Based on the main characteristics (skin color, structure of the facial part of the head, the nature of the hair, body proportions), anthropologists distinguish large races of people: Caucasian, Mongoloid, Negroid and Australoid.

Races began to form at the end of the Stone Age on the basis of the largest territorial populations. It is possible that there were two main primary centers of race formation: western (Euro-African) and eastern (Asian-Pacific). In the first center, Negroids and Caucasoids were formed, and in the second - Australoids and Mongoloids. Later, during the development of new lands, mixed racial populations arose. For example, in North and East Africa, as well as in the south of Western Asia, the mixing of Caucasoids with Negroids began very early, in Hindustan - Caucasians with Australoids, and partly with Mongoloids, in Oceania - Australoids with Mongoloids. Subsequently, after the discovery of America, Australia and Oceania by Europeans, new vast zones of interracial miscegenation arose. In particular, in America, the descendants of Indians mixed with European and African settlers.

History of human population development modern look occurs not only in the natural-geographical, but also in the socio-cultural environment. In this regard, the relationship between two types of intraspecific communities - reproductive (populations) and historical-genetic (races) - changes radically. So, human races are large areal communities of people, distinguished by genetic kinship, which is externally manifested in a certain similarity of physical characteristics: skin color and iris, shape and color of hair, height, etc.

The largest (in number) large race is Caucasian - 46.4% of the population (together with transitional and mixed forms). Caucasians have straight or wavy soft hair in shades from light to dark, they have light or dark skin, a large variety of colors in the iris (from dark to gray and blue), a very developed tertiary hair coat (beard in men), insufficient or average protrusion of the jaws , narrow nose, thin or medium-thick lips. Among the Caucasians, there are branches - southern and northern. The northern branch is typical for the countries of Northern Europe; southern - common in southern Europe and North America, Western Asia and Northern India, it also includes the Caucasian population Latin America. Between the southern and northern branches there is a wide band of transitional types, including the population of Central and partially Eastern Europe, Siberia and the Russian Far East, as well as the Caucasian population of North America and Australia.

The Mongoloid (Asian-American) large race, together with transitional and mixed forms, makes up more than 36% of the world's population. Mongoloids are different yellow skin, black straight hair, insufficiently developed tertiary hairline; characteristic dark eyes with epicanthus (fold of the upper eyelid), narrow or medium-wide nose, cheekbones that stick out very much.

There are two branches: Asian and American. The Mongoloids of Asia are divided into two main groups - continental and Pacific. Among the continental Mongoloids, the most common are the Northern or Siberian Mongols, Buryats, Yakuts, Evenks, etc., less common are the Eastern Mongoloids, mainly the Chinese. The northern groups of Pacific Mongoloids are represented by northern Tibetans, Koreans, etc. The American branch of the Mongoloids includes the indigenous inhabitants of the North and South America- Indians.

The transitional forms of the Mongoloid race include a population that has significant Australoid characteristics: wavy hair, dark and olive skin from the Incas, a flat face, a wide nose. These are the Viet, Lao, Khmer, Malay, Javanese, Southern Chinese, Japanese and other peoples of Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia and the Philippines.

The Negroid (African) large race (16.6% of the world's population), as well as its transitional and mixed forms, are characterized by dark brown skin color, black curly hair, dark eyes, moderately prominent cheekbones, thick lips, a wide nose, and very developed prognathism. It includes indigenous people Africa (sub-Saharan) - blacks, as well as the black population of Hay, Central America, the Antilles, Brazil. A separate group The group consists of tropical forest tribes - the Negrills (Pygmies), as well as the South African Bushmen and Hottentots.

The Australoid (Oceanian) large race (0.3% of the world's population) is represented by Melanesians, Papuans of New Guinea and Australian Aborigines. Australoids are very close to Negroids and are characterized by dark skin color, wavy hair, and significant tertiary hair growth on the face and body in males. Among the Papuans and Melanesians of Oceania there are short tribes - the Negritos, living on the Malacca Peninsula and the Andaman Islands; in remote areas of India and the countries of Southeast Asia, small Vedam tribes live, Japanese islands- Ainu.

Other racial types (mixed) - about 14 million people, include Polynesians, Micronesians, Hawaiians, Malagasy (mixing southern Mongoloids with Negroids and southern Caucasians - Arabs), mestizos (Caucasians with Mongoloids), mulattoes (Europeans with Negroes), Sambo (blacks with Indians).

The population of Europe almost entirely belongs to the Caucasian race (about 17% of the region's population belongs to northern Caucasians, 32% to southern Caucasians and more than half to transitional and Central European forms).

On the territory former USSR the majority of the population (85.4% according to 1987 data) belongs to the Caucasian race, represented by all its branches. The northern branch includes the southwestern groups of Russians, the southern branch includes the majority of the peoples of the Caucasus. Indigenous peoples Eastern Siberia and the Far East - Mongoloids. The transitional forms include the majority of Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians and other peoples of Eastern Europe, as well as the peoples of the Urals, Western Siberia, Altai and Kazakhstan living in the contact zone with the Mongoloids.

