Caucasian race

The term Caucasian race (also Caucasoid, Europid, or Europoid^[1]) has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia (the Middle East), Central Asia and South Asia.^[2] Historically, the term has been used to describe the entire population of these regions, without regard necessarily to skin tone.

Origin of the concept

The concept of a Caucasian race or Varietas Caucasia was developed around 1800 by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, a German scientist and classical anthropologist.^[3] Blumenbach named it after the Caucasian peoples (from the Southern Caucasus region), whom he considered to be the archetype for the grouping.^[4] He based his classification of the Caucasian race primarily on craniology.^[5] Blumenbach wrote:

Caucasian variety - I have taken the name of this variety from Mount Caucasus, both because its neighborhood, and especially its southern slope, produces the most beautiful race of men, I mean the Georgian; and because all physiological reasons converge to this, that in that region, if anywhere, it seems we ought with the greatest probability to place the autochthones (birth place) of mankind.^[6]

Physical anthropology

Caucasoid or Caucasian phenotypic traits, such as craniofacial features and bone morphology became popularised in 19th century and early 20th century literature of physical anthropology, by scientists such as Samuel George Morton, James Cowles Prichard, Robert Bennett Bean, William Zebina Ripley and Roland Dixon.^[7] Later anthropologists such as Reginald Ruggles Gates, Carleton S. Coon and Sonia Mary Cole continued to popularise the term in the second half of the 20th century. The physical traits of Caucasoid crania are still recognised as distinct (in contrast to Mongoloid and Negroid races) within modern forensic anthropology. A Caucasoid skull is identified, with an accuracy of up to 95%, by the following features:^{[8][9][10][11][12]}

• Little or no prognathism exhibited - an orthognathic face with little protrusion in the dental region.
• Retreating zygomatic bones (cheekbones), making the face look more "pointed".
• Narrow nasal aperture, with a "tear shaped" nasal cavity.

Furthermore according to Coon (1962), phenotypically, the Caucasoid is recognised by cymotrichous (wavy) hair, and in contrast to the Negroid and Mongoloid races, has the lightest pigmentation, ranging from pale white to a brownish olive skin complexion.

Classification

Conceived as one of the "great races", alongside Mongoloid and Negroid, it was taken to consist of a number of "subraces". The Caucasoid peoples were usually divided in three groups on linguistic grounds, termed Aryan (Indo-European), Semitic (Semitic languages) and Hamitic (Berber-Cushitic-Egyptian).

The postulated subraces vary depending on the author, including but not limited to Nordic, Mediterranean, Alpine, Dinaric, East Baltic, Arabid, Turanid, Iranid and Armenoid subraces.

19th century classifications of the peoples of India considered the Dravidians of non-Caucasoid stock as Australoid or a separate Dravida race, and assumed a gradient of miscegenation of high-caste Caucasoid Aryans and indigenous Dravidians.

By contrast, Carleton S. Coon in his 1939 The Races of Europe classified the Dravidians as Caucasoid as well, due to his assessment of what he called their "Caucasoid skull structure" and other physical traits (e.g. noses, eyes, hair). In his The Living Races of Man, Coon stated that "India is the easternmost outpost of the Caucasian racial region". Sarah A Tishkoff and Kenneth K Kidd state: "Despite disagreement among anthropologists, this classification remains in use by many researchers, as well as lay people."^[13]

There was no universal consensus of the validity of the "Caucasian" grouping within those who attempted to categorize human variation. Thomas Henry Huxley in 1870 wrote that the "absurd denomination of 'Caucasian'" was in fact a conflation of his Xanthochroi and Melanochroi types.^[14]

In 1920, H. G. Wells referred to the Mediterranean race as the Iberian race. He regarded it as a fourth subrace of the Caucasian race, along with the Aryan, Semitic, and Hamitic subraces. He stated that the main ethnic group that most purely represented the racial stock of the Iberian race was the Basques, and that the Basques were the descendants of the Cro-Magnons.^[15] In 1994, in his book The History and Geography of Human Genes, population geneticist L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza stated that “there is support from many sides” for the hypothesis that the Basques are the descendents of the original Cro-Magnons.^[16]

