Major human races. Human races, their origin and unity

In the main and secondary features of the external appearance and internal structure people are very similar. Therefore, from a biological point of view, most scientists consider humanity as one species of "reasonable man."

Mankind, now inhabiting almost the entire land, even in Antarctica, is not homogeneous in composition. It is divided into groups that have long been called races, and this term has established itself in anthropology.

The human race is a biological group of people similar to, but not homologous to, the subspecies group of zoological taxonomy. Each race is characterized by a unity of origin, arose and formed in a certain initial territory, or area. Races are characterized by one or another set of bodily features, related mainly to appearance man, to his morphology and anatomy.

The main racial features are as follows: the shape of the hair on the head; the nature and degree of development of hair on the face (beard, mustache) and on the body; hair, skin and iris color; the shape of the upper eyelid, nose and lips; the shape of the head and face; body length, or height.

human races, are the subject of a special study in anthropology. According to many Soviet anthropologists, modern humanity consists of three large races, which are in turn subdivided into small races. These latter again consist of groups of anthropological types; the latter are the basic units of racial systematics (Cheboksarov, 1951).

In the composition of any human race, one can find more typical and less typical representatives of it. In the same way, races are found that are more characteristic, more pronounced, and comparatively little different from other races. Some races are intermediate.

The large Negroid-Australoid (black) race as a whole is characterized by a certain combination of features that are most pronounced in Sudanese blacks and distinguish it from the Caucasoid or Mongoloid large races. Among the racial characteristics of Negroids are: black, spirally curled or wavy hair; chocolate brown or even almost black (sometimes yellowish brown) skin; Brown eyes; a rather flat, slightly protruding nose with a low nose bridge and wide wings (some have a straight, narrower one); most have thick lips; very many have a long head; moderately developed chin; protruding forward dental section of the upper and lower jaws (maxillary prognathism).

On the basis of geographical distribution, the Negroid-Australoid race is also called the Equatorial, or African-Australian. It naturally falls into two small races: 1) the western, or African, otherwise Negroid, and 2) the eastern, or Oceanian, otherwise Australoid.

Representatives of a large European-Asian, or Caucasian, race (white) are generally characterized by a different combination of signs: pinkness of the skin, due to the translucence of blood vessels; some have a lighter skin color, others are darker; many have light colored hair and eyes; wavy or straight hair, medium or strong development of hair on the body and on the face; lips of medium thickness; the nose is rather narrow and protrudes strongly from the plane of the face; high bridge; poorly developed fold of the upper eyelid; slightly protruding jaws and upper face, moderately or strongly protruding chin; as a rule, a small width of the face.

Within the large Caucasoid race (white), three small races are distinguished by the color of their hair and eyes: the more pronounced northern (light-colored) and southern (dark-colored), as well as the less pronounced Central European (with an intermediate color). A significant part of the Russians belongs to the so-called White Sea-Baltic group of types of the northern minor race. They are characterized by light blond or blond hair, blue or gray eyes, and very fair skin. At the same time, their nose is often with a concave back, and the nose bridge is not very high and has a different shape than that of the northwestern Caucasoid types, namely the Atlanto-Baltic group, whose representatives are found mainly in the population of countries Northern Europe. With the latter group, the White Sea-Baltic has many common features: both of them make up the northern Caucasoid minor race.

Darker-colored groups of southern Caucasians form the bulk of the population of Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, southern Germany and the countries of the Balkan Peninsula.
The Mongoloid, or Asian-American, large (yellow) race as a whole differs from the Negroid-Australoid and Caucasoid large races in its inherent set of racial characteristics. So, her most typical representatives the skin is swarthy, yellowish shades; dark brown eyes; hair black, straight, tight; on the face, a beard and mustache, as a rule, do not develop; on the body, the hairline is very poorly developed; for typical Mongoloids, a highly developed and peculiarly located fold of the upper eyelid is very characteristic, which covers the inner corner of the eye, thereby causing a somewhat oblique position of the palpebral fissure (this fold is called the epicanthus); their face is rather flat; cheekbones are wide; the chin and jaws protrude a little forward; the nose is straight, but the bridge of the nose is low; lips are moderately developed; growth at the majority average and below average.

Such a set of features is more common, for example, among the northern Chinese, who are typical Mongoloids, but taller. In other Mongoloid groups one can find less or thicker lips, less tight hair, shorter stature among him. Special place occupied by the American Indians, for some signs, as it were, bring them closer to the large Caucasoid race.
There are also groups of types of mixed origin in humanity. The so-called Lapland-Urals include the Lapps, or Sami, with their yellowish skin, but soft dark hair. According to their bodily features, these inhabitants of the far north of Europe connect the Caucasoid and Mongoloid races.

There are also groups that at the same time have a great resemblance to two other, more sharply different races, and the similarity is due not so much to mixing as to ancient family ties. Such, for example, is the Ethiopian group of types, linking the Negroid and Caucasoid races: it has the character of a transitional race. This appears to be a very ancient group. The combination in it of the signs of two large races clearly testifies to very distant times, when these two races still represented something unified. The Ethiopian race includes many inhabitants of Ethiopia, or Abyssinia.