Various groups of all four races are common in Asia: 29% - Caucasians (South-West Asia and Northern India) Asian Mongoloids - 31% and Southern Mongoloids - 25% (Southern China, Indonesia, Indochina) Japanese type - 4.3%, over 10 million people are Australoids; on the Arabian Peninsula, part of the population has Negroid features.

The population of Africa (54%) belongs to the Negroid race, prevailing in countries located south of the Sahara. In the north of the continent live Caucasians (25% of Africa’s population), in the south live about 5 million Caucasians and their descendants who moved in the past from Western Europe. The modern population of Africa is characterized by a large number of transitional forms (Ethiopians, Fulani - Negroids and Caucasians, Malagasy - Mongoloids, Negroids, Caucasians).

The racial composition of the population in America is different great diversity, which is associated with the participation of representatives of three large races in its formation. Aborigines (Mongoloids: Indians, Aleuts, Eskimos) live compactly only in certain areas of the Mexican Highlands, in the Andes, in the interior of South America, in the Arctic regions (5.5%). Currently, the Caucasian race is widely represented - 51% (almost 9/10 of the population of the USA and Canada, over 1/4 of the population of Latin America). There are numerous mestizos in America - 23% (almost the entire population of Mexico, Central American countries, Venezuela, Chile, Paraguay and other countries), fewer mulattoes - 13% (African Americans of the USA, Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela, peoples of the West Indies), there are groups sambo Negroids (7%) live in Brazil, the USA, and make up the main population of Haiti, Jamaica and other countries of the West Indies.

In Australia and New Zealand, representatives of the Caucasian race predominate (77% of the total population), Melanesians and Papuans make up 16.5%, Polynesians and Micronesians - 4.2%. The mixing of Oceanians with Caucasians, as well as immigrants from Asia, led to the formation of large mestizo groups in Polynesia, Micronesia, the Fiji Islands and New Caledonia.

The number of individual races is growing unevenly: over the last quarter century, the number of Negroids has increased by 2.3 times, mestizos and mulattoes of America - almost 2 times, southern Mongoloids - by 78%, Caucasians - by 48% (the northern branch - by only 19%, southern - by 72%).

Race - historically developed in certain geographical conditions a group of people with some common hereditarily determined morphological and physiological characteristics.

Racial characteristics are hereditary, being adaptive to the conditions of existence/survival.

Three main races:

Mongoloid (Asia) 1. Skin is dark, yellowish. 2. Straight, coarse black hair, narrow eyes with a fold of the upper eyelid (epicanthus). 3. Flat and fairly wide nose, lips are moderately developed. 6. Most people are of average or below average height.

→Steppe landscape, high temperature, its sudden changes, strong wind.

Caucasoid (Europe) 1. Light-skinned (to absorb sun rays). 2. Straight or wavy light brown or dark brown soft hair. Gray, green or brown eyes. 3. A narrow and strongly protruding nose (to warm the air), thin lips. 4. Moderate to heavy development of body and facial hair.

Aussie-Negroid (Africa) 1. Dark skin. 2.Curly dark hair, brown or black eyes. 3. Wide nose, thick lips. 4. Tertiary hairline is poorly developed.

→High humidity and temperature.

Racial differences of the 1st order are morphological (skin color, nose, lips, hair).

Racial differences of the 2nd order: adaptation to the environment, isolation in vast areas due to sharp boundaries between continents, social isolation (endogamy, separation of a group), spontaneous mutation (for example, head indicator, blood composition, composition of bone tissue).

The problem of the number of major races is still actively debated. In almost all racial classification schemes, at least three general groups (three large races) are necessarily distinguished: Mongoloids, Negroids and Caucasians, although the names of these groups may change. The first known classification of human races was published in 1684 by F. Bernier. He identified four races, the first of which is common in Europe, North Africa, Western Asia and India and to which the indigenous people of America are also close; the second race is common in the rest of Africa, the third in East Asia, and the fourth in Lapland.

K. Linnaeus, in the tenth edition of the System of Nature (1758), described four geographical variants within the species Homo sapiens, which he introduced: American, European, Asian, African, and also proposed a separate variant for Lapps. The principles of identifying races were still unclear at that time: in the characteristics of races, K. Linnaeus included not only signs of appearance, but also temperament (people of America are choleric, European people are sanguine, Asian people are melancholic and African people are phlegmatic) and even such cultural and everyday traits as cut of clothes, etc.

In similar classifications by J. Buffon and I. Blumenbach, the South Asian (or Malay) race and the Ethiopian race were additionally distinguished. For the first time, it was suggested that races arose from a single variant due to settlement in climatically different regions of the Earth. I. Blumenbach considered the Caucasus to be the center of race formation. He was the first to use the method of anthropological craniology to build his system.

In the 19th century racial classifications became more complex and expanded. Within large races, small ones began to stand out, but signs of such a separation in the systems of the 19th century. often served as cultural traits and language.

The famous French naturalist and naturalist J. Cuvier divided people into three races based on skin color: the Caucasian race; Mongolian race; Ethiopian race.

