Human races are historically formed groups of people within the species Homo sapiens. They differ in secondary physical features - eye shape, skin color, hair structure, etc.

The large Caucasian race (about 42% of the Earth's population) is divided into three groups based on the intensity of skin and hair pigmentation: southern, northern and intermediate. Depending on the characteristics of pigmentation and the “head indicator”, small races (2nd and 3rd order) are also distinguished in these groups.

The head indicator refers to the proportions of the skull and the ratio of the width of the head to its length. For example, in the northern group the Baltic and Nordic minor races are distinguished. In its intermediate group, the Alpine, Eastern European and Central European races are distinguished. In the southern group, in the Indo-Mediterranean race, the Mediterranean and Armenoid minor races are distinguished.

The Caucasian race is characterized by straight or slightly wavy light brown (from light to dark shades) hair, fair skin; blue wide open eyes; a narrow protruding nose, a moderately developed chin, medium-thick lips, and developed facial hair in men.

The Caucasian race is one of the major large races. It is divided into several types: Nordic, Sub-Adriatic, Atlanto-Baltic, Falski, East Baltic, Mediterranean, Central-Eastern European, Balkan-Caucasian, Caspian, Western Asian, Indo-Afghan.

The Caucasoid race, the origin of which is associated with the common original habitat of the bulk of its representatives, was initially distributed over a territory covering certain areas of southwestern Asia and northern Africa. Now Caucasians live on all continents.

The Nordic type is widespread in Northern Europe among the Kashubians, western Latvians and Estonians, Komi, part of the Russians, northern Karelians, southwestern Finns, Norwegians, Irish, Swedes, Germans of the northwestern regions, English, Dutch, northern French, etc. the signs of this type are the following: meso- and dolichocephaly; leptosomal, normal skeletal body type; tall; straight or wavy hair structure; blond, hair color; high base of the nose; deep lower jaw; narrow, angular chin; developed growth of beard and mustache; average body hair growth; thin with a pinkish tint.

Although initially the area of ​​formation of the race was close to Europe and Western Asia (it was there that the Caucasian race was formed), the characteristics of its subgroups in various parameters differ significantly depending on the geographical features of the places of further settlement of its representatives, their living conditions, etc.

The Atlanto-Baltic type is especially common in Latvia and Estonia, Great Britain, and Scandinavian countries. It is characterized by particularly light pigmentation of the skin, as well as hair and eyes, mesocephaly, great length, and developed tertiary hair.

The subadriatic (Norian or Norik) type is described as subbrachycephalic, which is characterized by medium height, brown hair. Distributed in Luxembourg, Champagne, Franche-Comté, in the Dutch province of Zeeland, in the north of the Duchy of Baden, the Rhine provinces, in southeastern Bohemia, in eastern Bavaria; found among Slovenes, in Lombardy and the Venetian region.

The Falsky type is characterized by the tallest stature among Europeans, mesodolichocephaly, stocky build, broad shoulders, massive lower jaw, high cheekbones, wide face, developed brow ridges, blue or gray eyes, low rectangular eye sockets, and coarse wavy blond (reddish) hair. This type is common in Westphalia and Scandinavia.

The Caucasian race may be called differently in different classifications. You can often find synonyms of this term such as Caucasian or Eurasian race.

About 40% of the world's population

Representatives of this race are distinguished by wavy or straight soft hair of different shades, relatively light skin, and a wide variety of iris colors (from brown to light gray and blue). Characterized by a strong development of tertiary hair (in particular, a beard in men), weak protrusion of the cheekbones, slight protrusion of the jaws (orthognathism), a narrow protruding nose with a high bridge, usually thin or medium lips.