In total, humanity falls into about twenty-five to thirty groups of types. At the same time, it represents unity, since among the races there are intermediate (transitional) or mixed groups of anthropological types.

It is characteristic of most human races and types of groups that each of them occupies a certain common territory, on which this part of mankind historically arose and developed.
But due to historical conditions, it happened more than once that one or another part of the representatives of a given race moved to neighboring or even very distant countries. AT individual cases some races have completely lost contact with their original territory, or a significant part of them have undergone physical extermination.

As we have seen, representatives of one race or another are characterized by approximately the same combination of hereditary bodily features related to the external appearance of a person. However, it has been established that these racial characteristics change during individual life and in the course of evolution.

The representatives of each human race, as a result of their common origin, are somewhat more closely related to each other than to representatives of other human races.
Racial groups are characterized by strong individual variability, and the boundaries between different races are usually not pronounced. So. some races are connected by imperceptible transitions with other races. In a number of cases it is very difficult to establish the racial composition of the population of a given country or population group.

The definition of racial characteristics and their individual variability is based on the methods developed in anthropology and with the help of special tools. As a rule, hundreds and even thousands of representatives of the studied racial group of mankind are subjected to measurements and inspection. Such techniques make it possible to judge with sufficient accuracy the racial composition of a particular people, the degree of purity or mixedness of a racial type, but do not give an absolute opportunity to attribute some people to one or another race. This depends either on the fact that the racial type in a given individual is expressed unsharply, or due to the fact that this person is the result of mixing.

Racial characteristics in a number of cases vary markedly even during a person's life. Sometimes, over a period of not very long time, the signs of racial divisions also change. So, in many groups of mankind, the shape of the head has changed over the past hundreds of years. The largest progressive American anthropologist Franz Boas found that the shape of the skull changes within racial groups even over a much shorter period, for example, when moving from one part of the world to another, as happened with immigrants from Europe to America.

Individual and general forms of variability of racial characteristics are inextricably linked and lead to continuous, although usually hardly noticeable, modifications of the racial groups of mankind. The hereditary composition of the race, while sufficiently stable, is nevertheless subject to constant change. We have so far talked more about racial differences than about similarities between races. However, we recall that the differences between races appear quite clearly only when a set of features is taken. If we consider racial characteristics separately, then only very few of them can serve as more or less reliable evidence of an individual's belonging to a particular race. In this regard, perhaps the most striking feature is the spirally curled, or, in other words, curly (finely curly) hair, so characteristic of typical Negroes.

In very many cases it is completely impossible to establish. to which race a particular person should be attributed. Thus, for example, a nose with a rather high back, bridge of medium height, and wings of medium width may be found in some groups of all three great races, as well as other racial characters. And this is regardless of whether this person came from a marriage between representatives of two races or not.

The fact of the interweaving of racial characteristics is one of the proofs that the races have a common origin and are blood related to one another.
Racial differences are usually secondary or even tertiary features in the structure of the human body. Some of the racial characteristics, such as skin color, are largely related to the adaptability of the human body to the environment. natural environment. Such features took shape in the course of the historical development of mankind, but they have already lost their biological significance. In this sense, the human races are not at all similar to the subspecies groups of animals.

In wild animals, racial differences arise and develop as a result of the adaptation of their organism to the natural environment in the process of natural selection, in the struggle between variability and heredity. Subspecies of wild animals, as a result of long or rapid biological evolution, can and do turn into species. Subspecific features are vital for wild animals, have an adaptive character.

Breeds of domestic animals are formed under the influence of artificial selection: the most useful or beautiful individuals are taken to the tribe. The breeding of new breeds is carried out on the basis of the teachings of I. V. Michurin, often in very short periods of time, over the course of only a few generations, especially in combination with proper feeding.
artificial selection did not play any role in the formation of modern human races, and natural selection was of secondary importance, which he had long lost. It is obvious that the process of origin and development of human races differs sharply from the ways of origin of breeds of domestic animals, not to mention cultivated plants.

The first foundations for a scientific understanding of the origin of human races from a biological point of view were laid by Charles Darwin. He specifically studied the human races and established the undoubted very close similarity between them in many basic characteristics, as well as their blood, very close relationship. But this, according to Darwin, clearly indicates their origin from one common trunk, and not from different ancestors. All further development of science confirmed his conclusions, which form the basis for monogenism. Thus, the doctrine of the origin of man from different monkeys, i.e., polygenism, turns out to be untenable and, consequently, racism loses one of its main supports (Ya. Ya. Roginsky, M. G. Levin, 1955).

What are the main features of the type of "reasonable man" that are characteristic of all modern human races without exception? The main, primary features should be recognized as a very large and highly developed brain with a very large quantity convolutions and furrows on the surface of his hemispheres and the human hand, which, according to Engels, is an organ and a product of labor. The structure of the leg is also characteristic, especially the foot with a longitudinal arch, adapted to support the human body when standing and moving.