P. Topinar also distinguished these three races by pigmentation, but determined the width of the nose in addition to pigmentation: light-skinned, narrow-nosed race (Caucasian); yellow-skinned, medium-broad-nosed race (Mongoloid); black, broad-nosed race (Negroid).

A. Retzius introduced the term “cranial index” into anthropology, and his four races (1844) differed in the combination of the degree of facial prominence and the cephalic index.

E. Haeckel and F. Müller based the classification of races on the shape of hair. They identified four groups: tuft-haired (lophocoms) - mainly Hottentots: woolly-haired (eriocoms) - blacks; wavy-haired (euplokoma) - Europeans, Ethiopians, etc.; straight-haired (euplokoma) - Mongols, Americans, etc.

Three main approaches to classifying races:

a) without taking into account origin - there are three large races, which include 22 small ones, some of which are transitional, depicted in the form of a circle;

b) taking into account origin and kinship - highlighting signs of archaism (ancient) and evolutionary advancement of individual races; depicted as an evolutionary tree with a short trunk and diverging branches;

c) based on the population concept - based on data from paleoanthropological studies; the essence is that large races represent huge populations, small races are subpopulations of large ones, within which specific ethnic entities(nations, nationalities) are smaller populations. The result is a structure that includes hierarchy levels: individual - ethnicity - small race - large race.

I. Deniker's classification system is the first serious system based only on biological characteristics. The groups identified by the author, almost unchanged, although with different names, passed into later racial schemes. I. Deniker was the first to use the idea of ​​two levels of differentiation - identifying first the main and then minor races.

Deniker identified six racial trunks:

group A (woolly hair, wide nose): Bushman, Negrito, Negro and Melanesian races;

Group B (curly or wavy hair): Ethiopian, Australian, Dravidian and Assyrian races;

group C (wavy, dark or black hair and dark eyes): Indo-Afghan, Arab or Semitic, Berber, Southern European, Ibero-Insular, Western European and Adriatic races;

Group D (wavy or straight hair, blondes with light eyes): Northern European (Nordic) and Eastern European races;

group E (straight or wavy, black hair, dark eyes): Ainos, Polynesian, Indonesian and South American races;

group F (straight hair): North American, Central American, Patagonian, Eskimo, Lapp, Ugric, Turco-Tatar and Mongolian races.

Among the European races, in addition to the above, Deniker identified certain subraces: northwestern; sub-Nordic; Vistula or eastern.

Man represents one biological species, but why are we all so different? It's all due to different subspecies, that is, races. How many of them exist and what mixed ones are, let’s try to figure it out further.

Concept of race

The human race is a group of people who share a number of similar traits that are inherited. The concept of race gave impetus to the movement of racism, which is based on the belief in the genetic differences of representatives of races, the mental and physical superiority of some races over others.

Research in the 20th century showed that it is impossible to distinguish them genetically. Most differences appear externally, and their diversity can be explained by the characteristics of the habitat. For example, white skin promotes better absorption of vitamin D, and it appeared as a result of a lack of daylight.

Recently, scientists have increasingly supported the opinion that this term is irrelevant. Man is a complex creature; his formation is influenced not only by climatic and geographical factors, which largely determine the concept of race, but also by cultural, social and political ones. The latter contributed to the emergence of mixed and transitional races, further blurring all boundaries.

Big races

Despite the general vagueness of the concept, scientists are still trying to figure out why we are all so different. There are many classification concepts. They all agree that man is one biological species Homo sapiens, which is represented by various subspecies or populations.

Options for delimitation range from two independent races to fifteen, not to mention many subraces. Most often in the scientific literature they talk about the existence of three or four large races, which include small ones. Thus, according to external characteristics, they distinguish the Caucasian type, Mongoloid, Negroid, and also Australoid.

Caucasians are divided into northern - with blond hair and skin, gray or blue eyes, and southern ones - with dark skin, dark hair, brown eyes. They are characterized by narrow eyes, prominent cheekbones, coarse straight hair, and little body hair.

The Australoid race was long considered Negroid, but it turned out that they have differences. In terms of characteristics, the Veddoid and Melanesian races are much closer to it. Australoids and Negroids have dark skin, dark color eye. Although some Australoids may have light skin. They differ from Negroids in having abundant hair, as well as less wavy hair.

Minor and mixed races

Large races are too strong a generalization, because the differences between people are more subtle. Therefore, each of them is divided into several anthropological types, or small races. There are a huge number of them. For example, it includes the Negro, Khoisai, Ethiopian, and Pygmy types.

The term "mixed races" more often refers to populations of people that arose as a result of recent (since the 16th century) contacts of large races. These include mestizo, sambo, and mulatto.

Métis

In anthropology, mestizos are all descendants of marriages of people belonging to different races, regardless of which ones. The process itself is called crossbreeding. History knows many cases where representatives of mixed races were discriminated against, humiliated and even exterminated during Nazi policies in Germany, apartheid in South Africa and other movements.

In many countries, the descendants of specific races are also called mestizos. In America, they are the children of Indians and Caucasians, and in this meaning the term came to us. They are mainly distributed in South and North America.

