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 humanity into races took place about 80 thousand years ago.
At first, two trunks were distinguished: the Negroid and the Caucasian-Mongoloid, and 40-45 thousand years ago there was a differentiation of the proto-Caucasians and proto-Mongoloids.
Scientists believe that the origins of the races originate in the Paleolithic era, although the process of modification massively swept humanity only from the Neolithic: it was in this era that the Caucasoid type crystallized.
The process of the formation of races continued during the migration of primitive people from continent to continent. Thus, anthropological data show that the ancestors of the Indians, who moved to the American continent from Asia, were not yet established Mongoloids, and the first inhabitants of Australia were racially “neutral” neoanthropines.
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What genetics says
Today, questions of the origin of races are for the most part the prerogative of two sciences - anthropology and genetics. The first, based on human bone remains, reveals a variety of anthropological forms, and the second tries to understand the connections between the totality of racial characteristics and the corresponding set of genes.
However, there is no consensus among geneticists. Some adhere to the theory of the uniformity of the entire human gene pool, while others argue that each race has a unique combination of genes. However, recent studies rather indicate the correctness of the latter.
The study of haplotypes has 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 receive them except in the process of racial mixing.
In particular, a professor at Stanford University Luca Cavalli-Sforza, based on the analysis of the "genetic maps" of the settlement of Europeans, pointed out significant similarities in the DNA of the Basques and Cro-Magnons. The Basques managed to preserve their genetic uniqueness largely due to the fact that they lived on the periphery of migration waves and were practically not cross-breeding.
Two hypotheses
Modern science relies on two hypotheses of the origin of human races - polycentric and monocentric.
According to the theory of polycentrism, humanity is the result of a long and independent evolution of several phyletic lineages.
So, the Caucasoid race was formed in Western Eurasia, the Negroid - in Africa, and the Mongoloid - in Central and Eastern Asia.
Polycentrism involves the interbreeding of representatives of protoraces at the borders of their ranges, which led to the emergence 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 dispersal of neoanthropes, which subsequently spread across the planet, displacing more primitive paleoanthropes.
The traditional version of the settlement of primitive people insists that the ancestor of man 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 completely questioned the theory of a common African human ancestor.
Thus, 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 the multi-regional origin of races, according to Australian scientists, is much closer to the truth.
Unexpected ancestor
If we agree with the version that the common ancestor, at least of the population of Eurasia, comes from Africa, then the question arises about its anthropometric characteristics. Was he similar to the current inhabitants of the African continent, or was he racial neutral?
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 is highly adaptable to various habitats: from equatorial forests to arctic tundra. But representatives of the Negroid race are largely dependent on increased solar activity.
For example, in high latitudes in children of the Negroid race, there is a lack of vitamin D, which provokes a number of diseases, first of all, rickets.
Therefore, a number of researchers doubt that our ancestors, similar to modern Africans, could successfully migrate around the globe.
Northern ancestral home
Recently, more and more researchers declare 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 the 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 were two racial stems: Euro-American and Negroid-Mongoloid. According to him, the Negroid race comes from the forms of Homo erectus, and the Mongoloid - from the Sinanthropus.
Kutsenko considers the Arctic Ocean regions to be the birthplace of the Euro-American trunk. Based on the data of oceanology and paleoanthropology, he suggests that global climatic changes that occurred at the border of the Pleistocene and Holocene ruined the ancient continent - Hyperborea. Part of the population from the submerged territories 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 parameters and characteristics of the blood groups of these races, which "almost completely coincide."
Adaptation
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 meaning. For example, dark skin pigmentation protects people 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 color of skin and hair, which allowed them to receive more sunlight and satisfy the body's needs for vitamin D.
In the same way, the protruding "Caucasoid nose" evolved to warm cold air, and the Mongoloids' epicanthus was formed as a protection of the eyes from dust storms and steppe winds.
Sexual selection
It was important for the ancient man not to admit representatives of other ethnic groups into their area. It was a significant factor that contributed to the formation of racial characteristics, thanks to which our ancestors adapted to specific environmental conditions. Sexual selection played an important role in this.
Each ethnic group, focused on certain racial characteristics, fixed their own ideas about beauty. Those who had these signs were more pronounced - he had a better chance of passing them on by inheritance.
While fellow 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, have formed into a stable form adaptive to the conditions of the north.
Taras Repin