Humanity is a mosaic of races and peoples that inhabit our globe. A representative of each race and each people has a number of differences in comparison with representatives of other population systems.
However, all people, despite their racial and ethnic background, are an integral part of a single whole - earthly humanity.
The concept of “race”, division into races
Race is a system of a population of people who have similar biological characteristics that were formed under the influence of the natural conditions of the territory of their origin. Race is the result of the adaptation of the human body to those natural conditions in which he had to live.
The formation of races took place over many millennia. According to anthropologists, this moment There are three main races on the planet, including more than ten anthropological types.
Representatives of each race are connected by common areas and genes, which provoke the emergence of physiological differences from representatives of other races.
Caucasian race: signs and settlement
The Caucasoid or Eurasian race is the largest race in the world. Characteristic features of the appearance of a person belonging to the Caucasian race are an oval face, straight or wavy soft hair, wide eyes, and average thickness of lips.
The color of eyes, hair and skin varies depending on the region of the population, but always has light shades. Representatives of the Caucasian race evenly populate the entire planet.
The final settlement across the continents occurred after the end of the century geographical discoveries. Very often, people of the Caucasian race tried to prove their dominant position over representatives of other races.
Negroid race: signs, origin and settlement
The Negroid race is one of the three big races. Characteristic features People belonging to the Negroid race have elongated limbs, dark, melanin-rich skin, a wide flat nose, large eyes, and curly hair.
Modern scientists believe that the first Negroid man arose around the 40th century BC. in the territory of modern Egypt. The main region of settlement of representatives of the Negroid race is South Africa. Over the past centuries, people of the Negroid race have settled significantly in the West Indies, Brazil, France and the United States.
Unfortunately, representatives of the Negroid race have been oppressed by “white” people for many centuries. They faced such anti-democratic phenomena as slavery and discrimination.
Mongoloid race: signs and settlement
The Mongoloid race is one of the largest world races. The characteristic features of this race are: dark skin color, narrow eyes, small stature, thin lips.
Representatives of the Mongoloid race primarily inhabit the territory of Asia, Indonesia, and the islands of Oceania. Recently, the number of people of this race has begun to increase in all countries of the world, which is caused by an intensifying wave of migration.
Peoples inhabiting the earth
A people is a certain group of people who have a common number of historical characteristics - culture, language, religion, territory. Traditionally stable common feature a people is its language. However, in our time, cases are common when different peoples speak a single language.
For example, the Irish and Scots speak English language, although they do not apply to the British. Today there are several tens of thousands of peoples in the world, which are systematized into 22 families of peoples. Many peoples that existed before disappeared at this point or were assimilated with other peoples.
To date, there is no consensus regarding the time of the appearance of humanity on Earth. Most scientists believe that human ancestors appeared approximately 2 million years ago, and man himself modern type– 40 thousand years ago. The first people appeared in Africa and it was from here that they settled across all continents. When large groups of people settled in a new territory over a long period of time, they changed under the influence environment, their appearance, character and other features were formed. It was in this way that the main groups of people were formed, called races. Scientists identify four main human races: Mongoloid, Negroid and Caucasoid races.
The Caucasoid race is formed by the indigenous peoples of Europe and the Middle Eastern countries. Even in ancient times, peoples of this race settled in Central and South Asian regions, and later in America and Australia.
For representatives of the Caucasian race, the characteristics are predominantly light color skin, soft straight and slightly wavy hair, a narrow nose and thin lips. Nowadays, half of the entire population of the Earth is included in the peoples of the Caucasian race, including all the Slavs.
Among Caucasians, there are two types - southern and northern. The northern type is characteristic of the countries of northern Europe, while the southern type is distributed mainly in the south of Europe and North America, Western Asia and India. This type also includes part of the population of South America. There are many transitional types between the southern and northern types. They include the population of the Central and Eastern regions of Europe, Far East Russia, as well as the Caucasian population of America and Australia.
The formation of the Caucasian race is strongly connected with one place of residence of the main part of its representatives. For the first time, Caucasians appeared in a territory covering some regions of Southern Europe and South Asia, as well as certain areas in the North of the African continent. Today, Caucasians have settled on all continents.
In the North of Europe, the Nordic type of the Caucasian race became widespread. It includes the British and Dutch, Finns and Irish, Norwegians, Karelians, Latvians, Estonians and northern French.
Although at first the area of formation of the race existed at the junction of Europe and Western Asia, each subgroup has its own special characteristics that appeared as a result of the further settlement of its representatives and new conditions of their life.
For example, in the British Isles and Scandinavian countries, the Atlanto-Baltic type has become widespread. Its representatives have very light skin and hair, Blue eyes, long noses. Almost all of them are tall with well-developed hair.