Caucasian (Caucasian or Caucasian from English Caucasian race or Eurasian) - a race common before the Age of Discovery 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, 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 Caucasoid peoples in the typological classification according to the Meyers Blitz-Lexikon encyclopedic dictionary (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 Western Slavic languages, the white race is also called 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 by the end of the 19th century almost replaced Blumenbach's term in scientific works, but is now used in this meaning as an integral part of the larger Indo-Mediterranean race

No matter how interesting and vivid all these facts and considerations are, no matter how attractive they are due to their wide coverage, synthesis of biological and historical phenomena into one whole, perhaps it would not be worth devoting a separate article to them, if not for the author’s absolute conviction that this not the past, but the present and even the future of anthropology, its main path, that the application of genetic laws to the interpretation of anthropological facts opens up wide opportunities for cardinal generalizations, that, finally, the law discovered by N. I. Vavilov can find further application in anthropology. I would like to show the latter using the example of the origin and formation of the Caucasian race.

What is the Caucasian race as a whole now, as a specific unit of anthropological classification, as a morphological unity? Its representatives are characterized by a strongly protruding narrow nose, a high bridge of the nose, a sharply profiled face, thin lips, straight or wide-wavy soft hair. Compared to Negroids and even Mongoloids, Caucasians are much lighter-skinned, have light hair and light eyes, and the latter is true even for residents of the Mediterranean, Western and Central Asia - the darkest-eyed people among Caucasians. A completely natural and logical conclusion from this morphological unity is the affirmation of the genetic relationship and common origin of Caucasian types.

However, anthropologists do not agree on the ways in which the Caucasoid race emerged. In accordance with one point of view, called monocentric, all races of modern man originated in Western Asia from neutral forms of Neanderthals, combining the characteristics of all three large races; according to another hypothesis, called polycentric, each race goes back to a special group of Neanderthals who lived on the same continent. The author shares the polycentric hypothesis, based on the undoubted morphological continuity between Caucasians and European Neanderthals, between the Mongoloid races and Sinanthropus, as well as from archaeological data, painting a picture of a gradual transition from the Lower Paleolithic to the Upper, not only in Western Asia, but also in Europe, China, Southeast Asia, etc. On the other hand, the undoubted fact of the greater proximity of Caucasoids to Negroids than to Mongoloids, confirmed both by the presence of an intermediate Australoid race and the wide distribution of Negro-Australoids in the Upper Paleolithic in southern Europe and Caucasoids in the Mesolithic in North Africa, and the formation of racial characteristics in the process of growth. (Children of Negroes and Europeans are more similar to each other than adult Negroes and Europeans. Mongoloids, on the contrary, differ from other races most of all in childhood.) The common origin of Caucasians and Negroids is very likely, and it may indeed go back to Western Asia, where the skeletons of Neanderthals were found, who were characterized by both Caucasian and Negroid features.

Rice. 1. Geographical variations of skin color in Europe: 1 - very light skin (overwhelming predominance of shades 1-12 on the F. Lushan scale);
2 - slightly darker skin (shades 13-15 are quite common)

In this original group of Neanderthals, both Caucasoid and Negroid features were expressed, however, less strongly than in modern races.

The formation of a typically Caucasoid combination of characteristics, as we know it now, obviously occurred under the influence of many factors, starting from the Upper Paleolithic era. First of all, this is the influence of the mixing of groups of Western Asian origin with European Neanderthals; This is evidenced by the strong protrusion of the nose in representatives of the Caucasian race, the same as in European Neanderthals.

This is also evidenced by the very developed relief on many early Upper Paleolithic turtles from Europe - a feature typical of European Neanderthals. In addition to mixing with local groups of Neanderthals, adaptation to the harsh conditions of periglacial Europe should be pointed out: a narrow nose limited the simultaneous inhalation of large amounts of cold air and protected the nasopharynx. Finally, in the emergence of pigmentation characteristic of the Caucasian race, the role of genogeographical patterns undoubtedly plays a great role.

