How many and what races exist in the world. World population

Instructions

The Caucasoid race (less commonly called Eurasian or Caucasoid) is common in Europe, Western Europe and partly Central Asia, North Africa, northern and central India. Later, Caucasians settled in both Americas, Australia and South Africa.

Today, about 40 percent of the world's population belongs to the Caucasian race. Caucasians have an orthognathic face and hair is usually soft, wavy or straight. The size of the eyes is not a classifying feature, but the brow ridges are quite large. Anthropologists also note a high bridge of the nose, a large nose, small or medium lips, and fairly rapid growth of a beard and mustache. It is noteworthy that the color of hair, skin and eyes is not an indicator of race. The shade can be either light (among northerners) or quite dark (among southerners). The Caucasian race includes Abkhazians, Austrians, Arabs, English, Jews, Spaniards, Germans, Poles, Russians, Tatars, Turks, Croats and about 80 other peoples.

Representatives of the Negroid race settled in Central, East and West Africa. Negroids have curly thick hair, thick lips and a flat nose, wide nostrils, dark skin color, elongated arms and legs. Mustaches and beards grow quite poorly. Eye color - , but the shade depends on genetics. The facial angle is acute, since there is no mental protuberance on the lower jaw. In the last century, Negroids and Australoids were classified as a common equatorial race, but later researchers were able to prove that despite the external similarity and similar conditions of existence, the differences between these races are still significant. One of the opponents of racism, Elizabeth Martinez, proposed calling representatives of the Negroid race Congoids, based on geographic distribution (by analogy with other races), but the term never took root.

"Pygmy" is translated from Greek as "a man the size of a fist." Pygmies or Negrillies are short Negroids. The first mention of pygmies dates back to the third millennium BC. IN XVI-XVII centuries West African explorers called such people “Matimba.” Pygmies were finally identified as a race in the 19th century thanks to the work of the German researcher Georg Schweinfurt and the Russian scientist V.V. Junker. Adult males of the pygmy race usually do not grow above one and a half meters. All representatives of the race are characterized by light brown skin color, curly dark hair, and thin lips. The number of pygmies has not yet been established. According to various sources, from 40,000 to 280,000 people live on the planet. Pygmies belong to underdeveloped peoples. They still live in huts built from dried grass and sticks, hunt (with bows and arrows) and gather, and do not use stone tools.

The Kapoids ("Bushmen" and "Khoisan race") live in South Africa. They are short people with yellow-brown skin and almost childlike features throughout their lives. TO characteristic features The races include coarse curled hair, early-onset wrinkles, and the so-called “Hottentot apron” (a saggy fold of skin above the pubic area). Bushmen have noticeable fat deposits on the buttocks and curvature of the lumbar spine (lordosis).

Initially, representatives of the race inhabited the territory that is now called Mongolia. The appearance of the Mongoloids testifies to the centuries-old need to survive in desert conditions. Among the Mongoloids narrow eyes with an additional fold at the inner corner of the eye (epicanthus). This helps protect your eyesight and dust. Representatives of the race are distinguished by thick, black, straight hair. Mongoloids are usually divided into two groups: southern (dark-skinned, short, with a small face and high forehead) and northern (tall, light-skinned, with large features and a low skull vault). Anthropologists believe that this race appeared no more than 12,000 years ago.

Representatives of the Americanoid race settled in Northern and South America. They have black hair and a nose like an eagle's beak. The eyes are usually black, the slit is larger than that of Mongoloids, but smaller than that of Caucasians. Americanoids are usually tall.

Australoids are often referred to as the Austral race. This is a very ancient race, whose representatives lived in the Kuril Islands, Hawaii, Hindustan and Tasmania. Australoids are divided into Ainu, Melanesian, Polynesian, Veddoid and Australian groups. Indigenous Australians have brown but fairly light skin, a large nose, massive brow ridges, strong jaws. The hair of this race is long and wavy, and tends to become very coarse from the sun's rays. Melanesians often have spiral hair.

