How different races of people appeared. How did races appear?

All modern humanity belongs to a single polymorphic species - Homo sapiens- a reasonable person. The divisions of this species are races - biological groups distinguished by small morphological characteristics (hair type and color; skin color, eyes; shape of the nose, lips and face; proportions of the body and limbs). These characteristics are hereditary; they arose in the distant past under the direct influence of the environment. Each race has a single origin, area of ​​origin and formation.

Currently, there are three “large” races within humanity: Australo-Negroid (Negroid), Caucasoid and Mongoloid, within which there are more than thirty “small” races (Fig. 6.31).

Representatives Australo-Negroid race (Fig. 6.32) dark skin color, curly or wavy hair, a wide and slightly protruding nose, thick lips and dark eyes. Before the era of European colonization, this race was distributed only in Africa, Australia and the Pacific Islands.

For Caucasian (Fig. 6.33) are characterized by light or dark skin, straight or wavy soft hair, good development of facial hair in men (beard and mustache), a narrow protruding nose, thin lips. The habitat of this race is Europe, North Africa, Western Asia and Northern India.

Representatives Mongoloid race (Fig. 6.34) are characterized by yellowish skin, straight, often coarse hair, a flattened wide face with strongly prominent cheekbones, average width of the nose and lips, noticeable development of the epicanthus (skin fold above the upper eyelid in the inner corner of the eye). Initially, the Mongoloid race inhabited Southeast, East, North and Central Asia, North and South America.

Although some human races differ markedly from each other in a set of external characteristics, they are interconnected by a number of intermediate types, imperceptibly passing into one another.

Formation of human races. A study of the found remains showed that Cro-Magnons had a number of traits characteristic of different modern races. For tens of thousands of years, their descendants occupied a wide variety of habitats (Fig. 6.35). Long-term exposure to external factors characteristic of a specific area under conditions of isolation gradually led to the consolidation of a certain set of morphological characteristics characteristic of the local race.

Differences between human races are the result of geographic variability that had adaptive significance in the distant past. For example, skin pigmentation is more intense in residents of the humid tropics. Dark skin is less damaged by the sun's rays, since a large amount of melanin prevents ultraviolet rays from penetrating deep into the skin and protects it from burns. The curly hair on the head of a black man creates a kind of hat that protects his head from the scorching rays of the sun. A wide nose and thick, swollen lips with a large surface area of ​​mucous membranes promote evaporation with high heat transfer. The narrow palpebral fissure and epicanthus in Mongoloids are an adaptation to frequent dust storms. The narrow protruding nose of Caucasians helps warm the inhaled air, etc.

Unity of the human races. The biological unity of human races is evidenced by the absence of genetic isolation between them, i.e. the possibility of fertile marriages between representatives of different races. Additional proof of the unity of humanity is the localization of skin patterns such as arcs on the second and third fingers (in apes - on the fifth) in all representatives of races, the same pattern of hair arrangement on the head, etc.

The differences between the races concern only secondary characteristics, usually associated with particular adaptations to the conditions of existence. However, many traits arose in different human populations in parallel and cannot be evidence of close relatedness between populations. Melanesians and Negroids, Bushmen and Mongoloids independently acquired some similar external features; the sign of short stature (dwarfism), characteristic of many tribes that fell under the canopy of the tropical forest (the Pygmies of Africa and New Guinea), independently arose in different places.

Racism and social Darwinism. Almost immediately after the spread of the ideas of Darwinism, attempts were made to transfer the patterns discovered by Charles Darwin in living nature to human society. Some scientists began to admit that in human society the struggle for existence is the driving force of development, and social conflicts are explained by the action of natural laws of nature. These views are called social Darwinism

Social Darwinists believe that there is a selection of biologically more valuable people, and social inequality in society is a consequence of the biological inequality of people, which is controlled by natural selection. Thus, social Darwinism uses the terms of evolutionary theory to interpret social phenomena and in its essence is an anti-scientific doctrine, since it is impossible to transfer the laws that operate at one level of the organization of matter to other levels characterized by other laws.

The direct product of the most reactionary variety of social Darwinism is racism. Racists regard racial differences as species-specific and do not recognize the unity of origin of races. Proponents of racial theories argue that there are differences between races in the ability to master language and culture. By dividing races into “higher” and “lower” the founders of the doctrine justified social injustice, for example, the brutal colonization of the peoples of Africa and Asia, the destruction of representatives of other races by the “higher” Nordic race of Nazi Germany.