Important features of the type of modern man include the following: a spinal column with four bends, of which the lumbar, which developed in connection with upright posture, is especially characteristic; the skull with its rather smooth outer surface, with a strongly developed brain and a poorly developed facial region, with high frontal and parietal areas of the brain region; strongly developed gluteal muscles, as well as the muscles of the thigh and lower leg; weak development of hair on the body with the complete absence of tufts of tactile hair, or vibrissae, in the eyebrows, mustache and beard.

Possessing a combination of these features, all modern human races are at the same high level of development. physical organization. Although in different races these basic species features are not quite equally developed - some are stronger, others are weaker, but these differences are very small: all races completely have features of the type of modern man, and none of them is Neanderthaloid. In all human races, there is not one that is biologically superior to any other race.

Modern human races have equally lost many of the simian traits that the Neanderthals still had, and have acquired the progressive features of Homo sapiens. Therefore, none of the modern human races can be considered more ape-like or more primitive than others.

Adherents of the false doctrine of superior and inferior races claim that Negroes are more like monkeys than Europeans. Nose scientific point view is completely wrong. Negroes have spirally curled hair, thick lips, a straight or convex forehead, no tertiary hairline on the body and face, and very long legs relative to the body. And these signs indicate that it is Negroes who are more sharply different from chimpanzees. than Europeans. But the latter, in their turn, differ more sharply from monkeys in their very light skin coloration and other features.

Formation of races on earth, is a question that remains open, even for modern science. Where, how, why did races arise? Is there a division into races of the first and second grade, (more:)? What unites people into a single humanity? What traits separate people by nationality?

Skin color in humans

Humanity as a biological species stood out a long time ago. Color of the skin the former of people it was unlikely to be very dark or very white, most likely some skin turned out to be somewhat whiter, others darker. The formation of races on Earth by skin color was influenced by the natural conditions in which certain groups found themselves.

Formation of races on earth

White and black people

For example, some people found themselves in the conditions of the tropical zone of the Earth. Here, the merciless rays of the sun can easily burn the bare skin of a person. We know from physics that black absorbs the rays of the sun more completely. And so black skin seems to be harmful.

But it turns out that only ultra-violet rays burn, and can burn the skin. Pigment coloration becomes like a shield that protects the human skin.

Everyone knows that white man gets faster sunburn than black. In the equatorial steppes of Africa, people with dark color skin, from them the Negroid tribes originated.

This is evidenced by the fact that not only in Africa, but also in all tropical regions of the planet, live black people. The original inhabitants of India are very dark-skinned people. In the tropical steppe regions of America, the people living here turned out to have darker skin than their neighbors, who lived in and hid from the direct rays of the sun in the shade of trees.

Yes, and in Africa, the indigenous inhabitants of the rainforests - pygmies - have lighter skin than their neighbors involved in agriculture and almost always under the sun.

The Negroid race, in addition to skin color, has many other features that have been formed in the process of development, and due to the need to adapt to tropical living conditions. For example, curly black hair protects the head well from overheating in the direct rays of the sun. Narrow elongated skulls are also one of the adaptations from overheating.

The same skull shape is found among the Papuans from New Guinea, (more details:) as well as among the Malanesians, (more details:). Features such as the shape of the skull and skin color helped all these peoples in the struggle for existence.

But why did the skin of the white race turn out to be whiter than that of primitive people? The reason is the same ultraviolet rays, under the influence of which vitamin B is synthesized in the human body.

People of temperate and northern latitudes should have white, transparent for sun rays skin to get as much UV light as possible.

Dark-skinned people constantly experienced vitamin starvation and turned out to be less hardy than white-skinned people.

Mongoloids

Third race - Mongoloids. Under the influence of what conditions its distinctive features were formed? Skin color, apparently, has been preserved from their most distant ancestors, it is well adapted to the harsh conditions of the North and the hot sun.

And here are the eyes. Special mention must be made of them.
It is believed that the Mongoloids first appeared in areas of Asia, located far from all oceans; the continental climate here is characterized by a sharp temperature difference between winter and summer, day and night, and the steppes in these parts are covered with deserts.

Strong winds blow almost continuously and carry a huge amount of dust. In winter, there are sparkling tablecloths of endless snow. And today, travelers in the northern regions of our country put on glasses that protect against this brilliance. And if they are not found, they are paid with an eye disease.

An important distinguishing feature of the Mongoloids is the narrow slits of the eyes. And the second is a small skin fold that covers the inner corner of the eye. It also keeps dust out of the eyes.

This skin fold is commonly referred to as the Mongolian fold. From here, from Asia, people with prominent cheekbones and narrow slits of the eyes dispersed throughout Asia, Indonesia, Australia, and Africa.

