The origin of race is a subject fraught with controversy. In general, one encounters two contrasting schools of thought.
According to one school of thought, race differentiation existed at the earliest stage of human evolution.
The followers of the second school of thought advocate a common evolution for all races, with differentiation developing relatively late.
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The classification of human races is, however, based on the possession of certain combinations of fixed, inherited traits.
Since all men possess highly developed nervous systems, vertebrate backbones, erect posture, hair, hands, etc., the variations among men can arise only in minor deviations of this basic pattern.
Thus, we find such traits as skin colour, eye 50 Evolution and Races of Man colour, form and colour of hair, shape of nose, epicanthic fold, and thickness of lips, protrusion of face, stature, shape of head, and other similar variations available for erecting a racial classification.
Since the variations in a single character are insufficient to describe, the diverse groups of mankind, it becomes essential to employ those which prove diagnostic in a particular situation.
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Therefore, two races may be alike in hair colour, in form, and in eye colour, but differ in stature, head form and in other traits, whereas two others may be similar in head form, but diverge in eye colour and hair colour.
Theoretically, these considerations should be adequate to the problem of racial classification, but in reality the difficulties are very considerable. In the first place, there is no absolute in this field. It is obvious that the more indicators one uses the more combinations one may discover.
The subjective element, therefore, becomes a significant factor in the selection of number of traits to be used in the classification.
A system, for example, based on fifteen traits will turn up many more combinations than one constructed on only three traits. Thus, we find in the literature a wide divergence in the number of races, running from several to a couple of scores.
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The racial picture is thus extremely complex, and no systematic classification can be used without careful qualification.
On the whole, it would be safe to say that most competent students of this subject would agree in recognizing certain extreme forms of mankind as possessing racial validity.
Anthropologists have defined race in the following words: “A race is a principal division of mankind, marked by physical characteristics that breed.” Another group of cultural anthropologists defines race in the following way: “A race is a group of people with more or less permanent distinguishing characteristics to which persons concerned attach certain interpretations.”
Race has also been defined as a “biological grouping within the human species, distinguished or classified according to genetically transmitted differences”. There is no single way of classifying mankind by biological race.
In the past, physical characteristics, such as colour of skin and hair type, were used to delineate three to five biological ‘races’ (Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid, and later Australoid, and American Indian).
More subtle techniques taking into account blood types and hereditary diseases as well as terrain barriers, result in classifications that may include as many as eight or nine geographical races.
Although authorities differ in terminology and in exact classification, the following divisions are generally accepted: Caucasoid (European); Negroid (African); Mongoloid (Asiatic or Oriental); Indie (Hindu); Australoid (Australian), Polynesian, Melanesian, and Micronesian (sometimes these three are classed as Oceanic), and American Indian
The spatial distribution and concentration of these races in a general way is Caucasoids in Europe, Mongoloids in Asia, and Negroid in Africa.
It does not mean that these races are confined to given continents. For example, the Caucasoid race which is found not only in Europe but also along the northern belt of Africa, Asia Minor (Turkey), Afghanistan, Iran to Baluchistan and Northern India.
The Mongoloid race is mainly found in the central, eastern and south-eastern parts of Asia and the western parts of America (Red Indian etc.), Arctic region (Eskimos in Canada, Greenland and Yakuts in Siberia).
In other words, the Mongoloids are clustering around the Pacific and the Arctic Oceans.
The Negroids have main concentration to the south of Sahara desert in Africa, but they are also found in Indonesia (Pygmy group), New Guinea, Papua and Malenesia. The Australoids—a mixture of Negroids and Dravidians (Southern India)—are largely concentrated in Australia, especially in the northern and western parts of that continent.
The physical characteristics of the three major racial groups, i.e., Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Negroid, classified and advocated by Haddon and Krogman, have been given below:
By approximately 4 million years B.P. (before present), bipedal hominids have developed. The first evidence for bipedalism was found at Laetoli in East Africa by Leakey (1979), in the form of footprints in ash layers.
The bipedalism facilitated more efficient use of resources. Lambert, for example, suggests that hands were freed for using and making tools; this in turn may have stimulated brain development enabling better survival strategies to be devised.
The evolution of Homohabilis (tool-making animal) occurred some 2 million years B.P., by which time the ability to make crude stone tools had also developed and diet may have included more meat as scavenging became part of the food-procuring strategy.
Homo habilis was the ancestor of Homo erectus which had evolved by C. 16 million years B.P. Evidence from East Africa (Leakey, 1979), for example, indicates that hunting, possibly in organized groups and using fire, had superseded scavenging at a time when stone tool kits were becoming more sophisticated.
Thus, human groups were beginning to emerge as dominant within ecosystems rather than being simply integral components. The next stage in the development of modern humans (Homo sapiens) is also controversial.
According to one hypothesis, Homo sapiens had a single origin in Africa, and then migrated into Asia and Europe.
A single geographic origin might have been followed by migration with inter-breeding between the migrants and established populations of archaic sapiens.
The genetic relationship between Caucasoids (Europeans) and Australoids (Australians) indicates a common origin of mankind.
By the end of last glaciations (Wurm), upper Paleolithic groups were adapting to a warmer climate. Hunter-gathering food procurement strategies were still important. Further, innovations in relation to resource use led to the Neolithic cultural stage or New Stone Age.
By about 10,000 years B.P., agricultural practices were beginning to develop, the earliest being the Fertile Crescent (Mesopotamia etc.) of the South-West Asia where wheat and barley were domesticated.
Thus, Homo sapiens was learning to control the environment and to harness its resources, bringing about changes that were independent of natural processes, such as climatic change.
As there is hardly any unanimity about the definition of ‘race’ same is true about the parameters to be taken into consideration for the classification of race.
For an objective and scientific classification, the division of mankind into racial groups should be done on the basis of measurable physical features and the features and qualities inherited from a common ancestor.