Rice. 2. Geographical variations of hair color in Europe: 1 - less than 50% dark hair (shades 27.4-8 on the E. Fisher scale); 2- 30-80% dark
hair; 3 - more than 80% dark hair

The Caucasoid race is divided into northern and southern branches. The northern branch is the population of Scandinavia, Iceland and Ireland, England, the northern regions of the GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany, Finland, the Baltic republics of the Soviet Union, the northern regions of the European part of the RSFSR. Southern_Caucasians are the population of the northern part of India, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey, Arabic-speaking countries, the Turkmen and Azerbaijani, Armenian and Georgian SSRs, Southern Italy and Southern France, Spain and Portugal. The areas intermediate between these zones are occupied by a population that occupies a middle place in the anthropological classification between northern and southern Caucasians. In all
In the listed countries, anthropological characteristics vary greatly; local anthropological types are distinguished. But it is not the slightest difficulty even for non-specialists to distinguish, for example, a Georgian or an Armenian from a Swede by appearance at first sight.

However, variations of all the features characteristic of local Caucasian types are peculiar to them; they do not cover several peoples or groups of peoples; they reveal, as anthropologists say, a mosaic distribution on the geographical map. The only signs that contrast the population of the north and south of Europe, separating northern and southern Caucasians, are signs of pigmentation, eye color, hair and skin. Anthropologists zealously, at first, I would say, simply frantically looked for some other features with the help of which they could distinguish northern Europeans from southern ones, the northern, or Baltic, branch of the Caucasoid race from the southern, or Mediterranean. The search was in vain: they were never crowned with success; not a single sign was found, except pigmentation, the variations of which would be distinguished by a strictly regular distribution on the map of Europe. And since the pigmentation of the ancient population remains unknown, the ancient areas of the northern and southern Caucasoids, their relationship on the European geographical map in the early eras of the formation of the Caucasoid race, also remain unknown.

How are all three characteristics reflecting the development of pigment now geographically distributed? The darkest-skinned people live in the northern part of India, Afghanistan, the Turkmen and Azerbaijan SSR, and in Arab countries. Persians, Armenians, Georgians and other peoples of the Caucasus, Greeks, Bulgarians, southern Italians and French, Spaniards and Portuguese are lighter-skinned, although they appear dark-skinned when compared, say, with Russians. Let's remember Italian films - don't the heroes in them give the impression of very dark people? But they employ people not only from Southern, but also from Northern Italy, whose population is noticeably lighter than southern Italians. Northern French and Belgians, Germans from the southern and central regions of Europe, Croats and Slovenes, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Ukrainians, and Russians from the southern regions have even lighter skin. Russians of the central regions, Belarusians, Poles, Germans of the northern regions are almost as light-skinned as the Scandinavians, who constitute the last step in the scale of skin color shades - they deposit very little pigment (Fig. 1). Maps of the distribution of various shades of hair and eye color - from the darkest to the lightest - among the European population differ little from the distribution map of skin color (Fig. 2, 3). Thus, in Europe it is possible to distinguish several zones from south to north, and the population of each subsequent more northern zone will be noticeably lighter-skinned, light-eyed and fair-haired than the peoples living in the previous zone.

From morphology, let us now turn to geography and consider the geographical outlines of the Old World, and in particular Eurasia. If the formation of the Caucasoid race or that combination of anthropological characteristics on the basis of which the Caucasoid race was formed took place in Western Asia, then Europe can rightfully be considered in relation to this zone as a peripheral region.

Rice. 3. Geographical variations of eye color in Europe: 1 - light eyes (shades 9-12 on the V.V. Bunak scale), found in more than 60%
cases; 2 - 40-60% light eyes; 3 - 20-39.9% light eyes; 4 - less than 20% light
eye

Western Asia lies in the center of the Old World, in the area of ​​​​contact of all three continents, while Europe looks like a monstrous peninsula of the single continent of Eurasia. From this point of view, it is curious that the most intense depigmentation is characteristic in Europe not for the population of the entire northern zone, but precisely for the peoples of Scandinavia, that is, for those peoples who are the greatest distance from the center of the Old World - Western Asia. The consistency and gradual lightening of people’s hair, eyes and skin in the direction to the northwest of Western Asia is also noteworthy, which is not the case in all other directions.