The Baltic type is especially common in the Baltic states, British Isles and on the Scandinavian Peninsula. Its representatives have light skin, as well as hair and eyes, they are mesocephalic, with large long noses, tall, developed hair.
The Norian type is characterized by medium height and brown hair color. Representatives of this type live in Luxembourg, the province of Champagne, Zealand, the Duchy of Baden, the lands around the Rhine, Bohemia, and Northern Italy.
Representatives of the Falsky type have the tallest stature among Europeans, a strong physique, broad shoulders, a massive lower jaw, blue or gray eyes, and coarse, slightly curly reddish hair. This type is common in Scandinavia and German Westphalia.
IN different classifications There is also another name for the Caucasian race, for example, Eurasian or Caucasian.
Modern people appeared on Earth about 40 thousand years ago. Due to the peculiarities of natural and geographical conditions, differences arose in the appearance of a person. For example, dark color protects the skin from sun exposure. Curly hair form an air cushion on the head and protect against overheating.
Where people with a yellowish skin tone live, there are often winds, dust and sand storms. Therefore, the eyes of those people look like a narrow slit with a fold of skin covering internal corner eyes. People of different continents and countries differ in body structure, skin color, hair, eyes, shape and size of nose, lips, etc. These characteristics are called racial. They were formed over a long historical period and are passed on from generation to generation.
Human races - these are large groups of people connected by a common origin and external characteristics.
According to external signs they distinguish four main races: Caucasian, Mongoloid, Negroid(or equatorial) And Australoid.
To the Caucasian race includes almost half of the planet's humanity. The name itself suggests that most of the peoples of this race live in Europe. With the discovery of America and Australia, Caucasians settled throughout the world. They have fair skin, soft straight or slightly wavy hair, a narrow nose, thin lips, and eye color may vary. In addition to Europeans, Indians, Tajiks, Armenians, and Arabs belong to this race. All Slavs, including Ukrainians, are Caucasians.
People live in Africa and America Negroid race. The peoples of this race live in the equatorial regions. They have dark skin, hair and eyes, curly or wavy hair, poorly developed hair on the face and body, most of them have a wide nose, the upper jaw protrudes forward, and thick lips.
TO Mongoloid race belongs to almost 40% of the world's population. The peoples of the Mongoloid race settled in the vast expanses of Asia, the islands Pacific Ocean and on both continents of America. Mongoloids have yellowish skin color, black straight hair, narrow eyes like slits, a flat face, a wide nose, thin, slightly thickened lips. This race includes the Mongols, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and other peoples of Asia, as well as Indians - the indigenous population of America
Representatives Australoid race inhabit the northeast of mainland Australia and the eastern part of the island. New Guinea. This race is characterized by dark skin, hair, and eyes. The facial hair is well developed, the nose is wide and flat.
With the growth of the Earth's population, peoples of different races communicated with each other more and more. This is how they appeared mixed race — mulattoes(descendants of blacks and Europeans), mestizos(descendants of Indians and Europeans), sambo(descendants of Indians and blacks). Material from the site
For a long time, Europeans did not recognize the equality of races. Representatives of the Mongoloid race, and especially the Negroid race, were considered to be at the lowest level of development and incapable of creating their own civilization. One of the first to refute this erroneous and inherently racist theory was the world-famous scientist, great-grandson of the Zaporozhye Cossack Makhlai N. N. Miklouho-Maclay. He was a famous traveler, lived for many years among the Papuans of New Guinea and proved that they were in no way inferior to Europeans in their mental development. He argued that all people, regardless of place of residence, skin color, hair and other external features, are the same in their biological characteristics. The Papuans considered Nikolai Nikolaevich their friend. On the coast of New Guinea has a territory named after him Maclay coast.
On this page there is material on the following topics:
Races of man summary
Geography 7th grade message about the Australoid race
5th grade report on geography Caucasian race
The number of Negroid races on earth
Biology report on the topic of the Caucasian race
Questions about this material:
A large amount of material has been accumulated in anthropology on the topic of the origin of races on Earth. The main races are Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Australoid, Negroid. The rest are either less common or of mixed origin. We will not go into details of morphological differences; this is not the purpose of this study, but we will only try to establish a direct connection between the data of anthropology and genetics in this matter.Caucasian characterized by fair skin (ranging from very light, mainly in Northern Europe, to relatively dark in Southern Europe), soft straight or wavy hair, horizontal eye shape, moderate to heavily developed facial and chest hair in men, and a prominent nose , straight or slightly sloping forehead.