The number of Métis in Canada, in the narrow sense of the term, is 500-700 thousand people. Active mixing of blood took place here during colonization, mainly European men came into contact with. Separating themselves, the mestizos formed a separate ethnic group speaking the Mythic language (a complex mixture of French and Cree).

Mulattos

The descendants of Negroids and Caucasians are mulattoes. Their skin is light black, which is what the name of the term conveys. The name first appeared around the 16th century, coming to Spanish or Portuguese from Arabic. The word muwallad used to be used to describe non-purebred Arabs.

In Africa, mulattoes live mainly in Namibia and South Africa. Quite a large number of them live in the Caribbean region and Latin American countries. In Brazil they make up almost 40% of the total population, in Cuba - more than half. A significant number live in Dominican Republic- more than 75% of the population.

Mixed races could previously have other names, depending on the generation and the proportion of Negroid genetic material. If Caucasoid blood was classified as ¼ of Negroid blood (mulatto in the second generation), then the person was called a quadroon. The ratio of 1/8 was called octon, 7/8 - marabou, 3/4 - griff.

Sambo

The genetic mixture of Negroids and Indians is called Sambo. In Spanish the term is zambo. As with other mixed races, the term changed its meaning periodically. Previously, the name Sambo meant marriages between representatives of the Negroid race and mulattoes.

Sambo first appeared in South America. The Indians represented the indigenous population of the mainland, and blacks were brought as slaves to work on sugar cane plantations. Slaves were brought from the beginning of the 16th century until late XIX. During this period, approximately 3 million people were transported from Africa.

Shatova Polina

Human races

The modern racial appearance of humanity was formed as a result of the complex historical development of racial groups that lived separately and mixed, evolved, and disappeared. It is of particular importance to us to study all that we can learn about the human races in order to understand what really defines the human race. Even without outside help, by observing, you can see that people in the world are divided into different groups. The members of each are in some way more closely related to each other than to the members of the other group. For this reason, they are more similar to each other than to the others.

The section of anthropology - racial studies - summarizes data on the study of the anthropological composition of the peoples of the globe in the present and past, that is, on the formation and distribution of races on Earth; examines the problems of classification of races, their origin, settlement around the globe, development and interaction in connection with the specific history of human populations, based on data from morphology and physiology, genetics and molecular biology. The main problems of this section are the history of the formation of races, the relationships between them on different stages historical development, revealing the causes and mechanisms of racial differentiation.

A large place in racial studies is occupied by the study of demarcating racial characteristics, their heredity, dependence on the surrounding natural-geographical and socio-cultural environment, gender differences, age dynamics, geographical variations and epochal changes. Racial studies data are used to refute pseudoscientific racist concepts and form a correct idea of ​​the differences in the morphological appearance of people.

The origin of the term "race" is not precisely established. It is possible that it represents a modification of the Arabic word “ras” (head, beginning, root). There is also an opinion that this term is associated with the Italian razza, which means “tribe”. The word “race” in approximately the sense as it is used now is found already in the French scientist Francois Bernier, who published one of the first classifications of human races in 1684.
Races exist primarily in a social sense and represent one of the forms social classification which is used in a particular society. However, in a biological sense, there is no clear division into races. Anthropology does not deny the existence of distinct morphological and genetic diversity in humanity. Various researchers in different periods By “race” they meant different concepts.

Races are historically established groupings (population groups) of people different numbers characterized by the similarity of morphological and physiological properties, as well as the commonality of the territories they occupy.

Large races of man

Since the 17th century, many different classifications of human races have been proposed. Most often, three main, or large, races are distinguished: Caucasian (Eurasian, Caucasian), Mongoloid (Asian-American) and Equatorial (Negro-Australoid). The Caucasian race is characterized by fair skin (with variations from very light, mainly in Northern Europe, to dark and even brown), soft straight or wavy hair, horizontal eye shape, moderately or strongly developed hair on the face and chest in men, noticeably protruding nose, straight or slightly sloping forehead.

Representatives of the Mongoloid race have skin color ranging from dark to light (mainly among North Asian groups), hair is usually dark, often coarse and straight, the protrusion of the nose is usually small, the palpebral fissure has an oblique cut, the fold of the upper eyelid is significantly developed and, in addition, In addition, there is a fold (epicanthus) covering the inner corner of the eye; the hairline is weak.

The equatorial race is distinguished by dark pigmentation of the skin, hair and eyes, curly or wide-wavy (Australian) hair; the nose is usually wide, slightly protruding, the lower part of the face protrudes.

Small races and their geographical distribution

Each large race is divided into small races, or anthropological types. Within the Caucasoid race, the Atlanto-Baltic, White Sea-Baltic, Central European, Balkan-Caucasian and Indo-Mediterranean minor races are distinguished. Nowadays, Caucasians inhabit virtually all inhabited land, but until the middle of the 15th century - the beginning of the great geographical discoveries- their main range included Europe, North Africa, Western and Central Asia and India. In modern Europe, all minor races are represented, but the Central European variant predominates numerically (often found among Austrians, Germans, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Russians, Ukrainians); in general, its population is very mixed, especially in cities, due to relocations, miscegenation and the influx of migrants from other regions of the Earth.

