What are the races of people. Human races, their origin and unity

Since the 17th century, science has put forward a number of classifications of human races. Today their number reaches 15. However, all classifications are based on three racial pillars or three large races: Negroid, Caucasoid and Mongoloid with many subspecies and branches. Some anthropologists add to them the Australoid and Americanoid races.

Racial trunks

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

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

Scientists believe that the origins of the origin of races originate in the Paleolithic era, although the process of modification en masse humanity only from the Neolithic: it is in this era that the Caucasoid type crystallizes.

The process of formation of races continued with the migration of primitive people from continent to continent. Thus, anthropological data show that the ancestors of the Indians who moved to the American continent from Asia were not yet established Mongoloids, and the first inhabitants of Australia were racially "neutral" neoanthropes.

What does genetics say?

Today, questions of the origin of races are for the most part the prerogative of two sciences - anthropology and genetics. The first, on the basis of human bone remains, reveals the diversity of anthropological forms, and the second tries to understand the relationship between the totality of racial traits and the corresponding set of genes.

However, there is no agreement among geneticists. Some adhere to the theory of uniformity of the entire human gene pool, others argue that each race has a unique combination of genes. However, recent studies more likely indicate the correctness of the latter.

The study of haplotypes confirmed the relationship between racial traits and genetic characteristics.

It has been proven that certain haplogroups are always associated with specific races, and other races cannot obtain them except through the process of racial mixing.

In particular, Luca Cavalli-Sforza, a professor at Stanford University, based on an analysis of the “genetic maps” of European settlement, pointed out significant similarities in the DNA of the Basques and the Cro-Magnon. The Basques managed to preserve their genetic uniqueness largely due to the fact that they lived on the periphery of migration waves and practically did not undergo miscegenation.

Two hypotheses

Modern science relies on two hypotheses of the origin of human races - polycentric and monocentric.

According to the theory of polycentrism, humanity is the result of a long and independent evolution of several phyletic lines.

Thus, the Caucasoid race was formed in Western Eurasia, the Negroid race in Africa, and the Mongoloid race in Central and East Asia.

Polycentrism involves the crossing of representatives of protoras at the borders of their ranges, which led to the appearance of small or intermediate races: for example, such as the South Siberian (mixing of Caucasoid and Mongoloid races) or Ethiopian (mixing of Caucasoid and Negroid races).

From the standpoint of monocentrism, modern races emerged from one region of the globe in the process of settling neoanthropes, who subsequently spread across the planet, displacing more primitive paleoanthropes.

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

Recent studies by scientists from the Australian National University in Canberra have cast doubt on the theory of a common African human ancestor.

So, DNA tests of an ancient fossilized skeleton, which is about 60 thousand years old, found near Lake Mungo in New South Wales, showed that the Australian aborigine has nothing to do with the African hominid.

The theory of multi-regional origin of races, according to Australian scientists, is much closer to the truth.

An Unexpected Ancestor

If we agree with the version that the common ancestor of at least the population of Eurasia came from Africa, then the question arises about its anthropometric characteristics. Was he similar to the current inhabitants of the African continent, or did he have neutral racial characteristics?

Some researchers believe that the African species Homo was closer to the Mongoloids. This is indicated by a number of archaic features inherent in the Mongoloid race, in particular, the structure of the teeth, which are more characteristic of the Neanderthal and Homo erectus.

It is very important that the population of the Mongoloid type has a high adaptability to various habitats: from equatorial forests to the arctic tundra. But representatives of the Negroid race are largely dependent on increased solar activity.

For example, in high latitudes, children of the Negroid race have a lack of vitamin D, which provokes a number of diseases, primarily rickets.

Therefore, a number of researchers doubt that our ancestors, similar to modern Africans, could have successfully migrated around the globe.

northern ancestral home

Recently, more and more researchers claim that the Caucasoid race has little in common with the primitive man of the African plains and argue that these populations developed independently of each other.

Thus, the American anthropologist J. Clark believes that when representatives of the "black race" in the process of migration reached Southern Europe and Western Asia, they encountered a more developed "white race" there.