It is known that the bulk large Caucasian race had an original range somewhere within a vast area covering parts of southwest Asia, as well as southern Europe and northern Africa - these are all areas Mediterranean. The very origin of Caucasians is probably associated with an even smaller range in the Middle East about 40 thousand years ago. Because the formation of the Caucasian race is associated with a whole cascade of mutations, the likelihood of repetition of which in several groups independently is excluded in practice - this is also the whole complex mutations responsible for pigmentation of skin, hair, eyes; and for the structure of the nose, shape of the skull, jaws, etc.
Based on the calculation of ages for the main haplogroups in DNA genealogy, as well as the supposed places of origin, it is possible to indicate the only haplogroup that reliably belongs to the large Caucasian race at the time of its origin - this is haplogroup IJ (SNIP M429). Its age, based on calculations of mutation rates, is approximately the same 40 thousand years, and its place of origin is the Middle East. From those IJ carriers who migrated northward after several thousand years, haplogroup I was formed, and from those who migrated in the region of western Asia - haplogroup J. Probably, at the earliest stages of formation Caucasian There were other haplogroups in the focus of formation, but they did not leave descendants in the direct male line. At the earliest stages, in the zone of formation of the Caucasian race, haplogroup G (snip M201) was also present, which separated from F probably in the eastern part of the Middle East.
Haplogroup F, as the parent group for IJK, G, H, is at least 55 thousand years old and therefore the group of carriers with this marker (SNIP M89) most likely possessed either some undifferentiated set morphological characteristics, or was still heterogeneous and did not form a more or less unified anthropological type. Some individual representatives of IJK could remain in the Middle East along with IJ and G and then migrate to the northwest and southwest, but most of the IJK haplogroup headed east, where after about 8 thousand years a mutation occurred that determines the haplogroups K, H. This happened in the South Asian region. Several thousand years later, during migration further east from K, new haplogroups arose - this is LT (snp P326), which at first remained in South Asia, and from those representatives of K that migrated to southeast Asia, the MNOPS haplogroup arose, aka KxLT, defined by the M526 snip. The MNOPS haplogroup originated about 40 thousand years ago in the area of the modern Indochina Peninsula, located in southeast Asia. Haplogroup P (SNIP M45) subsequently separated from this haplogroup and went west to southern Asia. Then haplogroups M and S, which migrated to the south and southeast, to Polynesia and Papua New Guinea. And finally, haplogroup NO (snip M214), which migrated to the east and north. Haplogroup P, when migrating to the north, formed a new haplogroup Q (snip M242), which was one of the first to populate northern Asia and subsequently crossed to the American continent about 13 thousand years ago. Another descendant of P is haplogroup R (snip M207), which arose in South Asia and later migrated to the north (to Siberia), where subclades R1 (snp M173) and R1a (snp M420) were formed.
Among the mt-DNA haplogroups characteristic of the same region of the Middle East and participating in the formation Caucasians on initial stage probably included haplogroups UK, HV and JT, I. All of them are significantly distributed in Europe, northern Africa and the Middle East. These were the companions of the European Cro-Magnons - carriers of the Y-haplogroup IJ. The estimated age for haplogroup U is more than 55 thousand years, which can be explained by significantly less selection for mt-DNA lines, due to a more loyal attitude towards women. Male lines are characterized by passage through bottlenecks, which rejuvenates the age of the common ancestor and the diversity of Y-lines.
Autosomal comparison of populations provides an even more complete picture of distribution Caucasians and proto-Caucasoids, according to which greatest number expansion occurred in the Neolithic. These were migrations mainly from the Middle East of the first agricultural and pastoral cultures. (The current distribution of autosomal components is presented in a study of the genetics of Europeans).
Many anthropologists suggest that migrations of proto-Caucasoids in the Paleolithic about 20-30 thousand years ago could have reached the east separate groups up to South Asia in the south and Altai in the north - it can be stated that these groups were either small in number relative to the main non-Caucasian population and simply “dissolved” in them, or they were assimilated, peacefully or otherwise, by more eastern groups of proto-Mongoloids. After obtaining autosomal dDNA results from the Malta site in Siberia (near Lake Baikal), it became clear that the autosomal component characteristic of Caucasians was present among the Paleolithic inhabitants of Siberia, but its percentage and relationship with other “non-Caucasoid” autosomal components of southern Asia and Siberia allow us to say quite confidently that they were not proto-Caucasians, this is also evidenced by the low nose bridge and the relatively small bend of the scales of the frontal bone without a brow ridge in the fragment from Afontovaya Gora, although the autosomal profile of the remains from Afontovaya Gora (near Krasnoyarsk) is somewhat closer to modern Eastern Europeans. The DNA of the remains from the Malta site belongs in straight lines to mt-DNA haplogroup U, and along the Y chromosome to haplogroup R.