Within the Mongoloid race, the Far Eastern, South Asian, North Asian, Arctic and American small races are usually distinguished, and the latter is sometimes considered as a separate large race. The Mongoloids populated all climatic and geographical zones (Northern, Central, Eastern and Southeast Asia, islands Pacific Ocean, Madagascar, North and South America). Modern Asia is characterized by a wide variety of anthropological types, but various Mongoloid and Caucasian groups predominate in numbers. Among the Mongoloids, the most common are the Far Eastern (Chinese, Japanese, Koreans) and South Asian (Malays, Javanese, Sundas) minor races, and among the Caucasians - the Indo-Mediterranean. In America, the indigenous population (Indians) is a minority compared to various Caucasian anthropological types and population groups of representatives of all three major races.

The equatorial, or Negro-Australoid, race includes three small races of African Negroids (Negro, or Negroid, Bushman and Negrillian) and the same number of Oceanic Australoids (Australian, or Australoid, race, which in some classifications is distinguished as an independent large race, as well as the Melanesian and Veddoid). The range of the equatorial race is not continuous: it covers most of Africa, Australia, Melanesia, New Guinea, partly Indonesia. In Africa, the Negro small race predominates numerically; in the north and south of the continent there is a significant specific gravity Caucasian population.
In Australia, the indigenous population is a minority compared to migrants from Europe and India; representatives of the Far Eastern race (Japanese, Chinese) are also quite numerous. In Indonesia, the South Asian race predominates.

Along with the above, there are races with a less definite position, formed as a result of long-term mixing of the population of individual regions, for example, the Lapanoid and Ural races, combining the features of Caucasoids and Mongoloids, or the Ethiopian race - intermediate between the Equatorial and Caucasian races.

Races of man
Negroid race	Mongoloid race	Caucasian
dark skin color curly, spiral hair wide and slightly protruding nose thick lips	dark or light skin straight and fairly coarse hair flattened face shape with prominent cheekbones and protruding lips narrow palpebral fissure strong development of the upper eyelid fold presence of epicanthus, “Mongolian fold”	light or dark skin straight or wavy soft hair narrow protruding nose light eye color thin lips
There are two large branches - African and Australian: Negroes of West Africa, Bushmen, Pygmies-Negritos, Hottentots, Melanesians and aborigines of Australia	Indigenous people of Asia (with the exception of India) and America (from the northern Eskimos to the Indians of Tierra del Fuego)	Population of Europe, Caucasus, southwest asia, northern Africa, India, and also as part of the population of America

Race and psyche

For a long time, sharp mental differences have been incorrectly attributed to the races. The famous Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) was the first scientist to propose more or less scientific classification human races according to their physical characteristics, but at the same time in vain he attributed, for example, to the “Asiatic man” cruelty, melancholy, stubbornness and stinginess; “African” - anger, cunning, laziness, indifference; “European” - mobility, wit, ingenuity, i.e. high mental abilities. Thus, Linnaeus exalted the “white” race over others.

Darwin, unlike Linnaeus, recognized the existence of fundamental similarities in the manifestations of higher nervous activity in people of different races.
Darwin was very far from explaining the low cultural level of the Fuegians by their mental racial characteristics. On the contrary, he sought an explanation for this in factors of a social nature.

Speaking about the expression of emotions, or mental experiences, with the help of facial muscles, Darwin comes to the conclusion that among representatives of different races the similarity or identity in this regard is striking.
Elsewhere, Darwin draws attention to the fact of extraordinary similarity in the forms and methods of producing stone tips for weapons, collected from the most various countries earth and dating back to the ancient eras of mankind. He explains this by the similarity of inventive and mental abilities among the most diverse human races even in past times.

They often try to justify the opinion about the natural fundamental differences in the psyche of different races by the fact that the weight of the brain in different racial groups fluctuates within several hundred grams. However, a person's abilities cannot be judged by the weight of his brain.

Outstanding people come from a wide variety of races. Mao Tse-tung is the greatest statesman of the new China, where the people of six hundred million, having overthrown the yoke of foreign imperialist invaders and completely freed themselves from the yoke of feudalism, are busy peacefully building a new, happy life. The world-famous singer Paul Robeson is a prominent peace fighter, laureate of the Stalin Prize “For Strengthening Peace Between Nations.” There are many similar examples that can be given.

Reactionary bourgeois scientists, with the help of special psychotechnical tests, so-called tests, strive to show the alleged mental superiority of one race over another. Such attempts have been made more than once and, moreover, without taking into account the difference in social status, in the education and upbringing received among the groups being examined and compared with each other. Genuine scientists, understandably, have a sharply negative attitude towards these toasts, as tools unsuitable for determining psychic abilities.

Some reactionary German anthropologists tried to prove the existence and inheritance of mental racial traits in their reports and speeches at the International Congress on Anthropology and Ethnography, held in Copenhagen in August 1938. In their preaching of racism, they went so far as to claim that Australians were because of “bad racial psyche" have almost died out, while the Maoris from the island of New Zealand successfully perceive European culture, since, according to these anthropologists, they belong to the Caucasian race.