A 1989 article in Scientific American by Colin Renfrew classifies the Dravidian race, along with the Semitic race and the Aryan race, as the three major subdivisions that emerged from the Proto-Caucasian race, which he states separated into the aforementioned three groups about 9,000 BCE after migrating from North Africa—-the Semitics (i.e., Proto-Semitics) establishing themselves in and radiating from Jericho, the Aryans (i.e., Proto-Indo-Europeans) establishing themselves in and radiating from Catal Huyuk, and the Dravidians (i.e., Proto-Dravidians) establishing themselves in and radiating from what is now southern Iran.^[17]

In the early twentieth century, Carleton Coon argued that the "Caucasoid race" is of dual origin, consisting of Upper Paleolithic (mixture of H. sapiens and neanderthalensis) types and Mediterranean (purely H. sapiens) types. He repeated his theory in his 1962 book The Origin of Races.

Medical sciences

In the medical sciences, where response to pharmaceuticals and other treatment can vary dramatically based on ethnicity,^[18][19] there is great debate as to whether racial categorizations as broad as Caucasian are medically valid.^[20][21] Several journals (e.g. Nature Genetics, Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, and the British Medical Journal) have issued guidelines stating that researchers should carefully define their populations and avoid broad-based social constructions, because these categories are more likely to be measuring differences in socioeconomic class and access to medical treatment that disproportionately affect minority groups, rather than racial differences.^[22] Nevertheless, there are journals (e.g. the Journal of Gastroentorology and Hepatology and Kidney International) that continue to use racial categories such as Caucasian.^[18][23]

Usage in the United States

In the United States the term Caucasoid is commonly associated with notions of racial typology and modern usage is generally associated with racial notions and therefore discouraged, as it is potentially offensive. The term "Caucasoid" is still used in certain disciplines such as craniometry, epidemiology and forensic archaeology. Even in a medical context, some scholars have recommended that the term Caucasoid be avoided in scientific writings because of its association with racism and race science.

In the United States, the term Caucasian has been mainly used to describe a group commonly called Whites, as defined by the government and Census Bureau.^[24] Between 1917 and 1965, immigration to the US was restricted by a national origins quota. The Supreme Court in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923) decided that Asian Indians and Middle Easterners – unlike Europeans – were Caucasian, but were not white, because most laypeople did not consider them to be white people. This was important for determining whether they could become naturalized citizens, then limited to free whites. The court and government changed its opinion in 1946. In 1965 major changes were made to immigration law, lifting many earlier restrictions on immigrants from Caucasoid Asia.^[25]

The United States National Library of Medicine has used the term "Caucasian" as a race in the past, but has discontinued its usage in favor of the term "European".^[26]

See also

• Anthropometry
• Race and genetics
• Race (U.S. Census)
• Historical definitions of race
• Peoples of the Caucasus

Diaspora

• Ethnic groups in Europe
• White people
• White American
• European American
• White Hispanic and Latino Americans
• European Australian
• White Latin American
• White Brazilian
• White Mexican
• White Africans of European ancestry

Notes

References

Literature

• Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, On the Natural Varieties of Mankind (1775) — the book that introduced the concept
• Gould, Stephen Jay (1981). The mismeasure of man. New York: Norton. ISBN 0-393-01489-4.  — a history of the pseudoscience of race, skull measurements, and IQ inheritability
• Piazza, Alberto; Cavalli-Sforza, L. L.; Menozzi, Paolo (1996). The history and geography of human genes. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-02905-9.  — a major reference of modern population genetics
• Cavalli-Sforza, LL (2000). Genes, peoples and languages. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 0-7139-9486-X. 
• Augstein, HF (1999). "From the Land of the Bible to the Caucasus and Beyond". In Harris, Bernard; Ernst, Waltraud. Race, science and medicine, 1700–1960. New York: Routledge. pp. 58–79. ISBN 0-415-18152-6. 
• Baum, Bruce (2006). The rise and fall of the Caucasian race: a political history of racial identity. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 0-8147-9892-6. 
• Guthrie, Paul (1999). The Making of the Whiteman: From the Original Man to the Whiteman. Chicago, IL: Research Associates School Times. ISBN 0-948390-49-2. 
• Wolf, Eric R.; Cole, John N. (1999). The Hidden Frontier: Ecology and Ethnicity in an Alpine Valley. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-21681-4. 

External links

•  "Caucasian race". Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921.