Mixed Races. Basic and mixed races of people

Man represents one biological species, but why are we all so different? All the fault - different subspecies, that is, race. How many of them exist and what are mixed races of people, let's try to figure it out further.

The concept of race

A human race is a group of people who share a number of similar traits that are inherited. The concept of race gave impetus to the movement of racism, which is based on confidence in the genetic differences of the races, the mental and physical superiority of some races over others.

Studies in the XX century showed that it is impossible to genetically distinguish them. Most of the differences appear externally, and their diversity can be explained by the features of the habitat. For example, white skin promotes better absorption of vitamin D, and it appeared as a result of lack of daylight.

Recently, scientists more often support the view that the term is not relevant. Man - a complex being, its formation is influenced not only by climatic and geographical factors, which largely determine the concept of race, but also cultural, social and political. The latter contributed to the emergence of mixed and transitional races, further blurring all boundaries.

Large races

Despite the general vagueness of the concept, scientists are still trying to figure out why we are all so different. There are many classification concepts. All of them agree that man is a single biological species of Homo sapiens, which is represented by various subspecies or populations.

Variants of differentiation range from two independent races to fifteen, not to mention the set of subras. Most often in the scientific literature, there are three or four great races, into which small ones enter. Thus, according to external signs, the Caucasoid type, Mongoloid, Negroid, and Australoid are distinguished.

The Europeoids are divided on the north - with blond hair and skin, gray or blue eyes, and southern - with dark skin, dark hair, brown eyes. The Mongoloid race is characterized by a narrow incision of the eyes, prominent cheekbones, stiff straight hair, vegetation on the body - insignificant.

The Australoid race was long considered a Negroid race, but it turned out that they have differences. By signs, it is much closer to the Veddoid and Melanesian races. Australoid and Negroid have dark skin, wide nose, dark eye color. Although some Australoids can have a light skin. From Negroids, they are characterized by abundant hair, and also less wavy hair.

Small and mixed races

Big races are too much generalization, because the differences between people are more subtle. Therefore, each of them is divided into several anthropological types, or into small races. They are allocated a huge amount. For example, the Negroid race includes Negro, Koisai, Ethiopian, Pygmy types.

Classification of anthropological types is greatly complicated by relations between representatives of different races. In this regard, identify the main and mixed races. The latter are often called contact. Often, their appearance contributes to historical and political processes, such as migration, conquest, resettlement.

Approximately 30% of the population are contact type. Their phenotype (external signs) reflects the features of several races simultaneously. These include transitional races that have mixed in the distant past and are fixed in the features of individual peoples, for example, the South Indian, South Siberian, and Uralic races.

The term "mixed races" more often refers to populations of people arising from recent (since the XVI century) contacts of large races. These include mestizo, sambo, mulatto.

Mestizo

In anthropology, the mestizos are all descendants of marriages of people belonging to different races, no matter what. The process itself is called metisation. There are many cases in history where representatives of mixed races were discriminated against, degraded and even exterminated during the Nazi policy in Germany, apartheid in South Africa and other movements.

In many countries, the descendants of specific races are also called half-breeds. In America, they are children of Indians and Caucasians, in this sense the term came to us. They are mainly distributed in the territory of South and North America.

The number of Mexicans in Canada, in the narrow sense of this term, is 500-700 thousand people. The active mixing of blood here occurred during colonization, mostly European men were in touch with Indian women. Isolated, the mestizos formed a separate ethnic group, speaking the mythic language (a complex mixture of French and Crees).

Mulattos

Descendants of Negroids and Caucasians are mulattoes. Their skin is light black, which gives the name of the term. The name first appeared around the 16th century, coming to Spanish or Portuguese from Arabic. In a word, Muwaladh used to be called non-thoroughbred Arabs.

In Africa, mulattoes live mainly in Namibia, South Africa. Quite a large number of them live in the Caribbean region and Latin America. In Brazil, they account for almost 40% of the total population, in Cuba - more than half. A significant number live in the Dominican Republic - more than 75% of the population.

Mixed races could previously have other names, depending on the generation and proportion of Negroid genetic material. If the Caucasoid blood referred to the Negroid as ¼ (mulatto in the second generation), then the person was called Quarteron. Ratio 1/8 was called okton, 7/8 - marabou, 3/4 - griff.

Sambo

The genetic mixture of Negroids and Indians is called Sambo. In Spanish, the term sounds like "zambo". Like other mixed races, the term periodically changed its meaning. Previously, the name sambo meant marriages between representatives of the Negroid race and mulatto.

Sambo first appeared in South America. The Indians represented the indigenous population of the continent, and the Negroes, as slaves, were brought in to work on the plantations of sugar cane. Slaves were brought from the beginning of the XVI century until the end of XIX. During this period, about 3 million people were transported from Africa.