But is there another place on Earth with a similar climate? Yes, I have. These are some areas of South Africa. They are inhabited by Bushmen and Hottentots - peoples belonging to the Negroid race. However, the Bushmen here usually have dark yellow skin, narrow eyes and a Mongolian fold in place. At one time, they even thought that Mongoloids who migrated here from Asia live in these parts of Africa. It was only later that this mistake was sorted out.

Division into large human races

So influenced purely natural conditions the main races of the Earth were formed - white, black, yellow. When did it happen? It is not easy to answer such a question. Anthropologists believe that division into large human races occurred not earlier than 200 thousand years ago and not later than 20 thousand.

And probably it was a long process that took 180-200 thousand years. How did it happen - new riddle. Some scientists believe that at first humanity was divided into two races - the European, which then divided into white and yellow, and the equatorial, Negroid.

Others, on the contrary, believe that at first the Mongoloid race separated from the common tree of mankind, and then the Euro-African race divided into whites and blacks. Well, anthropologists divide large human races into small ones.

This division is unstable total number small races varies in the classifications given by different scientists. But there are certainly dozens of small races.

Of course, races differ from each other not only in skin color and eye shape. Modern anthropologists have found a large number of such differences.

Criteria for division into races

But for what criteria compare race? Head shape, brain size, blood type? Scientists have not found any fundamental signs that would characterize any race for better or worse.

brain weight

Proved that brain weight different races are different. But it is also different different people belonging to the same nationality. So, for example, the brain of the brilliant writer Anatole France weighed only 1077 grams, and the brain of no less brilliant Ivan Turgenev reached a huge weight - 2012 grams. It can be confidently said: between these two extremes are placed all the races of the Earth.

The fact that the weight of the brain does not characterize the mental superiority of the race is also indicated by the numbers: average weight the brain of an Englishman 1456 grams, and Indians - 1514, Bantu blacks - 1422 grams, French - 1473 grams. It is known that Neanderthals had a larger brain than modern humans.

It is unlikely that they, however, were smarter than you and me. And yet the racists the globe stayed. They are in the US and South Africa. True, they have no scientific data to confirm their theories.

Anthropologists - scientists who study humanity precisely from the standpoint of the characteristics of individuals and their groups - unanimously assert:

All people on Earth, regardless of their nationality and race, are equal. This does not mean that there are no racial and national characteristics, they are. But they do not determine either mental abilities or any other qualities that could be considered decisive for the division of mankind into higher and lower races.

We can say that this conclusion is the most important of the conclusions of anthropology. But this is not the only achievement of science, otherwise it would not make sense to develop it further. And anthropology is evolving. With its help, it was possible to look into the remotest past of mankind, to understand many previously mysterious moments.

It is anthropological research that allows one to penetrate into the depths of millennia, to the very first days of the appearance of man. Yes, and that long period of history, when people did not yet have writing at their disposal, is becoming clearer thanks to anthropological research.

And, of course, the methods of anthropological research have expanded incomparably. If just a hundred years ago, having met a new unknown people, the traveler limited himself to describing them, but at present this is far from enough.

The anthropologist must now make numerous measurements, leaving nothing unattended - neither the palms of the hands, nor the soles of the feet, nor, of course, the shape of the skull. He takes blood and saliva, prints of feet and hands for analysis, and takes x-rays.

Blood type

All the data obtained are summed up, and special indices are derived from them that characterize a particular group of people. It turns out, and blood types- exactly those blood groups that are used in transfusions - can also characterize the race of people.

It has been established that people with the second blood group are the most in Europe and not at all in South Africa, China and Japan, there are almost no third group in America and Australia, less than 10 percent of Russians have the fourth blood group. By the way, the study of blood groups made it possible to make many important and interesting discoveries.

Well, for example, the settlement of America. It is known that archaeologists, who have been looking for the remains of ancient human cultures in America, they had to state that people appeared here relatively late - only a few tens of thousands of years ago.

Relatively recently, these conclusions were confirmed by the analysis of the ashes of ancient fires, bones, and the remains of wooden structures. It turned out that the figure of 20-30 thousand years quite accurately determines the period that has passed since the days of the first discovery of America by its natives - the Indians.

And this happened in the area of ​​the Bering Strait, from where they moved relatively slowly south to Tierra del Fuego.

The fact that among the indigenous population of America there are no people with the third and fourth blood groups indicates that the first settlers of the giant continent accidentally did not have people with these groups.

The question arises: were there many of these discoverers in this case? Apparently, in order for this randomness to manifest itself, there were few of them. It was they who gave rise to all Indian tribes with an endless variety of their languages, customs, and beliefs.

And further. After this group set foot on the soil of Alaska, no one could follow them there. Otherwise, new groups of people would bring with them one of the important blood factors, the absence of which determines the absence of the third and fourth groups among the Indians.
blood.

But the descendants of the first Columbus reached the Isthmus of Panama. And although in those days there was no canal separating the continents, this isthmus was difficult to overcome for people: tropical swamps, diseases, wild animals, poisonous reptiles and insects made it possible for another, equally small group of people to overcome it.