The inconsistency of racism has been proven by the science of race - racial studies, which studies racial characteristics and the history of the formation of human races.

Features of human evolution at the present stage. As already noted, with the emergence of man, the biological factors of evolution gradually weaken their effect, and social factors acquire leading importance in the development of mankind.

Having mastered the culture of making and using tools, food production, and housing construction, man protected himself so much from unfavorable climatic factors that there was no longer a need for his further evolution along the path of transformation into another, biologically more advanced species. However, within the established species, evolution continues. Consequently, the biological factors of evolution (mutation process, waves of numbers, isolation, natural selection) still have a certain significance.

Mutations in the cells of the human body arise mainly with the same frequency that was characteristic of it in the past. Thus, approximately one person in 40,000 carries the new mutation of albinism. Hemophilia mutations, etc. have a similar frequency. Newly emerging mutations constantly change the genotypic composition of individual human populations, enriching them with new traits.

In recent decades, the rate of mutation in some areas of the planet may increase slightly due to local pollution of the environment with chemicals and radioactive elements.

Waves of numbers Until relatively recently, they played a significant role in the development of mankind. For example, imported in the 16th century. In Europe, the plague killed about a quarter of its population. Outbreaks of other infectious diseases led to similar consequences. Currently, the population is not subject to such sharp fluctuations. Therefore, the influence of waves of numbers as an evolutionary factor can be felt in very limited local conditions (for example, natural disasters leading to the death of hundreds and thousands of people in certain areas of the planet).

Role isolation as a factor in evolution in the past was enormous, as evidenced by the emergence of races. The development of means of transportation led to the constant migration of people, their crossbreeding, as a result of which there were almost no genetically isolated population groups left on the planet.

Natural selection. The physical appearance of man, which was formed about 40 thousand years ago, has remained almost unchanged to the present day thanks to the action stabilizing selection.

Selection occurs at all stages of modern human ontogenesis. It manifests itself especially clearly in the early stages. An example of the action of stabilizing selection in human populations is the significantly greater

survival rate of children whose weight is close to the average. However, thanks to medical advances in recent decades, there has been a decrease in the mortality rate of low birth weight newborns - the stabilizing effect of selection becomes less effective. The influence of selection is manifested to a greater extent with gross deviations from the norm. Already during the formation of germ cells, some of the gametes that are formed with a violation of the process of meiosis die. The result of selection is the early death of zygotes (about 25% of all conceptions), fetuses, and stillbirth.

Along with the stabilizing effect, it also acts driving selection, which is inevitably associated with changes in characteristics and properties. According to J.B. Haldane (1935), over the past 5 thousand years, the main direction of natural selection in human populations can be considered the preservation of genotypes resistant to various infectious diseases, which turned out to be a factor significantly reducing the size of populations. We are talking about innate immunity.

In ancient times and the Middle Ages, human populations were repeatedly subjected to epidemics of various infectious diseases, which significantly reduced their numbers. However, under the influence of natural selection on a genotypic basis, the frequency of immune forms that are resistant to certain pathogens increased. Thus, in some countries, mortality from tuberculosis decreased even before medicine learned to fight this disease.

The development of medicine and the improvement of hygiene significantly reduces the risk of infectious diseases. At the same time, the direction of natural selection changes and the frequency of genes that determine immunity to these diseases inevitably decreases.

So, of the elementary biological evolutionary factors in modern society, only the action of the mutation process has remained unchanged. Isolation has practically lost its meaning in human evolution at the present stage. The pressure of natural selection and especially waves of numbers has decreased significantly. However, selection occurs, therefore, evolution continues.

All modern humanity belongs to a single polymorphic species, the divisions of which are races - biological groups distinguished by small morphological characteristics that are insignificant for work activity. These characteristics are hereditary; they arose in the distant past under the direct influence of the environment. Currently, humanity is divided into three “large” races: Austral-Negroid, Caucasoid and Mongoloid, within which there are more than thirty “small” races.

At the present stage of human evolution, of the elementary biological factors, only the action of the mutation process has remained unchanged. Isolation has practically lost its importance, the pressure of natural selection and especially waves of numbers has decreased significantly

Human race

Race- a system of human populations characterized by similarity in a set of certain hereditary biological characteristics. Traits that characterize different races often arise as a result of adaptation to different environmental conditions over many generations.

Racial studies, in addition to the above-mentioned problems, also studies the classification of races, the history of their formation and such factors of their occurrence as selective processes, isolation, mixing and migration, the influence of climatic conditions and the general geographical environment on racial characteristics.