Researcher Boris Kutsenko hypothesizes that at the origins of modern humanity there were two racial trunks: Euro-American and Negroid-Mongoloid. According to him, the Negroid race comes from the forms of Homo erectus, and the Mongoloid race from Sinanthropus.

Kutsenko considers the regions of the Arctic Ocean to be the birthplace of the Euro-American trunk. Based on the data of oceanology and paleoanthropology, he suggests that the global climate changes that occurred at the border of the Pleistocene and Holocene destroyed the ancient continent - Hyperborea. Part of the population from the territories that had gone under water migrated to Europe, and then to Asia and North America, the researcher concludes.

As evidence of the relationship between Caucasians and North American Indians, Kutsenko refers to the craniological indicators and characteristics of the blood groups of these races, which "almost completely coincide."

fixture

The phenotypes of modern people living in different parts of the planet are the result of a long evolution. Many racial traits have obvious adaptive value. For example, dark pigmentation of the skin protects people living in the equatorial belt from excessive exposure to ultraviolet rays, and the elongated proportions of their bodies increase the ratio of body surface to its volume, thereby facilitating thermoregulation in hot conditions.

In contrast to the inhabitants of low latitudes, the population of the northern regions of the planet, as a result of evolution, acquired a predominantly light skin and hair color, which allowed them to receive more sunlight and satisfy the body's need for vitamin D.

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

sexual selection

It was important for ancient man not to allow representatives of other ethnic groups into his range. This was a significant factor in the formation of racial characteristics, thanks to which our ancestors adapted to specific environmental conditions. Sexual selection played a large role in this.

In each ethnic group, focused on certain racial characteristics, their own ideas about beauty were fixed. Whoever these signs were more pronounced - he had more chances to pass them on by inheritance.

While the tribesmen, who did not fit the standards of beauty, were practically deprived of the opportunity to influence the offspring.

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

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

The concept of race

The human race is a group of people who have a number of similar traits that are inherited. The concept of race gave impetus to the movement of racism, which is based on confidence in the genetic difference 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 of the differences are external, 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 more often support 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 fuzziness of the concept, scientists are still trying to figure out why we are all so different. There are many concepts of classification. All of them agree that man is a single biological species of Homo sapiens, which is represented by various subspecies or populations.

Variants of differentiation range from two independent races to fifteen, not to mention the many sub-races. Most often in the scientific literature they talk about the existence of three or four large races, which include small ones. So, according to external signs, the Caucasoid type, Mongoloid, Negroid, and also Australoid are distinguished.

Caucasoids are divided into northern - with blond hair and skin, gray or blue eyes, and southern - with swarthy skin, dark hair, brown eyes. It is characterized by a narrow slit of the eyes, protruding cheekbones, coarse straight hair, vegetation on the body is insignificant.

The Australoid race was long considered Negroid, but it turned out that they have differences. By signs, the Veddoid and Melanesian races are much closer to it. Australoids and Negroids have dark skin, dark eye color. Although some Australoids may have fair skin. They differ from Negroids in their abundant hairline, 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 into small races. There are a huge number of them. For example, the Negro, Khoisai, Ethiopian, Pygmy types are included.

The term "mixed races" more often means populations of people that arose as a result of recent (since the 16th century) contacts of large races. These include mestizos, sambos, mulattos.

Metis

In anthropology, mestizos are all descendants of marriages of people belonging to different races, regardless of which ones. The process itself is called metization. History knows many cases when representatives of mixed races were discriminated against, humiliated and even exterminated in the course of Nazi policy 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, in this sense the term has come to us. They are mainly distributed in South and North America.

The number of mestizos in Canada, in the narrow sense of the term, is 500-700 thousand people. Active mixing of blood here took place during colonization, mainly European men entered into contact with. Separated, 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 into Spanish or Portuguese from Arabic. The word muwallad used to be used to refer to unpurebred Arabs.

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

Mixed races used to have other names, depending on the generation and the proportion of Negroid genetic material. If Caucasoid blood was related to Negroid as ¼ (mulatto in the second generation), then the person was called a quadroon. The ratio 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 sounds like "zambo". Like other mixed races, the term periodically changed its meaning. 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 the end of the 19th. During this period, approximately 3 million people were transported from Africa.