If the reader has not yet guessed where the author is going, then, in any case, he is prepared for this: the author believes that the only successful explanation of all the noted facts, and, moreover, an explanation that does not require any additional hypotheses, can be N.I.’s genogeographical idea. Vavilov on the displacement of recessives to peripheral areas from the center of the range. Skin color also appears to be a recessive trait, as are other features associated with depigmentation. All depigmentation thus acts as a single complex, although the accumulation of several recessive genes in the genotype leads to complete depigmentation. Their displacement to the outlying regions fully explains why in Europe the color of hair, eyes and skin lightens from south to north (gradual displacement from the center of racial formation), why the greatest depigmentation is characteristic of the population of Scandinavia (the greatest distance from the center of racial formation), why this process manifested itself precisely during the formation of the Caucasoid race, and not any other (the peculiar geographical position of Europe as a peninsula of the Eurasian mainland and, therefore, a geographical prerequisite for isolation). So, the law of displacement of recessive mutations to the outskirts of a species or racial range, a law whose effect is brilliantly illustrated in relation to humans using the example of the population of the Western Hindu Kush and Scandinavia, can be extended to a much more general phenomenon - the emergence and formation of one of the main racial trunks of modern humanity . Genogeography and population genetics make a great contribution to the clarification and understanding of the extremely important problem of race formation, and Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov was one of the pioneers in introducing their methods and laws into anthropology almost 60 years ago.

G. F. Debets told the author that after talking with N. I. Vavilov for half an hour, he remembered this conversation for the rest of his life - N. I. Vavilov’s judgments on issues of anthropology, ethnogenesis, and ancient history were so deep and subtle. A huge mind, which has accumulated vast and varied knowledge, has discovered general laws that operate at all levels of life and the interaction of biological systems, laws that are widely applicable to the explanation of human biological characteristics.

“An anthropologist is a worker of natural science”

Praskovya Nikolaevna Tarnovskaya, Russian anthropologist

At the origins of each scientific discipline are individuals who leave their mark on the entire national school of development, becoming symbols of the nation, reflecting in a concentrated form the essence of the scientific worldview. If we talk about such an important field of natural science as physical anthropology, then its specificity and style in America in the twentieth century. can be understood directly through the prism of the life of such a truly outstanding scientist as Carleton Stevens Coon (1904–1981). Without exaggeration, we can say that he was the “number one” man of that era, who managed to make the contours of American science recognizable and understandable throughout the world. But his main merit is that he developed a truly humanistic aspect of physical anthropology. Not the spirit of militarism, hedonism and reckless practical mastery of reality, which are associated today in the mass public consciousness with the American mentality, but a fruitful progressive synthesis of the exact, natural and human sciences was carried out by Kuhn in his works. It was people like him who began to rapidly change things in the 20th century. ideas about the USA as a country of nouveau riche, showing the whole world that, in addition to gangsters, bankers, cowboys and black lumpen, there is also a significant class of intellectuals and spiritual people who are not fixated on the problems of short-term gain, but who build their life strategy of behavior in an authentic way classical canons of European idealism. This, in our opinion, is the key to understanding the historical significance of the scientist Carleton Stevens Kuhn. From this perspective, this contribution to the development of science becomes understandable and explainable.

His fundamental innovation was the first of its kind, a unique and fruitful synthesis of three areas of research that had developed completely independently before him, namely: cultural anthropology, prehistoric archeology and physical anthropology. This was a real breakthrough in the entire complex of sciences for the study of man, finally ending the useless competition of the exact, natural and human sciences in this matter, and the above-mentioned disciplines acquired their appropriate boundaries of competence. The synthesis of human sciences has become truly harmonious and internally consistent.