Racial studies became especially widespread in National Socialist Germany, fascist Italy and other Western European countries, as well as earlier in the United States (Ku Klux Klan), where it served as a justification for institutionalized racism, chauvinism and anti-Semitism.

Sometimes racial studies are confused with ethnic anthropology - the latter refers, strictly speaking, only to the study of the racial composition of individual ethnic groups, i.e. tribes, peoples, nations, and the origin of these communities.

In that part of racial research that is aimed at studying ethnogenesis, anthropology conducts research together with linguistics, history, and archeology. When studying the driving forces of race formation, anthropology comes into close contact with genetics, physiology, zoogeography, climatology, and the general theory of speciation. The study of race in anthropology has implications for many problems. It is important for solving the question of the ancestral home of modern humans, using anthropological material as a historical source, illuminating problems of systematics, mainly small systematic units, understanding the laws of population genetics, and clarifying some issues of medical geography.

Racial studies studies geographical variations in the physical type of people, without taking into account linguistic and cultural isolation. And ethnic anthropology studies what racial variants and anthropological types are inherent in a given ethnic group, people. For example, to establish into which groups the indigenous population of the Volga-Kama region is divided, to identify their general portraits, average height, level of pigmentation - this is the task of a racial scientist. And to recreate the appearance and trace possible genetic connections of the Khazars is the task of an ethnic anthropologist.

Modern division into races

There are many opinions about how many races can be distinguished within the species Homo sapiens.

Studies of classical anthropology show that there are two trunks - eastern and western, equally distributing the six races of humanity. The division into three races - “white”, “yellow” and “black” - is an outdated position. Despite all their external dissimilarity, the races of the same trunk are connected by a greater commonality of genes and habitats than neighboring races. According to the Great Soviet Encyclopedic Dictionary, there are about 30 human races (racial-anthropological types), united in three groups of races, which are called “large races”. However, in non-scientific literature the term “race” is still applied to large races, and the races themselves are called “subraces”, “subgroups”, etc. It is worth noting that the races themselves (small races) are divided into subraces, and there is no consensus regarding the belonging of certain subraces to certain races (small races). In addition, different anthropological schools use different names for the same races.

Western trunk

Caucasians

The natural range of Caucasoids is Europe to the Urals, North Africa, South-West Asia and Hindustan. Includes Nordic, Mediterranean, Phalic, Alpine, East Baltic, Dinaric and other subgroups. It differs from other races primarily in its strong facial profile. Other signs vary widely.

Negroids

Natural range - Central, Western and Eastern Africa. Characteristic differences are curly hair, dark skin, widened nostrils, thick lips, etc. There is an eastern subgroup (Nilotic type, tall, narrowly built) and a western subgroup (Negro type, round-headed, medium height). The group of pygmies (Negrill type) stands apart.

Pygmies

Pygmies compared to a person of average height

The natural range of pygmies is the western part of Central Africa. Height from 144 to 150 cm for adult men, light brown skin, curly, dark hair, relatively thin lips, large body, short arms and legs, this physical type can be classified as a special race. The possible number of pygmies can range from 40 to 200 thousand people.

Kapoids, Bushmen

Caucasoid (Eurasian) races

Northern forms Atlanto-Baltic White Sea-Baltic Transitional (intermediate) forms Alpine Central European Eastern European Southern forms Mediterranean Indo-Afghan Balkan-Caucasian Forward Asian (Armenoid) Pamir-Fergana Mongoloid (Asian-American) races

Asian branch of Mongoloid races Continental Mongoloids North Asian Central Asian Arctic race Pacific Mongoloids American races

Australoid (Oceanian) races

Veddoids Australians Ainu Papuans and Melanesians Negritos Negroid (African) races

Negroes Negrilli (Pygmies) Bushmen and Hottentots Mixed forms between Caucasians and the Asian branch of the Mongoloids

Central Asian groups South Siberian race Ural race and subural type Laponoids and sublapanoid type Mixed groups of Siberia Mixed forms between Caucasoids and the American branch of Mongoloids

American mestizos Mixed forms between the Caucasoid and Australoid major races

South Indian race Mixed forms between the Caucasoid and Negroid major races

Ethiopian race Mixed groups of Western Sudan Mixed groups of Eastern Sudan Mulattoes South African "coloreds" Mixed forms between the Asian branch of Mongoloids and Australoids

South Asian (Malay) race Japanese East Indonesian group Other mixed race forms

Malagasy Polynesians and Micronesians Hawaiians and Pitcairns

Idaltu

Idaltu (lat. Homo sapiens idaltu) is one of the most ancient races of people of the modern species. The Idaltu inhabited the territory of Ethiopia. The approximate age of the found Idaltu man is 160 thousand years.