Today in the north of Asia, up to Altai in the south, mt-DNA haplogroup U4 is widespread, which may also be a residual trace of the ancient proto-Caucasoids of Siberia and probably one of the lines of haplogroup I*; for South Asia this is presumably mt-DNA haplogroup U2. There are no direct Y-lines left from those migrants, but presumably these could be either some subclades of haplogroup G or IJ. Considering that the age of mt-DNA haplogroup U is at least 55 thousand years, some subclades of this haplogroup could belong to an undifferentiated racial type, close to proto-Caucasians or proto-Mongoloids - perhaps U2 and U4 were their characteristic “mito-marks”. 
Map of Upper Paleolithic migrations of Y-haplogroups and subclades
Alexey Zorrin
About 40% of the world's population
Representatives of this race are distinguished by wavy or straight soft hair different shades, relatively light skin, a wide variety of iris colors (from brown to light gray and blue). Characteristic strong development tertiary hair (in particular, beards in men), weak protrusion of cheekbones, slight protrusion of jaws (orthognathism), narrow protruding nose with a high bridge, usually thin or medium lips.
Caucasian (Caucasian or Caucasian from English Caucasian race or Eurasian) - a race widespread before the era of great geographical discoveries in Europe, Western Asia, Central Asia, North Africa and northern India; later - on all inhabited continents. Caucasians settled especially widely in North America and South America, V South Africa and Australia.
Characteristic signs
It is characterized primarily by an orthognathic face, noticeably protruding forward in the horizontal plane. Caucasian hair is straight or wavy, usually soft (especially in northern groups). The brow ridges are often large, the eye opening is always wide, although the palpebral fissure may be small, the nose is usually large and protrudes sharply, the bridge of the nose is high, the thickness of the lips is small or medium, the growth of the beard and mustache is strong. The hand and foot are wide. Skin, hair and eye color varies from very light shades in northern groups to very dark shades in southern and eastern populations.
Subgroups
According to the outdated typological classification, it includes Nordic, Mediterranean, Dinaric, Phalic, Alpine, East Baltic, Lapponoid and other subgroups (depending on the author of the classification).
In prehistoric times, other subraces may have existed in Europe. Thus, North Africa until the last glaciation was inhabited by mechtoids, similar to the European Cro-Magnoids of the Upper Paleolithic era.
In Western, Central, Southern Europe and Northern Africa:
- Nordic race
- Alpine race
- Fal race
- Balkan-Caucasian race
- Dinaric race
- Mediterranean race
- Oriental race
- Borreby
- Brunn
IN Eastern Europe and Asia:
- Nordic race
- Baltic race
- East Baltic race
- Balkan-Caucasian race
- Caspian race
- Pontic race
- Dinaric race
- Armenoid race
- Oriental race
- Alpine race
- Caucasian race
- Pamir-Fergana race
- Ural race
Types of Caucasian peoples in the typological classification according to version encyclopedic dictionary Meyers Blitz-Lexikon (Leipzig, 1932)
History of terms
Other terms are also used in relation to the Caucasian race.
Caucasian race
Georgian skull discovered in 1795, put forward by Blumenbach as a hypothesis about the origin of Europeans from the Caucasus
Caucasian race (lat. Varietas Caucasia, or English Caucasian race ) is a term for the white race, introduced by the German anthropologist Friedrich Blumenbach, who included the inhabitants of Europe (with the exception of Samoyeds, Laplanders, Finns, Magyars and Turks) and the inhabitants of southern Asia and northern and north-eastern Africa. The name arose from the fact that Blumenbach considered the Caucasus to be the first residence of the white man, and because he recognized the tribes currently living in the Caucasus as the purest and most unmixed type of this race. Currently the term Caucasian in English is the official term for the white race (e.g. used for racial identity in the IAFD database). In West Slavic languages White race also referred to as Kavkazijska or Kaukazoidalna, in Germanic languages the terms are predominantly used Europide, Kaukasoid or Kaukasische, in Romance languages - Caucasiano or Caucasia. Blumenbach wrote:
Caucasian type - for study I took this particular type, the mountain type of the Caucasus, because its southern slope produces the most beautiful race of people, by this race I primarily mean Georgians. All physiological signs come down to this. Thus, we must assert with great confidence that the Caucasus is the birthplace of humanity
Mediterranean race
In the 19th century, in order to avoid frequent confusion, the German researcher F. Müller proposed another term - Mediterranean race(German) Mittelländische Rasse), since the peoples belonging to it reached the height of their development on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. This term was then accepted by most ethnologists (Peschel, Helwald and others) and to end of the 19th century centuries almost supplanted in scientific works Blumenbach's term, but is now used in this meaning as component larger Indo-Mediterranean race