Proof? Absence of the second blood type among native South Americans. So, the accident repeated itself: among the first settlers of South America there were also no people with the second blood group, as among the first settlers of North America - with the third and fourth groups ...

Probably everyone has read the famous book by Thor Heyerdahl "Journey to Kon-Tiki". This trip was conceived to prove that the ancestors of the inhabitants of Polynesia could come here not from Asia, but from South America.

This hypothesis was prompted by a certain commonality of cultures between Polynesians and South Americans. Heyerdahl understood that even with his magnificent journey he did not provide decisive evidence, but most of the readers of the book, intoxicated by the greatness of the scientific feat and the literary talent of the author, steadily believe in the rightness of the brave Norwegian.

And yet, apparently, the Polynesians are the descendants of Asians, not South Americans. Again, the decisive factor was the composition of the blood. We remember that South Americans do not have a second blood type, and among Polynesians there are many people with such a blood type. You are inclined to believe that the Americans did not take part in the settlement of Polynesia ...

For many years, gymnasium No. 2 of the city of Zaraysk has been operating in an innovative mode. Since 1990, I have been conducting in-depth training in biology in grades 10-11, and in connection with the modernization of education, I carry out specialized training for high school students.

I try to make each lesson interesting for students: I involve them in active work in the lesson, using lecture material, seminars, test-lessons, and a research project.

The topic "Human races" is studied at school in the lessons of geography, history and biology. Interdisciplinary connections contribute to the integration of knowledge, better assimilation and formation of the integrity of knowledge in this issue. The knowledge gained in the lessons of geography and history is supplemented and developed by biological ones.

1 hour is allotted to study this topic in a general education class, but when planning educational material in the profile class I take - 2 hours (due to the lessons of generalization and repetition). I conduct a lesson in a lecture form, using reports prepared in advance by students.

Epigraph to the lesson: “... peoples, forgetting strife,
united in a great family ... "

A.S. Pushkin

Lesson objectives: to form students' knowledge about the properties of a person as a biological species, about the characteristics of human races, to analyze the causes of their occurrence, to form a concept of the unity of origin and biological equivalence of human races; give a reasoned critique of racism and “social Darwinism”; in the process of forming the concept of "human races" to use interdisciplinary connections with the course of history and geography: knowledge of questions about the population of the Earth, the geography of the world's population (VI, VII, X classes).

Equipment: world map, table “Human races”.

Lesson plan:

1. Introduction.

2. The main races of man. Evidence of the unity of races.

3. Time and place of origin of human races.

4. The mechanism of racial genesis.

5. False theory of racism.

6. Conclusion. Findings.

Learning new material. Teacher's lecture.

Teacher: The driving forces of anthropogenesis are biological and social factors. In the early stages of human evolution, natural selection and the struggle for existence (intraspecific) were leading. At the stage of neoanthropes, they lost their meaning and were replaced by social ones. As a result, the biological evolution of man almost stopped. A person in basic terms no longer changes, he only remakes the environment around him, and does not adapt to it.

However, the social structure of human society did not completely isolate man from nature.

A race is a historically formed group of mankind, united by a common origin and a common hereditary physical characteristics (skin color, hair, head shape).

Teacher: All modern humanity belongs to a single polymorphic species - Homo sapiens.

This unity of mankind is based on a common origin, socio-psychological development, on the unlimited ability to interbreed people of even very different races, as well as on an almost identical level of general physical and mental development of representatives of all races.

Three main races are well known: Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid.

Student message: Caucasoids - people, as a rule, with straight or wavy, often blond hair, with fair skin. Their beard and mustache usually grow strongly, the face is narrow, with a protruding nose (i.e. profiled), the width of the nose is small, the nostrils are parallel to each other. The eyes are set horizontally, the fold of the upper eyelid is absent or poorly developed, the jaw part of the face does not protrude forward (orthognathous skull), the lips are usually thin. Now Caucasians live on all continents, but they formed in Europe and Western Asia.

Mongoloids tend to have coarse, straight and dark hair. Their skin is darker, with a yellowish tint, beard and mustache grow weaker than that of Caucasians. The face is wide, flattened, the cheekbones strongly protrude, the nose, on the contrary, is flattened, the nostrils are located at an angle to each other. The eyes are very characteristic: they are often narrow, outer corner the eye is slightly higher than the inner one (slantness). The upper eyelid in typical ones is closed by a skin fold, sometimes to the very eyelashes, there is an epicanthus (a fold in the inner edge of the eye covering the lacrimal tubercle). Lips are medium in thickness. This race predominates in Asia.

Negroids are people with curly black hair, very dark skin and brown eyes. The beard and mustache, like those of the Mongoloids, grow weakly. The face is narrow and low, the nose is wide. The eyes are wide open, the fold of the upper eyelid is poorly developed, the epicanthus is usually absent in adults. The protrusion of the jaw part of the face (prognathous skull) is also characteristic. The lips are usually thick, often swollen. Classic Negroids live in Africa. Similar people found throughout the equatorial belt of the Old World.