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Race is a group of people united on the basis of their mutual kinship, common origin and some external hereditary physical characteristics (skin and hair color, head shape, structure of the face as a whole and its parts - nose, lips, etc.). There are three main races of people: Caucasian (white), Mongoloid (yellow), Negroid (black).

The ancestors of all races lived 90-92 thousand years ago. Starting from this time, people began to settle in territories that differed sharply from each other in natural conditions.

According to scientists, in the process of the formation of modern man in Southeast Asia and neighboring North Africa, which are considered the ancestral homeland of man, two races arose - southwestern and northeastern. Subsequently, from the first came Caucasoids and Negroids, and from the second - Mongoloids.

The separation of the Caucasoid and Negroid races began approximately 40 thousand years ago.

Displacement of recessive genes to the outskirts of the population range

The outstanding geneticist N.I. Vavilov in 1927 discovered the law of the emergence of individuals with recessive traits beyond the center of origin of new forms of organisms. According to this law, in the center of the species' distribution area forms with dominant characteristics dominate, they are surrounded by heterozygous forms with recessive characters. The marginal part of the range is occupied by homozygous forms with recessive traits.

This law is closely related to the anthropological observations of N.I. Vavilov. In 1924, members of the expedition under his leadership witnessed an amazing phenomenon in Kafiristan (Nuristan), located in Afghanistan at an altitude of 3500-4000 m. They discovered that most of the inhabitants of the northern mountainous areas had blue eyes. According to the prevailing hypothesis at that time, since ancient times northern races were widespread here and these places were considered a center of culture. N.I. Vavilov noted the impossibility of confirming this hypothesis with the help of historical, ethnographic and linguistic evidence. In his opinion, the blue eyes of the Nuristans are a clear manifestation of the law of the entry of owners of recessive genes into the outlying part of the range. Later this law was convincingly confirmed. N. Cheboksarov on the example of the population of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The origin of the characteristics of the Caucasian race is explained by migration and isolation.

All of humanity can be divided into three large groups, or races: white (Caucasoid), yellow (Mongoloid), black (Negroid). Representatives of each race have their own distinctive, inherited features of body structure, hair shape, skin color, eye shape, skull shape, etc.

Representatives of the white race have light skin, protruding noses, people of the yellow race have cheekbones, a special shape of the eyelid, and yellow skin. Blacks, who belong to the Negroid race, have dark skin, wide noses, and curly hair.

Why are there such differences in the appearance of representatives of different races and why are each race characterized by certain characteristics? Scientists answer this as follows: human races were formed as a result of adaptation to different conditions of the geographical environment, and these conditions left their imprints on representatives of different races.

Negroid race (black)

Representatives of the Negroid race are distinguished by black or dark brown skin, black curly hair, a flattened wide nose and thick lips (Fig. 82).

Where black people live, there is an abundance of sun, it is hot - people's skin is more than enough irradiated by the sun's rays. And excessive radiation is harmful. And so the body of people in hot countries has adapted to excess sun over thousands of years: the skin has developed a pigment that blocks some of the sun's rays and, therefore, saves the skin from burns. Dark skin color is inherited. Coarse curly hair, which forms a kind of air cushion on the head, reliably protects a person from overheating.

Caucasian (White)

Representatives of the Caucasian race are characterized by fair skin, soft straight hair, a thick mustache and beard, a narrow nose and thin lips.

Representatives of the white race live in the northern regions, where the sun is a rare guest, and they really need the sun's rays. Their skin also produces pigment, but at the height of summer, when the body, thanks to the sun's rays, is replenished with the required amount of vitamin D. At this time, representatives of the white race become dark-skinned.

Mongoloid race (yellow)

People belonging to the Mongoloid race have dark or lighter skin, straight coarse hair, sparse or undeveloped mustache and beard, prominent cheekbones, lips and nose of medium thickness, almond-shaped eyes.