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 driving forces race formation, anthropology comes into close contact with genetics, physiology, zoogeography, climatology, general theory speciation. The study of race in anthropology has implications for many problems. It is important for resolving the question of the ancestral home of man modern look, use of anthropological material as a historical source, coverage of problems of taxonomy, mainly small ones systematic units, knowledge of the patterns of population genetics, clarification of 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 it is divided indigenous people Volga-Kama region, 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 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 - 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

Natural range of pygmies - western part 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 Near 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.

see also

Notes

Links

There is a huge variety of nationalities on planet Earth, which are characterized by a certain religion, traditions, and cultural values. A broader concept is races, which unite people according to morphological characteristics. They were formed as a result of the evolution and socio-historical development of the population. Human race has always been of interest; anthropology studies its origin, formation, and characteristics.

Concept

The etymology of the word "race" appeared from the middle of the 19th century as a result of borrowing from French"race" German language"rasse". Further fate words unknown. However, there is a version that the concept comes from the Latin word “generatio”, which means “ability to be born”.

Race is a system of human populations that is characterized by similarity in hereditary biological characteristics (external phenotype) that were formed in a certain geographical area.

Morphological characteristics that allow dividing the population into groups include:

• height;
• body type;
• structure of the skull, face;
• color of skin, eyes, hair, their structure.

The concepts of nationality, nation and race should not be confused. The latter may include representatives of different nationalities and cultures.

The importance of races lies in the formation of the population adaptive features, which facilitate existence in a certain territory. Studying groups of people with identical morphological characteristics deals with the branch of anthropology - racial studies. Science examines the definition, classification, how they appeared, the factors of development and formation of racial characteristics.

What races are there: main types and distribution

Until the 20th century, the number of races that existed in the world was 4, depending on characteristic features. Large groups united representatives of humanity, while differences in appearance often became the reason why strife and conflicts occurred between peoples.

The main races of people that exist on earth, taking into account the territory of settlement, are shown in the table:

There are no Negroids outside the African continent. Australoids are located within a specific range. The percentage of races on earth was distributed according to the following indicators:

• Asian population – 57%;
• Europeans (without Russia) – 21%;
• Americans - 14%;
• Africans – 8%;
• Australians – 0.3%.

There are no inhabitants in Antarctica.

Modern classification

After the 20th century, the following classification became widespread, which includes 3 racial types. This phenomenon is due to the unification of the Negroid and Australoid groups into mixed races.

There are modern varieties of races:

• large (European, a mixture of Asian and Negroid, equatorial race - Australian-Negroid);
• small (different types that were formed from other races).

The racial division includes 2 trunks: western and eastern.

• Caucasians;
• Negroids;
• capoids.

The eastern trunk includes Americanoids, Australoids and Mongoloids. According to anthropological characteristics, Indians belong to the Americanoid race.

There is no generally accepted classification of division according to various characteristics, which is considered direct evidence of the continuity of biological processes of variability.

Signs of human races

Racial characteristics include many characteristics of a person’s structure that are formed under the influence of hereditary factors and influence environment. External signs of the human appearance are studied by biology.

Races have interested specialists since ancient times. Their distinctive features, descriptions, pictures, help to understand the race of a particular person.

Caucasoid

White people are characterized by a light or dark skin tone. Hair is straight or wavy from light to dark in color. Men grow facial hair. The shape of the nose is narrow, protruding, the lips are thin. This race includes.

There are subraces of the Caucasian race:

• southern Caucasian;
• Northern Caucasoid.

The first type is characterized by dark, and the second - light hair, eyes and skin.

The face of the classical European is personified by the Phalian race. The Phalids are a species of the Cromanid race that has undergone Nordic influence. The second name of this subtype is northern cromanid. They differ from Nordids by having a low and wide face, a low-set bridge of the nose, a pronounced red skin tone, a steep forehead, a short neck and a massive body.

Falides are common in the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Iceland, Germany, and the western Baltic. In Russia, falids are rare.

Australoid

Australoids include Veddoids, Polynesians, Ainu, Australians and Melanesians.