Teacher: However, not all groups of humanity can be divided into 3 main trunks. First of all, the American Indians drop out. By tradition, they are often referred to as Mongoloids. But the epicanthus is rare in adult Indians, and the face, with an aquiline protruding nose, is profiled in the same way as in Caucasians. That is why a separate race of Amerindians is distinguished.

The same can be said about the inhabitants of Australia and nearby islands. They are dark-skinned, but the hair of typical Australian aborigines is not curly, but wavy, the beard and mustache grow profusely, and in terms of the structure of the teeth, the composition of the blood, and finger patterns, they are closer to the Mongoloids.

That. not three, but five main races should be distinguished. In addition, each of the trunks can be divided into many groupings. It is known that the Southerners, the inhabitants of Southern Europe, are most often brunettes, of medium height. And in the North of Europe, tall, fair-haired and blue-eyed people live. The Mongoloids are also heterogeneous, even if the Amerindians are excluded. The appearance, for example, of a Vietnamese differs from that of a Buryat, and a Chinese from a Kyrgyz. Negroids are also different from each other. Among them, the smallest people of our Earth are known - the pygmies of the river basin. Congo (141 cm on average in adult males) and the tallest living near Lake Chad (182 cm). Australoids are no less diverse: sometimes they have curly hair, skin color, facial profiling and other features vary no less strongly.

As a result, anthropologists identify several dozen human races - the so-called races of the second and third order. There are contact groups (45 million of the population of our country belongs to the transitional Caucasoid-Mongoloid type).

It can be said that now, in the era of intense contacts between peoples and the withering away of racial prejudices, there are practically no “pure” races.

Evidence of the unity of races.

Student's message: Undoubtedly, all the basic "human" characters were acquired by our ancestors before the divergence of the species into separate races. Differences between races concern only minor features, usually associated with particular adaptations to specific conditions of existence. In terms of brain mass, the differences between individual territorial groups turn out to be greater than between different large races (for example, the average brain mass of Russians and Ukrainians is 1391 g, and that of Buryats is 1508 g).

Additional evidence of the unity of mankind is, for example, the localization of skin patterns such as arcs on the second finger in representatives of all races (in anthropoid apes - on the fifth), the same character of the arrangement of hair on the head, etc.

Consider some adaptive racial traits. The dark color of the skin turns out to be an adaptation to solar radiation; dark skin is less damaged by the rays of the sun, since the melanin layer in the skin prevents ultraviolet rays from penetrating deep into the skin and protects it from burns. Such a protective coloration is accompanied by a generally more perfect ability for thermoregulation (especially after overheating) of dark-skinned races. The curly hair on the Negro's head creates, as it were, a dense felt hat that reliably protects the head from the scorching rays of the sun (there are more air cavities in the hair of the Negroes than in the hair of the Mongoloids, which further increases the thermal insulation properties of the hair). The elongated, high shape of the skull, characteristic of tropical races, should apparently also be considered as a kind of adaptation that prevents the head from overheating. The very large size of the nasal cavity (characteristic of some Caucasoid races), possibly in the past and in its origin, was associated with the need to create a kind of “heating chamber” for cold air (large noses are characteristic of the indigenous inhabitants of the Caucasus and the Central Asian highlands). The deposition of fatty tissue on the face in Mongoloid children in the past could have had an adaptive value as an adaptation against freezing in cold continental winters. The narrowness of the palpebral fissure, the fold of the eyelid, the epicanthus, characteristic of the Mongoloids, can also have an adaptive character as features that help protect the eye from wind, dust, and sunlight reflected from the snows.

Time and place of origin of human races.

Teacher's Lecture: It seems that at least three main trunks arose a very long time ago. This is evidenced by the finds in Africa of skulls of the Negroid type, in Asia - of the Mongoloid type. European Cro-Magnons, in turn, were Caucasians.

AT recent times the proximity of the races was studied by the methods of biochemical genetics. According to these data, it turns out that the common ancestor of all races lived 90-92 thousand years ago.

It was then that the separation of the two trunks took place - the large Mongoloid (including the Amerindians) and the Caucasoid-Negroid (including the Australoids). The Australians entered their mainland 50 thousand years ago. Apparently, they retained more features of our common ancestor. The separation of Caucasians and Negroids occurred 40 thousand years ago, and for a long time they lived together.

The Mongoloid race also took a long time to form. Not yet possessing all the features of the Mongoloids, the ancient hunters penetrated from Asia to North America, and then to South America. Apparently, there were three waves of migrations that led to the emergence of the Amerindians: the Paleo-Indian (40-16 thousand years ago, the latest data “ancient” this date to 70 thousand years), language group Na-Dene (its languages ​​still show a certain similarity with the languages ​​of the ancient population of Siberia - 12-14 thousand years ago) and Escaleut (about 9 thousand years ago, which gave rise to the Eskimos and Aleuts). Only participants in the first, Paleo-Indian wave penetrated into South America. This is only the most general, crude scheme of the origin of races. Much of it still needs to be clarified.

Theories of monocentrism and polycentrism.