Where representatives of the yellow race live, there are frequent winds, even storms with dust and sand. And local residents tolerate such windy weather quite easily. Over the centuries they have adapted to strong winds. Mongoloids have narrow eyes, as if on purpose so that less sand and dust get into them, so that the wind does not irritate them, and they do not water. This trait is also inherited and is found among people of the Mongoloid race and in other geographical conditions. Material from the site

Among people there are those who believe that people with white skin belong to the superior races, and those with yellow and black skin belong to the inferior races. In their opinion, people with yellow and black skin are incapable of mental work and should only do physical work. These harmful ideas are still guiding racists in a number of third world countries. There, the work of blacks is paid lower than that of whites, and blacks are subjected to humiliation and insults. In civilized countries, all peoples have the same rights.

Research by N. N. Miklouho-Maclay on racial equality

The Russian scientist Nikolai Nikolaevich Miklouho-Maclay, in order to prove the complete inconsistency of the theory about the existence of “lower” races incapable of mental development, in 1871 settled on the island of New Guinea, where representatives of the black race - the Papuans - lived. He lived for fifteen months among the island-chan, became close to them, studied them

Human races are historically established biological divisions of the species “Homo sapiens” (Homo sapiens) in human evolution. They differ in complexes of hereditarily transmitted and gradually changing morphological, biochemical and other features. The modern geographic areas of distribution, or areas, occupied by races make it possible to outline the territories in which the races were formed. Due to the social nature of man, races are qualitatively different from subspecies of wild and domestic animals.

If for wild animals the term “geographical races” can be applied, then in relation to humans it has largely lost its meaning, since the connection of human races with their original areas is disrupted by numerous migrations of masses of people, as a result of which a mixture of very different races and peoples and new human associations were formed.

Most anthropologists divide humanity into three large races: Negroid-Australoid (“black”), Caucasoid (“white”) and Mongoloid (“yellow”). Using geographical terms, the first race is called the equatorial, or African-Australian, the second, the European-Asian, and the third, the Asian-American race. The following branches of large races are distinguished: African and Oceanian; northern and southern; Asian and American (G. F. Debets). The Earth's population now amounts to over 3 billion 300 million people (data for 1965). Of these, the first race accounts for approximately 10%, the second - 50%, and the third - 40%. This is, of course, a rough summary, since there are hundreds of millions of racially mixed individuals, numerous minor races and mixed (intermediate) racial groups, including those of ancient origin (for example, Ethiopians). Large, or primary, races occupying vast territories are not completely homogeneous. They are divided according to physical (corporal) characteristics into branches, into 10-20 small races, and those into anthropological types.

Modern races, their origin and taxonomy are studied by ethnic anthropology (racial studies). Groups of the population are subjected to research for examination and quantitative determination of so-called racial characteristics, followed by processing of mass data using the methods of variation statistics (see). For this, anthropologists use scales of skin color and iris, hair color and shape, eyelid shape, nose and lips, as well as anthropometric instruments: compasses, goniometer, etc. (see Anthropometry). Hematological, biochemical and other examinations are also carried out.

Belonging to one or another racial division is determined in men 20-60 years old based on a set of genetically stable and fairly characteristic signs of physical structure.

Further descriptive features of the racial complex: the presence of a beard and mustache, the coarseness of the head hair, the degree of development of the upper eyelid and its fold - the epicanthus, the tilt of the forehead, the shape of the head, the development of the brow ridges, the shape of the face, the growth of body hair, the type of build (see Habitus) and body proportions (see Constitution).

Skull shape options: 1 - dolichocranial ellipsoid; 2 and 3 - brachycranial (2 - round, or spheroid, 3 - wedge-shaped, or sphenoid); 4 - mesocranial pentagonal, or pentagonoid.

A unified anthropometric examination on a living person, as well as on the skeleton, mostly on the skull (Fig.), makes it possible to clarify somatoscopic observations and make a more correct comparison of the racial composition of tribes, peoples, individual populations (see) and isolates. Racial characteristics vary and are subject to sexual, age, geographic and evolutionary variability.

The racial composition of humanity is very complex, which largely depends on the mixed nature of the population of many countries in connection with ancient migrations and modern mass migrations. Therefore, in the land area inhabited by humanity, contact and intermediate racial groups are found, formed from the interpenetration of two or three or more complexes of racial characteristics during the crossbreeding of anthropological types.

The process of racial miscegenation increased greatly during the era of capitalist expansion after the discovery of America. As a result, for example, Mexicans are half mixed race between Indians and Europeans.

A noticeable increase in interracial mixing is observed in the USSR and other socialist countries. This is the result of the elimination of all kinds of racial barriers on the basis of correct scientifically based national and international policies.