In modern humanity, there are three main races: Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Negroid. These are large groups of people who differ in some physical features, such as facial features, skin color, eyes and hair, hair shape.

Each race is characterized by the unity of origin and formation in a certain territory.

The Caucasian race includes the indigenous population of Europe, South Asia and North Africa. Caucasoids are characterized by a narrow face, a strongly protruding nose, and soft hair. The skin color of northern Caucasians is light, while that of southern Caucasians is predominantly swarthy.

The Mongoloid race includes the indigenous population of Central and East Asia, Indonesia, and Siberia. Mongoloids are distinguished by a large, flat, wide face, slit eyes, hard, straight hair, and dark skin color.

In the Negroid race, two branches are distinguished - African and Australian. The Negroid race is characterized by dark skin color, curly hair, dark eyes, a wide and flat nose.

Racial characteristics are hereditary, but at present they are not essential for human life. Apparently, in the distant past, racial traits were useful for their owners: the dark skin of blacks and curly hair, creating an air layer around the head, protected the body from the action of sunlight, the shape of the facial skeleton of the Mongoloids with a larger nasal cavity, perhaps, is useful for heating cold air before it enters the lungs. In terms of mental abilities, i.e., abilities for cognition, creative and labor activity in general, all races are the same. Differences in the level of culture are associated not with the biological characteristics of people of different races, but with the social conditions for the development of society.

The reactionary essence of racism. Initially, some scientists confused the level of social development with biological characteristics and tried to find transitional forms among modern peoples that connect humans with animals. These mistakes were used by the racists, who began to talk about the alleged inferiority of some races and peoples and the superiority of others in order to justify the merciless exploitation and direct destruction of many peoples as a result of colonization, the seizure of foreign lands and the outbreak of wars. When European and American capitalism tried to conquer the African and Asian peoples, the white race was declared the highest. Later, when the Nazi hordes marched across Europe, destroying the captured population in the death camps, the so-called Aryan race was declared the highest, to which the Nazis ranked the German peoples. Racism is a reactionary ideology and politics aimed at justifying the exploitation of man by man.

The failure of racism is proved by the real science of races - racial science. Racial science studies racial characteristics, the origin, formation and history of human races. The data obtained by racial science indicate that the differences between races are not sufficient to consider races as different biological species of people. Mixing of races - miscegenation - occurred constantly, as a result of which intermediate types arose at the boundaries of the ranges of representatives of different races, smoothing out the differences between races.

Will races disappear? One of the important conditions for the formation of races is isolation. In Asia, Africa and Europe, it still exists to some extent today. Meanwhile, newly settled regions, such as North and South America, can be compared to a cauldron in which all three racial groups are melted down. Although public opinion in many countries does not support interracial marriage, there is little doubt that racial interbreeding is inevitable and will sooner or later lead to the formation of a hybrid human population.

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 races of the first and second grade, (more:)? What unites people into a single humanity? What traits separate people by nationality?

Skin color in humans

Humanity as a biological species stood out a long time ago. Color of the skin the former of people it was unlikely to be very dark or very white, most likely some skin turned out to be somewhat whiter, others darker. The formation of races on Earth by skin color was influenced by the natural conditions in which certain groups found themselves.

Formation of races on earth

White and black people

For example, some people found themselves in the conditions of the tropical zone of the Earth. Here, the merciless rays of the sun can easily burn the bare skin of a person. We know from physics that black absorbs the rays of the sun more completely. And so black skin seems to be harmful.

But it turns out that only ultraviolet rays burn, and can burn the skin. Pigment coloration becomes like a shield that protects the human skin.

Everyone knows that white man gets sunburn faster than a black man. 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, live black people. The original inhabitants of India are very dark-skinned people. In the tropical steppe regions of America, the people living here turned out to have 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 the rainforests - the pygmies - have lighter skin than their neighbors, who are engaged in agriculture and are almost always under the sun.

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

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

But why did the skin of the white race turn out to be whiter than that of 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 should have white, transparent skin to the sun's rays in order to get as much ultraviolet light as possible.

Dark-skinned people constantly experienced vitamin starvation and turned out to be less hardy than white-skinned people.