Student's message: There has been a debate in anthropology over the years: did each race originate in one place (monocentrism) or in different places, independently of each other (polycentrism)? More determined researchers assumed that each race originates from “their” Neanderthals or even archanthropes. It has been argued that Homo sapiens arose in different places independently and even from different species of monkeys. The latter point of view is no longer taken seriously. It is excluded that the process of evolution several times came to the same result. Proponents of polycentrism pointed out that the Chinese archanthropes (Synanthropes) had features, such as spatulate incisors, bringing them closer to the Mongoloids. But all paleoanthropes, including European Neanderthals, had such incisors. It is more logical to consider that this is an ancient sign lost by Caucasians and Negroids.

Now monocentrism is considered more reasonable. It is another matter that many human racial groupings turned out to be artificial, unrelated populations united in them. For example, Negroids and Australoids were united into a common equatorial race. Throughout the tropical zone in humid jungle conditions, from the river basin. Congo to Indonesia, dwarf tribes arose. Now it is believed that they arose independently, perhaps due to a deficiency of trace elements. But it was believed that these were the remains of an ancient race of negrils, previously distributed throughout the equatorial zone.

In anthropogenesis, the problem of poly- and monocentrism is not the only one, it is adjacent to another, more important one - the reasons for the emergence of human races, the mechanisms of race genesis.

Mechanisms of racegenesis.

Teacher's lecture: There are two main mechanisms for changing the gene composition (gene pool) of a population - natural selection and genetic-automatic processes (gene drift is a process of random non-directional change in allele frequencies in a population). Selection preserves and distributes adaptive traits in a population; genetic drift in small populations can fix neutral traits that do not increase or decrease the probability of leaving offspring under given conditions.

Both of these mechanisms also acted during the emergence of human races, but the role of each of them is still being clarified. Many characteristics of races are undoubtedly adaptive. Genetic drift can change the traits of a population if it is not prevented by selection.

Humanity is changing even now, the processes of gracilization and acceleration are especially widespread.

Gracilization - a decrease in the overall massiveness of the skeleton - is mainly due to the fact that a person is less and less engaged in physical, muscular work. In parallel, there is a process of acceleration - accelerating the development of the whole organism. Now, at infants earlier, the mass doubles, milk teeth are replaced by permanent ones. Over the past 100 years, teenagers have become 15-16 cm taller.

All these changes go in parallel in representatives of different races. The races themselves are gradually losing their characteristic set of features. This is explained by the fact that more and more people are, as it were, isolated from the external environment, moving to life in cities and well-maintained villages.

Under such conditions, racial traits cease to be adaptive, selection has little effect. Genetic-automatic processes play a role at small population sizes (less than 400 breeding individuals). Even now this figure is higher and continues to grow with the withering away of racial, national and class prejudices.

And most importantly, there is now almost no geographical isolation between races, and the process of mixing races has increased unusually. When, according to Pushkin, “... peoples, having forgotten strife, will unite in a great family ...”; all mankind in a few hundred generations will merge into a single planetary race.

False theory of racism.

Student's message: Racism is a theory based on an anti-scientific assertion about the unequal value of races, a reactionary theory and a policy of domination of "superior", "full" races on "lower" "inferior".

The view of a reasonable person is a polymorphic view. However, intraspecific variability does not affect precisely those features by which a person differs from monkeys and the animal world in general: representatives of all races have a complex brain, a developed hand and speech, which makes them equally capable of cognizing large amounts of information, creative and labor activity. All this renders untenable attempts to consider this or that race higher, more perfect than others. Such attempts have been made for a long time. The Spanish conquerors of South and Central America tried to justify the brutal extermination of the Indians by the fact that they did not come from Adam and Eve, and, therefore, not people (primitive polycentrism). Subsequently, the allegedly existing inferiority of other peoples was tried to be based on scientific data (misinterpreted or simply false). At the same time, they often made a deliberately gross mistake: they identified peoples with races. In fact, there is no Chinese, Russian, German, Jewish race - there is a race of eastern Mongoloids, northern and southern branches of the Caucasoid race, etc. Each sufficiently large people is heterogeneous in racial composition. In addition, now it is meaningless to talk about “pure” races, there are no such races on Earth anymore, and one group of people, as a rule, gradually passes into another.

Modern racism has nothing to do with real science and is supported only by reactionary circles for political purposes.

Adjacent to racist theories is “social Darwinism”, which considers social inequality as a consequence of the biological inequality of people resulting from natural selection.

Teacher questions for students:

1. On what grounds did the division of mankind into races proceed?

2. Give a description of the main races of man.

3. What are the prospects for the evolution of races on the planet?

4. What data is used to determine the time and place of the formation of races according to the existing theory?

5. What mechanisms underlie the formation of races?

6. What facts will you rely on, proving the falsity of the theory of racism?

Conclusion and conclusions.

(The results of the lesson are summed up by the teacher).