At the same congress, however, strong objections were heard from a number of its more progressive members. They denied the presence of natural racial traits in the psyche and pointed to differences in the level of culture, which are reflected in the mental makeup of tribes and peoples. Scientific evidence is inconsistent. with allegations of the existence of a special “racial instinct”, which supposedly causes enmity between the races of mankind. Under favorable social conditions, peoples of any racial composition can create an advanced culture and civilization. The psyche of individual people national character, behavior is determined and formed under the predominant, decisive influence of the social environment: racial characteristics do not play any role in the development of mental activity.

The outstanding Russian ethnographer and anthropologist Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay set one of the chains of his research on the uncultured peoples of Oceania to determine the level of their natural intelligence. Having spent many years in friendly communication with the Papuans, he encountered many striking facts confirming that these inhabitants of New Guinea have the same high mental characteristics as the Europeans. For example, when Miklouho-Maclay was drawing a map of the area in which he lived, a Papuan who was observing his work and did not know the map before immediately discovered an error made when drawing coastline, and corrected it very accurately.
Miklouho-Maclay characterizes the Papuans as reasonable and not lacking artistic taste people who skillfully carve figurines of their ancestors and make various ornaments.

As a result of many years of anthropological and ethnographic research, which made the works of Miklouho-Maclay classic, he irrefutably proved that the Papuans are quite capable of limitless cultural development. In this respect, they are in no way inferior to the Europeans.
Miklouho-Maclay's research revealed the unscientific and biased views of racists about the natural inability of dark-skinned races to creatively master the spiritual wealth accumulated by humanity.

Miklouho-Maclay devoted his entire short life to the struggle for the idea of ​​​​the biological equivalence of human races. He considered people of all races to be fully capable of the highest achievements in the field of culture. The principles of Miklouho-Maclay’s progressive scientific and social activities developed at a time when the revolutionary democratic views of the greatest Russian thinker Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky, who was specifically interested in questions about human races, were being formed. Chernyshevsky, focusing his attention on the features of racial differences and similarities, denied the claims of racists about the physical and mental inequality of human races. He rejected the influence of race on historical development and, using the example of black slavery in the United States, revealed the reactionary essence of racism. Chernyshevsky based his views on race and racism on solid scientific evidence. Among the latter, he especially highly valued the achievements of the physiology of the nervous system, which were clearly highlighted in Russian science thanks to the brilliant works of Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov.

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RACES OF HUMAN We humans differ from each other in eye color, hair color, skin tone, height, body weight, facial features. These are all individual differences. But there are signs that distinguish entire communities of people - races. Race is a historically established group of people united by: - ​​a common origin; - territory of residence; - general morphological and physiological - hereditary characteristics; - traditions and customs. Francois Bernier
The question of the origin and classification of races has a long history. The first attempt to describe human races was made in the 17th century. Frenchman Bernier. Carl Linnaeus
Later, K. Linnaeus identified four races: American, European, Asian, African. Currently, most scientists distinguish three large races and several dozen small ones. Large races - Equatorial (Australian-Negroid), Eurasian (Caucasoid), Asian-American (Mongoloid). Representatives of the equatorial race live mainly in some tropical regions of the Old World. They are characterized by dark skin, wavy or curly hair, a wide flattened nose with big nostrils, thick lips. The area of ​​distribution of the Eurasian race is Europe, part of Asia, North Africa, America. Its representatives are characterized by light, sometimes dark skin, straight, sometimes wavy soft hair, long nose, thin lips, usually well-developed facial hair (mustache, beard). The Asian-American race is common in America, Central and East Asia. Representatives of this race have straight, black, coarse hair, and their mustache and beard grow weakly. The skin is more dark than light. The Mongols have a nose of medium width and protrudes slightly, while the American Indians have a long, strongly protruding nose. The most characteristic features of this race are a wide face, prominent cheekbones, a narrow palpebral fissure, medium-thick lips, and an upper eyelid closed by a leathery fold (“third eyelid”). However, even within the same race there are groups of people who differ from each other. For example, a Malay is not very similar in appearance to a Buryat or an Evenk. The Negroid pygmies from the banks of the Congo River differ from the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert. Caucasians of Northern Europe (Norwegians, Swedes) - light-eyed, fair-haired, light-skinned - bear little resemblance to southerners, most of whom are brown-eyed and dark-skinned. Therefore, scientists identify several dozen smaller races - second and third order. Currently, people are actively moving around the world, moving from place to place. Representatives of different races marry. Races arose a long time ago. The first division into two large trunks, the Mongoloid and Caucasian-Negroid races, occurred 90-92 thousand years ago. It is believed that the separation of Caucasians and Negroids occurred 50 thousand years ago. Scientists are still arguing about the mechanism of race formation. Many characteristics of races are clearly adaptive in nature. Thus, the dark skin of Negroids protects them better from ultraviolet rays than the light skin of Caucasians. Curly hair serves as a good heat insulator in the sun. An important factor in the formation of races could be their isolation. In groups of people living isolated from the rest of the world, certain new characteristics arose - the shape of the nose, lips, etc. People - carriers of this trait married only within their group. Their offspring also married within this group. Over time, the new trait became the property of all members of this group. Despite the differences between races, all modern humanity is represented by one species - Homo sapiens. Races should not be confused with the concepts of “nation” and “people.” Representatives of different races can be members of a single state and speak the same language. The presence of speech centers is a biological feature of the human species. What language a person speaks depends not on belonging to a particular race or nationality, but on social factors- on who the person lives with and who will teach him. Through speech, the ability to control one’s behavior is realized: an adult, mature, intelligent person first sets goals, plans his actions, and only then acts.