Mongoloids

Third race - Mongoloids. Under the influence of what conditions its distinctive features were formed? 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. Special mention must be made of 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 temperature difference between winter and summer, day and night, and the steppes in these parts are covered with deserts.

Strong winds blow almost continuously and carry a huge amount of dust. In winter, there are sparkling tablecloths of endless snow. And today, travelers in the northern regions of our country put on glasses that protect against this brilliance. And if they are not found, they are paid with an eye disease.

An important distinguishing feature of the Mongoloids is the narrow slits of the eyes. And the second is a small skin fold that covers the inner corner of the eye. It also keeps dust out of the eyes.

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

But 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 in place. At one time, they even thought that Mongoloids who migrated here from Asia live in these parts of Africa. It was only later that this mistake was sorted out.

Division into large human races

Thus, under the influence of purely natural conditions, the main races of the Earth were formed - white, black, yellow. When did it happen? It is not easy to answer such a question. Anthropologists believe that division into large human races occurred not earlier than 200 thousand years ago and not later than 20 thousand.

And probably it was 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 then divided into white and yellow, and the equatorial, Negroid.

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

This division is unstable, the total number of small races fluctuates in the classifications given by different scientists. But there are certainly 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 division into races

But for what criteria compare race? Head shape, brain size, blood type? Scientists have not found any fundamental signs that would characterize any race for better or worse.

brain weight

Proved that brain weight different races are different. But it is also different for 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 no less brilliant Ivan Turgenev reached a huge weight - 2012 grams. It can be confidently said: between these two extremes are placed all the races of the Earth.

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 weight of the brain of an Englishman is 1456 grams, and that of the Indians - 1514, the Bantu Negroes - 1422 grams, the French - 1473 grams. It is known that Neanderthals had a larger brain than modern humans.

It is unlikely that they, however, were smarter than you and me. And yet racists have remained on the globe. They are in the US and South Africa. True, they have no scientific data to confirm their theories.

Anthropologists - scientists who study humanity precisely from the standpoint of the characteristics of individuals and their groups - unanimously assert:

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 mankind 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 it would not make sense to develop it further. And anthropology is evolving. With its help, it was possible to look into the remotest past of mankind, to understand many previously mysterious moments.

It is anthropological research that allows one to penetrate into the depths of millennia, to the very first days of the appearance of man. Yes, and that long period of history, when people did not yet have writing at their disposal, is becoming clearer thanks to anthropological research.

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

The anthropologist must now make numerous measurements, leaving nothing unattended - neither the palms of the hands, nor the soles of the feet, nor, of course, the shape of the skull. He takes blood and saliva, prints of feet and hands for analysis, and takes x-rays.

Blood type

All the data obtained are summed up, and special indices are derived from them that characterize a particular group of people. It turns out, and blood groups- exactly those blood groups that are used in transfusions - can also characterize the race of people.

It has been established that people with the second blood group are the most in Europe and not at all in South Africa, China and Japan, there are 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 looking for the remains of ancient human cultures in America for many decades, 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 the analysis of 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 natives - the Indians.

And this happened in the area of ​​the Bering Strait, from where they moved relatively slowly south 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 accidentally did not have people with these groups.

The question arises: were there many of these discoverers in this case? Apparently, in order for this randomness to manifest itself, there were few of them. It was they who gave rise to all Indian tribes with an endless variety of their languages, customs, and beliefs.

And further. After this group set foot on the soil of Alaska, no one could follow them there. Otherwise, new groups of people would bring 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 Columbus 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 the second blood type among native South Americans. So, 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 - with the third and fourth groups ...

Probably everyone has read the famous book by Thor Heyerdahl "Journey to Kon-Tiki". This trip was conceived to prove that the ancestors of the inhabitants of Polynesia could come here not from Asia, but from South America.

This hypothesis was prompted by a certain commonality of cultures between Polynesians and South Americans. Heyerdahl understood that even with his magnificent journey he did not provide decisive evidence, but most of the readers of the book, intoxicated by the greatness of the scientific feat and the literary talent of the author, steadily believe in the rightness of the brave Norwegian.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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