Homo sapiens arose as a result of biological evolution from one of the branches of the phylogenetic tree of the order of primates. At the same time, the features that now characterize man and distinguish him from the animal kingdom did not arise immediately and not simultaneously, but over the course of millions of years. The most significant stage in the development of Homo sapiens was the emergence of labor activity, the production of tools, which became a turning point from biological history to social history.

The peculiarity of the evolution of the genus Homo is that biological evolutionary factors are gradually losing their leading importance, giving way to social factors.

Having arisen in the process of evolution as part of the animal world, Homo sapiens as a result of socio-historical development stood out from nature to such an extent that he acquired power over it. How intelligently and far-sightedly he will be able to use this power is a question of the future.

References:

1. Ruvinsky A.O. General biology. Textbook for grades 10-11 with in-depth study of biology. - M., 1993.

2. Yablokov A.V., Yusufov A.G. evolutionary doctrine. - M., 1981.

3. Sokolova N.P. Biology. - M., 1987.

Four human races are considered (some scientists insist on three): Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid and Australoid. How does division take place? Each race has hereditary characteristics that are unique to it. These features include the color of the skin, eyes and hair, the shape and size of such parts of the face as the eyes, nose, lips. In addition to external explicit hallmarks of any race of a person, there are also a number of characteristics of creative potential, abilities for a particular work activity, and even features of the structure of the human brain.

Speaking of the four large groups, one cannot but say that they are all divided into small sub-races, which are formed from various nationalities and nationalities. No one has been arguing about the species unity of man for a long time, the best proof of this very unity is our life, in which representatives of different races marry and get married, and viable children are born in these.

The origin of races, or rather their formation, begins thirty to forty thousand years ago, when people begin to populate new geographical areas. A person adapted to live in certain conditions, and the development of certain racial characteristics depended on this. identified these features. At the same time, all human races retained common species features that characterize Homo sapiens. Evolutionary development, or rather its level, is the same for representatives of different races. Therefore, all statements about the superiority of any nation over others have no basis. The concepts of "race", "nation", "ethnicity" should not be mixed and confused, since representatives of different races speaking the same language can live on the territory of one state.

Caucasoid race: inhabiting Asia, North Africa. Northern Caucasians are fair-faced, and southerners are dark-skinned. Narrow face, strongly protruding nose, soft hair.

Mongoloid race: the center and eastern part of Asia, Indonesia and the expanses of Siberia. Dark skin with a yellowish tint, straight coarse hair, a wide flat face and a special slit in the eyes.

Negroid race: the majority of the population of Africa. The skin is dark in color, dark brown eyes, black hair - thick, coarse, curly, large lips, and the nose is wide and flat.

Australian race. Some scientists distinguish it as a branch of the Negroid race. India, Southeast Asia, Australia and Oceania (ancient black population). Strongly developed superciliary arches, pigmentation of which is weakened. Some Australoids of the west of Australia, the south of India, in their youth are natural blondes, the reason for this is the once-fixed mutation process.

The characteristics of each human race are hereditary. And their development was primarily due to the necessity and usefulness of a particular trait to a representative of a particular race. So, extensive warms faster and easier cold air before it enters the lungs of the Mongoloid. And for a representative of the Negroid race, it was very important dark color skin and the presence of thick curly hair that formed air layer which reduces the effect of sunlight on the body.

Long years White race was considered the highest, since it was beneficial for Europeans and Americans, conquering the peoples of Asia and Africa. They unleashed wars and seized foreign lands, mercilessly exploited, and sometimes simply destroyed entire nations.

Today in America, for example, they look less and less at racial differences, there is a mixture of races, which sooner or later will necessarily lead to the appearance of a hybrid population.

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 human races?

Human predecessors are Australopithecus;
- the most ancient people - progressive australopithecines, archanthropes (pithecanthropes, synanthropes, Heidelberg man, etc.);
- ancient people - paleoanthropes (Neanderthals);
- fossil people of the 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 types of living organisms. However, a person is characterized by such a unique phenomenon for wildlife as an increasing influence on anthropogenesis. social factors (labor activity, social way of life, speech and thinking).

For a modern person, social and labor relations have become 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 canceled the action of biological factors. Social sphere only changed their expression. Homo sapiens as a species is integral part biosphere and the product of its evolution.

These are historically formed groupings (groups of populations) of people, characterized by the similarity of morphological and physiological features. 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 Australo-Negroid (Equatorial).

Chapter 8

Fundamentals of ecology

After reading this chapter, you will learn:

What does ecology study and why does every person need to know its basics;
- what is the significance of environmental factors: abiatic, biotic and anthropogenic;
- what role do the environmental conditions and internal properties of the population group play in the processes of change in its size over time;
- about various types interactions of organisms;
- about the features of competitive relations and factors that determine the outcome of competition;
- on 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

Even in the middle of the XX century. the word ecology was known only to specialists, but now it has become very popular; most often it is used, speaking 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 vast science that it can cover most of the problems facing humanity?

Kamensky A. A., Kriksunov E. V., Pasechnik V. V. Biology Grade 10
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