Carleton S. Kuhn's scientific career in cultural anthropology began from 1924 to 1928 during his expeditions and fieldwork in Morocco, which culminated in the publication of ethnographic works on the tribes of the region. Continuing his line of research, Kuhn later studied the populations of Albania, Ethiopia and Yemen. Before World War II, he wrote the book “Principles of Anthropology,” which was published in 1942. In it, Kuhn gave an analysis of human behavior in society based on the principles of the legal system. He was also interested in the development of appropriate terminology in society and its adaptation to the everyday needs of people. He later summarized these provisions of his research in the book “Lectures on the Fundamentals of Anthropology” (1948). Thinking about the reasons for the outbreak of wars at this fateful moment in history, Kuhn came to the conclusion that the energetic capabilities of organisms are entirely projected onto the entire structure of their social behavior in the form of a predictable norm, which is easily recognized in all social manifestations created by them. Thus, biological potentials inevitably form sociocultural relationships at any stage of development of living beings in the entire hierarchy of existence. Carleton S. Kuhn tirelessly promoted this idea, both while lecturing to students, as he organized the rich collection of the University of Pennsylvania Museum, and later when writing his monograph The History of Man (1954).

In his opinion, even the conscious impact of man on nature is not capable of shaking this basic biological law of the Universe, the action of which is easily recognized at all stages of the development of our society: from the beginning of making fire to the era of the invention of atomic weapons. The very principle of struggle is inherent in the energy disparity of organisms; this is the principle of world evolution, first comprehensively considered by Charles Darwin. Carlton S. Kuhn was, of course, a consistent Darwinist. He outlined his views on this issue most fully in his work “Human Evolution and the Avalanche of Culture” (1970).

His contribution to the development of archeology was based on the study of caves and depressions rich in the remains of fossil forms of humans throughout almost the entire territory of the ecumene. In Morocco and India he studied Neolithic history; in Iran - Iron Age artifacts. In Afghanistan and Syria he discovered traces of Mesolithic culture, which turned out to be older than Western European ones. In Africa, in Sierra Leone, he explored the historical remains of the Pleistocene era.

In the field of physical anthropology, Kuhn immortalized his name with his fundamental, gigantic study “The Races of Europe” (1939), which has not lost its significance to this day due to a truly encyclopedic generalization of information on this region. In 1950, in collaboration with S.M. Garn and J.B. Birdsell, he published another work, “Race,” in which he clearly and systematically accurately outlined the basic principles of racial differentiation among people.

Finally, he was one of the first in world anthropological practice to begin to use the radiocarbon method to establish the historical age of fossil remains.

Like every truly major anthropologist, Kuhn created his own original racial theory, which was called - “multiregional concept” (“multiregional model”). Based on the analysis of various data, the scientist came to the conclusion that various modern races descended from five main independent ancestral forms in five geographical zones and at different times. Thus, in particular, Europe is the result of a long history of evolutionary progress of the main branches of the White race. The same thing is observed in other centers of race formation. In accordance with the traditions of the American school of anthropology, Kuhn in his works used concepts such as “White race” and “Caucasian race” to define the Caucasian race. The latter term is not currently used in the European System of Scientific Coordinates.

But at the same time, he reliably indicated, based on information about migration processes, the percentage concentration of the genetic contribution of immigrants from Northern Europe in various regions of the globe. The early stages of human evolution, according to his research, are characterized by the parallel existence of Neanderthaloid forms with the predecessors of modern human races in all inhabited regions, which is actually indicated by the results of recent excavations.

According to Kuhn, the races living on their own territory could be at different stages of the evolutionary path and overcome the critical barrier between primitive and intelligent states at different times. Assessing the observed differences in cranial capacity and cultural achievement, Kuhn proposed that African populations had lagged behind other races and that the current Australian Aborigines still retained features of primitive Homo erectus. Predictable consequences follow naturally from his theory. Since each race has its own population of ancestors, despite mixing and migration during the process of evolution, people of the original biological type must be found. Thus, the erectus of Java man, who lived 800 thousand years ago, and his descendants, the Australian aborigines, are united by such common features as a powerful sagittal crest on the top of the skull and extremely massive brow ridges. The so-called “Peking man” who lived in China from 500 to 200 thousand years ago had features common to modern Mongoloids, such as a flat face and spade-shaped incisors of the front teeth, etc. Kuhn, as a racial theorist, finally formalized his views on evolution in his fundamental work “The Origin of Races” (1962).