Formation of races on Earth, is a question that remains open, even for modern science. Where, how, why did races arise? Is there a division into first and second class races (more details:)? What unites people into one humanity? What traits separate people by nationality?

Skin color in people

Humanity as a biological species emerged quite a long time ago. Skin color the first people It was unlikely that he was very dark or very white; most likely, some had slightly whiter skin, others - darker. The formation of races on Earth based on skin color was influenced by the natural conditions in which certain groups found themselves.

Formation of races on Earth

White and dark skinned people

For example, some people found themselves in the tropical zone of the Earth. Here, the merciless rays of the sun can easily burn a person’s naked skin. From physics we know: black color absorbs the rays of the sun more completely. And that’s why black skin seems to be harmful.

But it turns out that only ultraviolet rays burn and can burn the skin. Pigment coloring becomes like a shield protecting skin person.

Everyone knows that white man gets sunburned faster than a black person. In the equatorial steppes of Africa, people with dark skin turned out to be more adapted to life, and Negroid tribes originated from them.

This is evidenced by the fact that not only in Africa, but also in all tropical regions of the planet, people live dark-skinned people. The first inhabitants of India are very dark-skinned people. In the tropical steppe regions of America, the people living here had darker skin than their neighbors who lived in and hid from the direct rays of the sun in the shade of trees.

And in Africa, the indigenous inhabitants of tropical forests - pygmies - have lighter skin than their neighbors who engage in agriculture and almost always under the sun.

The Negroid race, in addition to skin color, has many other features formed during the development process, and due to the need to adapt to tropical living conditions. For example, curly black hair protects the head well from overheating by direct rays of the sun. Narrow elongated skulls are also one of the adaptations against overheating.

The Papuans from New Guinea have the same skull shape (more details:) as well as the Malanesians (more details:). Features such as skull shape and skin color helped all these peoples in the struggle for existence.

But why did the white race have whiter skin than primitive people? The reason is the same ultraviolet rays, under the influence of which vitamin B is synthesized in the human body.

People of temperate and northern latitudes must have a white, transparent sun rays skin in order to receive as much ultraviolet radiation as possible.

Residents of northern latitudes

People with dark skin constantly experienced vitamin starvation and were less resilient than white-skinned people.

Mongoloids

Third race - Mongoloids. Under the influence of what conditions were its distinctive features formed? Their skin color, apparently, has been preserved from their most distant ancestors; it is well adapted to the harsh conditions of the North and the hot sun.

And here are the eyes. We need to say something special about them.
It is believed that the Mongoloids first appeared in areas of Asia located far from all oceans; The continental climate here is characterized by a sharp difference in temperatures between winter and summer, day and night, and the steppes in these parts are interspersed with deserts.

Strong winds blow almost continuously and carry huge amounts of dust. In winter there are sparkling tablecloths of endless snow. And today, travelers to the northern regions of our country wear glasses that protect against this glare. And if they are not there, they are paid with eye disease.

Important distinguishing feature Mongoloids - narrow slits of the eyes. And the second is a small fold of skin covering the inner corner of the eye. It also protects your eyes from dust.

This fold of skin is commonly called the Mongolian fold. From here, from Asia, people with prominent cheekbones and narrow slits of eyes dispersed throughout Asia, Indonesia, Australia, and Africa.

Well, is there another place on Earth with a similar climate? Yes, I have. These are some areas of South Africa. They are inhabited by Bushmen and Hottentots - peoples belonging to the Negroid race. However, the Bushmen here usually have dark yellow skin, narrow eyes and a Mongolian fold. At one time they even thought that Mongoloids lived in these parts of Africa, having moved here from Asia. Only later did we figure out this mistake.

Division into large human races

So influenced purely natural conditions The main races of the Earth were formed - white, black, yellow. When did this happen? A question like this is not easy to answer. Anthropologists believe that division into large human races occurred no earlier than 200 thousand years ago and no later than 20 thousand.

And it was probably a long process that took 180-200 thousand years. How this happened is a new mystery. Some scientists believe that at first humanity was divided into two races - the European, which later divided into white and yellow, and the equatorial, Negroid.

Others, on the contrary, believe that at first it separated from the common tree of humanity Mongoloid race, and then the Euro-African race was divided into whites and blacks. Well, anthropologists divide large human races into small ones.