There are several features of the Australoid race:

• An elongated skull in relation to other parts of the body is dolichocephaly.
• The eyes are set wide apart, with a wide slit with a dark or black iris.
• Wide nose with a pronounced flat bridge.
• Body hair is developed.
• Dark coarse hair, sometimes blond due to genetic mutation. Hair may be slightly curly or kinky.
• Average height, sometimes above average.
• Thin and elongated physique.

It is difficult to recognize a representative of the Australoid race due to the mixture of different nations.

Mongoloid

Mongoloid people have special features that allow them to adapt to complex situations. climatic conditions: sands and winds in the desert, snow drifts.

The characteristics of Mongoloid appearance include a number of features:

• Oblique eye shape.
• At the inner corner of the eye there is an epicanthus - a fold of skin.
• Light, dark brown iris.
• Short head (feature of the skull structure).
• Thickened, strongly protruding ridges above the eyebrow.
• Weak facial and body hair.
• Dark straight hair with a hard texture.
• A narrow nose with a low-set bridge.
• Narrow lips.
• Yellow or dark skin.

The distinguishing feature is small growth.

Yellow-skinned Mongoloids predominate in numbers among the population.

Negroid

The fourth group is characterized by a list of features:

• The blue-black color of the skin is due to the increased content of the pigment - melanin.
• The eyes are large in shape with a wide slits and are black or dark brown.
• Coarse, curly black hair.
• Short stature.
• Long arms.
• Flat, wide nose.
• The lips are thick.
• The jaw protrudes forward.
• Large ears.

The facial hair is not developed, the beard and mustache are weakly expressed.

Origin

For a long period of time, people with white skin were considered representatives of the superior race. On this basis, military conflicts broke out in the struggle for the first race on earth. Entire peoples were mercilessly exterminated for the right to dominate the planet.

Some people note Interesting Facts about the origin of races. The German anthropologist F. Blumenbach considered the Georgians to be the most beautiful representatives. There is a special term “Caucasian race”, which is considered the most numerous.

Mixing of blood between representatives is common different groups. For example, mulatto is a term that refers to a mixture of Asian and European. A mixture of Negroid and Mongoloid races is defined as Sambo, and a Caucasian and Mongoloid race is defined as mestizo.

Of interest is the question of what race the Indians belong to - they were formed from the Australoid group.

Rasen are one of the known varieties of the Great Race. In world history, her descendants were called Tyrrhenians.

The appearance of Rasen is characterized by a number of features:

• Brown eyes;
• dark brown or dark brown hair;
• short stature.

Most often, Rasen have blood type 2. Representatives of this race are characterized by steadfastness, strong spirit and rage, which contributed to high level military readiness.

They act as an East Slavic ethnic group. In terms of numbers, they are the most numerous people on the planet. According to Wikipedia, there are a total of 133 million representatives of Russian nationality.

Racism

Racism Defined: “Discrimination against people based on their ethnic origin, color, culture, nationality, religion, or mother tongue.”

The term refers to reactionary ideology and policies that are aimed at the justified exploitation of people.

The heyday of racism occurred in the mid-19th century in America and England, Germany and France. This is what served as ideological support for the slave trade and the seizure of land by colonies in Oceania, Australia, Asia, Africa, and America.

Racists adhere to the ideology that between mental, intellectual, social qualities and physical structure there is a certain connection. Higher and lower races were distinguished.

Adherents of racist ideology believed that initially pure races arose, and later the mixing of peoples formed new ones. Children appeared with combined appearance features.

It is believed that a mestizo is different from its blood parents:

• attractive appearance;
• poor adaptation to living conditions;
• predisposition to genetic diseases;
• low reproductive function, blocking further mixing of blood;
• possible homosexual preferences.

The problem of incest is a crisis of self-identification: during military conflicts, it is difficult to identify an individual with one citizenship and nationality.

Crossbreeding is constantly observed and, as a result, transitional types appear at the boundaries of areas, smoothing out differences.