Races are biologically equivalent and blood related. The basis for this conclusion is the doctrine of monogenism developed by Charles Darwin, i.e., the origin of man from one species of ancient bipedal apes, and not from several (the concept of polygenism). Monogenism is confirmed by the anatomical similarity of all races, which could not, as Charles Darwin emphasized, arise through convergence, or convergence of characteristics, of different ancestral species. The species of monkeys that served as the ancestor of humans probably lived in South Asia, from where the earliest people settled throughout the Earth. Ancient people, the so-called Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis), gave rise to “homo sapiens”. But modern races did not arise from Neanderthals, but were formed anew under the influence of a combination of natural (including biological) and social factors.

The formation of races (raceogenesis) is closely related to anthropogenesis; both processes are the result of historical development. Modern man arose over a vast territory, approximately from the Mediterranean to Hindustan or somewhat larger. From here, Mongoloids could have formed in the northeast direction, Caucasoids in the northwest, and Negroids and Australoids in the south. However, the problem of the ancestral home of modern man is still far from being completely resolved.

In more ancient eras, when people settled on Earth, their groups inevitably found themselves in conditions of geographic and, consequently, social isolation, which contributed to their racial differentiation in the process of interaction of factors of variability (q.v.), heredity (q.v.) and selection. With an increase in the number of isolates, new settlement occurred and contacts with neighboring groups arose, causing crossbreeding. Natural selection also played a certain role in the formation of races, the influence of which noticeably weakened as the social environment developed. In this regard, the characteristics of modern races are of secondary importance. Aesthetic, or sexual, selection also played some role in the formation of races; sometimes racial characteristics could acquire the meaning of identifying characteristics for representatives of one or another local racial group.

As the human population grew, both the specific importance and the direction of action of individual factors of raceogenesis changed, but the role of social influences increased. If for primary races miscegenation was a differentiating factor (when miscegenated groups again found themselves in conditions of isolation), now miscegenation levels out racial differences. Currently, about half of humanity is the result of crossbreeding. Racial differences, which naturally arose over many millennia, must and will, as K. Marx pointed out, be eliminated by historical development. But racial characteristics will continue to manifest themselves for a long time in certain combinations, mainly in individuals. Crossbreeding often leads to the emergence of new positive features of physical makeup and intellectual development.

The race of the patient must be taken into account when evaluating some medical examination data. This applies mainly to the peculiarities of the color of the integument. The skin color characteristic of a representative of the “black” or “yellow” race will turn out to be a symptom of Addison’s disease or icterus in a “white” race; A doctor will evaluate a purple tint of lip color and bluish nails in a Caucasian as cyanosis, and in a Negro as a racial feature. On the other hand, color changes due to “bronze disease,” jaundice, and cardiorespiratory failure, which are distinct in Caucasians, can be difficult to detect in representatives of the Mongoloid or Negroid-Australoid race. Corrections for racial characteristics are of much less practical importance and may be less frequently required when assessing physique, height, skull shape, etc. As for the alleged predisposition of a given race to a particular disease, increased susceptibility to infection, etc., these features, as a rule, do not have a “racial” character, but are associated with social, cultural, everyday and other living conditions, the proximity of natural foci of infection, the degree of acclimatization during relocation, etc.

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

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

The Caucasian race includes the indigenous populations of Europe, South Asia and North Africa. Caucasians 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 dark.

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

There are two branches of the Negroid race - 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 do not have significant significance for human life. Apparently, in the distant past, racial characteristics 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 effects of sunlight; the shape of the facial skeleton of the Mongoloids with a more extensive nasal cavity may be useful for warming cold air before it enters the lungs. In terms of mental abilities, i.e., abilities for cognition, creative and general labor activity, 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 of 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 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 superior. Later, when Hitler’s hordes marched across Europe, destroying the captured population in death camps, the so-called Aryan race, to which the Nazis included the German peoples, was declared superior. Racism is a reactionary ideology and policy aimed at justifying the exploitation of man by man.

The inconsistency of racism has been proven by the real science of race - racial studies. Racial studies studies the racial characteristics, origin, formation and history of human races. Evidence from race studies suggests that the differences between races are not sufficient to qualify the races as distinct biological species of humans. Mixing of races - miscegenation - occurred constantly, as a result of which intermediate types arose at the borders 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. Although public opinion in many countries does not support interracial marriage, there is little doubt that miscegenation is inevitable and will sooner or later lead to the formation of a hybrid population of people.