This division is unstable total number small races varies in the classifications given by different scientists. But there are, of course, dozens of small races.

Of course, races differ from each other not only in skin color and eye shape. Modern anthropologists have found a large number of such differences.

Criteria for dividing into races

But for what reasons? criteria compare race? By head shape, brain size, blood type? Scientists have not discovered any fundamental signs that would characterize any races for better or worse.

Brain weight

It has been proven that brain weight varies among different races. But it is different also different people belonging to the same nationality. So, for example, the brain of the brilliant writer Anatole France weighed only 1077 grams, and the brain of the no less brilliant Ivan Turgenev reached a huge weight - 2012 grams. We can confidently say: between these two extremes all the races of the Earth are located.

The fact that the weight of the brain does not characterize the mental superiority of the race is also indicated by the figures: the average brain weight of an Englishman is 1456 grams, and of Indians - 1514, Bantu blacks - 1422 grams, French - 1473 grams. It is known that Neanderthals had greater brain weight than modern humans.

It is unlikely that they were smarter than you and me, however. And yet there are still racists on the globe. They are in both the USA and Republic of South Africa. True, they do not have any scientific data to confirm their theories.

Anthropologists - scientists who study humanity precisely from the perspective of the characteristics of individual people and their groups - unanimously state:

All people on Earth, regardless of their nationality and race, are equal. This does not mean that there are no racial and national characteristics, they are. But they do not determine either mental abilities or any other qualities that could be considered decisive for the division of humanity into higher and lower races.

We can say that this conclusion is the most important of the conclusions of anthropology. But this is not the only achievement of science, otherwise there would be no point in developing it further. And anthropology is developing. With its help, it was possible to look into the most distant past of humanity and understand many previously mysterious moments.

It is anthropological research that allows us to penetrate into the depths of thousands of years, to the very first days of the appearance of man. And that long period of history when people did not yet have writing at their disposal becomes clearer thanks to anthropological research.

And of course, the methods of anthropological research have expanded incomparably. If only a hundred years ago, having met a new unknown people, a traveler limited himself to describing them, then at present this is far from sufficient.

The anthropologist must now make numerous measurements, leaving nothing unattended - not the palms of the hands, not the soles of the feet, not, of course, the shape of the skull. He takes blood and saliva, prints of feet and palms for analysis, and takes x-rays.

Blood group

All received data are summarized, and from them special indices are derived that characterize a particular group of people. It turns out that blood types- precisely those blood groups that are used for transfusions - can also characterize the race of people.

Blood type determines race

It has been established that the majority of people with the second blood group are in Europe and there are none at all in South Africa, China and Japan, there is almost no third group in America and Australia, less than 10 percent of Russians have the fourth blood group. By the way, the study of blood groups made it possible to make many important and interesting discoveries.

Well, for example, the settlement of America. It is known that archaeologists, who have been searching for the remains of ancient human cultures in America, they had to state that people appeared here relatively late - only a few tens of thousands of years ago.

Relatively recently, these conclusions were confirmed by analyzing the ashes of ancient fires, bones, and the remains of wooden structures. It turned out that the figure of 20-30 thousand years quite accurately determines the period that has passed since the days of the first discovery of America by its aborigines - the Indians.

And this happened in the Bering Strait area, from where they moved relatively slowly south all the way to Tierra del Fuego.

The fact that among the indigenous population of America there are no people with the third and fourth blood groups indicates that the first settlers of the giant continent did not accidentally have people with these groups.

The question arises: were there many of these discoverers in this case? Apparently, for this accident to manifest itself, there were few of them. They gave rise to all the Indian tribes with the endless variety of their languages, customs, and beliefs.

And one more thing. After this group set foot on Alaskan soil, no one could follow them there. Otherwise, new groups of people would have brought with them one of the important blood factors, the absence of which determines the absence of the third and fourth groups among the Indians
blood.

But the descendants of the first Columbuses reached the Isthmus of Panama. And although in those days there was no canal separating the continents, this isthmus was difficult to overcome for people: tropical swamps, diseases, wild animals, poisonous reptiles and insects made it possible for another, equally small group of people to overcome it.

Proof? Absence of a second blood group among native South Americans. This means that the accident repeated itself: among the first settlers of South America there were also no people with the second blood group, as among the first settlers of North America there were no people with the third and fourth groups...

Probably everyone has read the famous book by Thor Heyerdahl “Journey to Kon-Tiki”. This journey was intended to prove that the ancestors of the inhabitants of Polynesia could have arrived here not from Asia, but from South America.

This hypothesis was prompted by some similarities in the cultures of the Polynesians and South Americans. Heyerdahl understood that with his magnificent journey he did not provide decisive proof, but most readers of the book, intoxicated by the greatness of the scientific feat and the literary talent of the author, steadily believe that the brave Norwegian was right.

And yet, apparently, Polynesians are descendants of Asians, not South Americans. The decisive factor, again, was the composition of the blood. We remember that South Americans do not have a second blood type, but among Polynesians there are many people with this blood type. You are inclined to believe that the Americans did not take part in the settlement of Polynesia...