From the point of view of science, mixing of races is considered as the species unity of people, their kinship and the fertility of offspring. However, the problem is the possible disappearance small people or a small branch of a large race.

Racism is contrary to the ideals of any human society. He performs global problem humanity.

Lesson Plan

1. What human races do you know?
2. What factors cause the evolutionary process?
3. What influences the formation of the gene pool of a population?

What are the human races?

Human predecessors are Australopithecines;
- ancient people- progressive australopithecus, archanthropus (pithecanthropus, synanthropus, Heidelberg man, etc.);
- ancient people - paleoanthropes (Neanderthals);
- fossil people of modern anatomical type - neoanthropes (Cro-Magnons).

The historical development of man was carried out under the influence of the same factors of biological evolution as the formation of other species of living organisms. However, humans are characterized by such a unique phenomenon for living nature as an increasing influence on anthropogenesis social factors (work activity, social way of life, speech and thinking).

For modern man Social-labor relations became leading and determining.

As a result social development Homo sapiens has acquired unconditional advantages among all living beings. But this does not mean that the emergence of the social sphere abolished the action of biological factors. Social sphere only changed their manifestation. Homo sapiens as a species is integral part biosphere and the product of its evolution.

These are historically established groupings (groups of populations) of people, characterized by similar morphological and physiological traits. Racial differences are the result of people's adaptation to certain conditions of existence, as well as the historical and socio-economic development of human society.

There are three large races: Caucasoid (Eurasian), Mongoloid (Asian-American) and Austral-Negroid (Equatorial).

Chapter 8

Basics of ecology

Having studied this chapter, you will find out:

What does ecology study and why does every person need to know its basics;
- what is the importance of environmental factors: abiatic, biotic and anthropogenic;
- what role do conditions play? external environment and internal properties of a population group in the processes of changes in its numbers over time;
- O various types interactions of organisms;
- about the features competitive relations and factors determining the outcome of competition;
- about the composition and basic properties of the ecosystem;
- about energy flows and the circulation of substances that ensure the functioning of systems, and about the role in these processes

Back in the middle of the 20th century. the word ecology was known only to specialists, but now it has become very popular; it is most often used when talking about the unfavorable state of the nature around us.

Sometimes this term is used in combination with words such as society, family, culture, health. Is ecology really such a broad science that it can cover most of the problems facing humanity?

Kamensky A. A., Kriksunov E. V., Pasechnik V. V. Biology 10th grade
Submitted by readers from the website

The population of our planet today exceeds 7 billion people. This figure is increasing every day.

World population

Scientists have determined that in just a decade, the number of people on Earth will increase by 1 billion people. However, this dynamic demographic picture was not always so high.

Until a few centuries ago, the human population grew slowly. People died from unfavorable weather conditions and diseases in early age, since the development of science and technology was at a low level.

Today, the largest countries in terms of population are Japan, China and India. The population of these three countries becomes half of the total world population.

The smallest number of people live in countries whose territory covers equatorial forests, tundra and taiga zones, as well as mountain ranges. The bulk of the planet's population lives in the Northern Hemisphere (about 90%).

Races

All humanity is divided into races. Races are organized groups of people who are united by common external characteristics - body structure, face shape, skin color, hair structure.

Such external signs formed as a result of the adaptation of human physiology to environmental conditions. There are three major races: Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid.

The most numerous is the Caucasian race, accounting for about 45% of the planet's population. Caucasians inhabit the territory of Europe, part of Asia, South and North America and Australia.

The second largest race is the Mongoloid race. The Mongoloid race includes people living in Asia, as well as aborigines North America- Indians.

The Negroid race ranks third in number. Representatives of this race live in Africa. After the slave period, representatives of the Negroid race remained to live in South and North America.

Peoples

Large races are formed by representatives of many nations. Most of The planet's population belongs to 20 large nations, their number exceeds 50 million people.

Nations are communities of people who have lived in the same territory for long periods of time. historical periods and are united by cultural heritage.

IN modern world There are about 1500 peoples. The geography of their settlement is very diverse. Some of them are spread all over the planet, some live within a populated area.