to the formation of racial characteristics, thanks to which our ancestors adapted to specific environmental conditions. Sexual selection played a big role in this.

Each ethnic group, focused on certain racial characteristics, consolidated its own ideas of beauty. Those who had these signs more clearly expressed had a greater chance of passing them on to inheritance.

While fellow tribesmen who did not meet the standards of beauty were practically deprived of the opportunity to influence their offspring.

For example, the Scandinavian peoples, from a biological point of view, have recessive characteristics - light-colored skin, hair and eyes - which, thanks to sexual selection that lasted for millennia, were formed into a stable form adaptive to the conditions of the north.

Striving to explain origin of human races goes back to ancient times. In particular, the ancient Greeks called the cause of the emergence of the black race Phaeton, the son of the sun god Helios, who flew too close to the ground in his father’s chariot and burned white people. The Bible traced the origin of human races to the skin color of the sons of Noah, whose offspring were people with different characteristics.

The first attempts to scientifically substantiate raceogenesis date back to the 17th-18th centuries. The first to propose their classifications were the French physician Francois Bernier in 1684 and the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus in 1746, who identified four races of people. Linnaeus based his classification on psychosomatic characteristics in addition to physiological ones.

The first who began to use skull parameters in the classification of races was the German scientist Johann Blumenbach, who in the 70s of the 18th century identified five races: Caucasian, Mongolian, American, African and Malay. He also relied on the then prevailing ideas about the greater beauty and mental development of the white race compared to others.

In the 19th century, many more complex and ramified classifications appeared; researchers began to distinguish small races within large ones, most often focusing on cultural and linguistic characteristics. In this series are, for example, the classification of J. Virey, who divided the white and black races into their constituent tribes, or the classifications of J. Saint-Hilaire and T. Huxley, who identified four or five main and many minor races that constitute them.

In the 20th century, two main approaches to characterizing races and their classification dominated: typological and population. With the typological approach, the definition of race was carried out on the basis of stereotypes that were believed to be inherent to the entire race. It was believed that the races had some absolute differences. These differences were identified based on the descriptions of individual individuals. Among the typological classifications is the classification of I.E. Deniker, who was guided exclusively by biological characteristics and based his classification on hair type and eye color, thereby dividing humanity into six main groups, within which races were distinguished.

With the development of population genetics, the typological approach has shown its inconsistency. To a greater extent, the population approach is scientifically sound, considering not individual individuals, but groups of their populations. Classifications using this approach are based not on stereotypes, but on genetic traits. At the same time, many transitional races are distinguished, between which there are no absolute differences.

Basic hypotheses of the origin of races

There are several main hypotheses of the origin of human races: polycentrism (polyphyly), dicentrism and monocentrism (monophyly).

The polycentrism hypothesis, one of the creators of which was the German anthropologist Franz Weidenreich, suggests the existence of four centers of origin of races: in East Asia (the center of the Mongoloids), in Southeast Asia (Australoids), sub-Saharan Africa (Negroids) and Europe (Caucasoids).

This hypothesis was criticized and rejected as erroneous, since science does not know cases of the formation of one species of animals in different centers, but with the same evolutionary path.

The dicentrism hypothesis, advanced in the 1950s and 60s, offered two approaches to explaining the origins of races. According to the first, the center of formation of Caucasoids and Negroids was in Western Asia, and the center of formation of Mongoloids and Australoids was in Southeast Asia. From these centers, Caucasians began to settle throughout Europe, Negroids - along tropical zone, and the Mongoloids initially populated Asia, after which some of them went to the American continent. The second approach of the dicentrism hypothesis places the Caucasoid, Negroid and Australoid races in one trunk of raceogenesis, and the Mongoloid and Americanoid races in another.

Just like the polycentrism hypothesis, the dicentrism hypothesis was rejected by the scientific community for similar reasons.

The monocentrism hypothesis is based on the recognition of the same mental and physical level of all races and their origin from one common ancestor in one fairly extended place. Supporters of monocentrism attribute the region of race formation to the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia, from where human ancestors began to settle into other regions, gradually forming many smaller racial groups.

Stages of the origin of human races

Genetic studies date the exodus of modern humans from Africa to a period of 80-85 thousand years ago, and archaeological research confirms that already 40-45 thousand years ago people living outside Africa had certain racial differences. The formation of the first prerequisites for the formation of races, therefore, should have occurred in the period 80-40 thousand years ago.

V.P. Alekseev in 1985 identified four main stages in the origin of human races. He attributed the first stage to the time of the formation of modern man, that is, 200 thousand years ago. According to Alekseev, at the first stage, the formation of primary foci of race formation took place and two main trunks of race formation were formed: the western, which includes Caucasoids, Negroids and Australoids, and the eastern, which includes Mongoloids and Americanoids. At the second stage (15-20 thousand years ago), secondary centers of race formation emerged, and the formation of evolutionary branches began within the western and eastern racial trunks. Alekseev attributed the third stage to the period 10-12 thousand years ago, when the formation of local races began in tertiary centers of race formation. At the fourth stage (3-4 thousand years BC), the differentiation of races began to deepen and came to its modern state.

Factors of origin of human races

Natural selection had the greatest influence on the formation of human races. During the formation of races, such characteristics were fixed in populations that made it possible to better adapt to the conditions of the population’s habitat. For example, skin color affects the synthesis of vitamin D, which regulates calcium balance: the more melanin it contains, the more difficult it is sunlight, which stimulates the production of vitamin D, penetrate deep into the body. Thus, to get enough of the vitamin and have a normal balance of calcium in the body, people with lighter skin need to be further from the equator than people with dark skin.

The difference in facial features and body type among representatives of different races is also due to natural selection. It is generally accepted that the elongated nose of Caucasians evolved as a means of preventing hypothermia in the lungs. The flat nose of Negroids, on the contrary, contributes to better cooling of the air entering the lungs.

Other factors influencing the formation of human races are genetic drift, as well as isolation and mixing of populations. Thanks to genetic drift, the genetic structure of populations changes, which entails a slow change in the appearance of people.

Isolation of populations contributes to changes in the genetic composition within them. During isolation, the characteristics characteristic of the population at the beginning of isolation begin to be reproduced, as a result of which, over time, the differences in its appearance from the appearance of other populations will increase. This happened, for example, with the indigenous inhabitants of Australia, who developed separately from the rest of humanity for 20 thousand years.

The mixing of populations leads to an increase in the diversity of their genotypes, as a result of which a new race is formed. Nowadays, with the growth of the planet's population, the intensification of globalization processes, and the migration of people, the process of mixing of representatives of different races is also intensifying. The percentage of mixed marriages is increasing, and, according to many researchers, in the future this may lead to the formation of a single human race.