RACIAL CRITERIA
Synopsis
Subject : Anthropology
Duration :
This programme on Racial Criteria emphasises to discuss the classification of people into different categories of stature and their association with the three major racial groups, the Caucasoid, the Mongoloid and the Negroid. It also highlights the importance and use of different morphological features to distinguish major racial groups. The importance of features like head form, nose form, eye colour and shape as well as the facial form in using them as important criteria to distinguish major racial groups is also highlighted here.
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Objectives :
The main objectives of this module are:
• to classify people into different categories of stature and their association with the three major racial groups, the Caucasoid, the Mongoloid and the Negroid.
• to highlight the importance and use of different morphological features to distinguish major racial groups.
• to emphasize the features like head form, nose form, eye colour and shape as well as the facial form in using them as important criteria to distinguish major racial groups.
RACIAL CRITERIA
Subject : Anthropology
Duration :
Introduction
The racial criteria means such characteristic features that can classify or differentiate one population from that of another population. Racial classifications are made on the basis of certain genetic traits. Such types of traits used in classification of races are referred to as racial criteria. The racial criteria should fulfil certain requirements. Robert Boyd (1948 - ) suggested a few conditions which should be satisfied by criteria chosen for racial classification. The important requirements are as follows:
(i) A criterion must be objective, so that different investigators do not show individual variation in identifying and classifying the concerned traits.
(ii) A criterion should be non-adaptive, so that natural selection cannot play effective role.
(iii) A criterion should not be modified to a large extent by environmental factor.
(iv) A criterion should not be subject to a high rate of mutation.
(v) A criterion should be controlled by a known genetic mechanism.
In brief, “A race is a great division of mankind, the members of which, though individually varying, are characterized as a group by a certain combination of morphological and metrical features, principally non-adaptive, which have been derived from their common descent.” (E.A. Hooton, 1926).
Racial Classification
Some of the important classical characters or traits used for racial classification are: skin colour, hair, head form, face, nose, eye, stature, blood groups, and dermatoglyphics.
(i) Skin Colour
Skin colour is used as one of the important racial criterion for classification of populations into different groups. Skin colour of an individual is based on the quantity of the melanin, black pigment, present in the skin. Person with lower quantity of melanin will have lighter skin colour, whereas higher the quantity of melanin will have darker skin colour. Broadly speaking, three shades of skin colour are seen in man. Therefore, using skin colour as a racial criterion the populations of the world are basically divided into three major racial categories such as –Leucoderms or the white skinned people; Xanthoderms or the yellow-skinned people; and Melanoderms or black-skinned people.
Leucoderms are more often found among the Caucasoid population group, Xanthoderms are frequently associated with Mongoloid people whereas, Melanoderms are invariably found among the Negroids. However, there are peoples who have different shades of skin colour that varied from the above three major categories of skin colour. To solve this, Luschan Felix von Luschan (1854-1924) and Eugen Fischer (5 July 1874 – 9 July 1967), Fischer proposed different categories of skin colour to classify individuals into major racial categories and its sub-types.
Table 1: Luschan and Fischer’s skin colour classification
Skin colour / CategoriesYellow / Yellow White
Carmine White
Yellowish
White / Fawn White
Carmine White
Pinkish White
Brown / Light Brown
Medium Brown
Dark Brown
Reddish Brown
Black / Greyish Brown
Black
The yellow skin colour and its variants are associated with the Mongoloid people, while the White skin colour and its different shades are prevalent among the Caucasoids. Different shades of brown colour are found among other Asian groups who are sub-types of Caucasoids and the American Indians who are variants of Mongoloids. The black skin colour is associated with the Negroids who are frequently present in Africa and parts of America besides some other Asia Pacific islands.
(ii) Stature
Stature is an important criterion for understanding the classification of racial groups. It is employed to characterise various racial groups. Stature shows a considerable range of variation within certain limits among the same group of people, for example, a group characterized by short stature, may include some tall stature, may include some tall statured persons also, and vice versa. The scale used by Martin’s classification is commonly used.
Table 2: Categories of stature (according to Martin, 1927)
Height categories / Range in cm.Pygmy / up to 129.9
Very short / 130-149.9
Short / 150-159.9
Lower Medium / 160.0-163.9
Medium medium / 164.0-166.9
Upper medium / 167.0-169.9
Tall / 170.0-179.0
Very tall / 180.0-199.0
Giants / 200.0 onwards
Tall stature is characteristic of Sikhs and Rajputs of India and also of the North Western Europeans. It is also found in other parts of Europe and among the Northern Chinese. Nilotic Negroes are also tall people. Mediterraneans, Alpines, Armenoids, Dravidians are some of the medium-statured peoples. Melanesians are short in stature; though the shortest group of mankind i.e. pygmies are represented by Andamanese and Negrilloes.
However, it requires careful consideration because environmental conditions have an important effect on stature. Under varied environmental conditions different results may produced. For example, stature is notably influenced by general nutritive conditions and the internal secretions of important glands like pituitary, thymus and gonads. Stature is also equally affected by hereditary factor too. Thus, it is generally believed that stature is dependent upon an association of paratypical (environmental) and diotypical (hereditary) factor. This does not mean that all the tall races or the pygmy races are genetically related to one another. They may not have any genealogical relationship.
(iii) Hair
Hair is also one of the most convenient and striking character that provide the basis for classification of races. Some of the important characteristics of hair used in racial classification are – hair form, hair colour and texture.
Important characteristic types of hair form may be broadly classified into three types such as leiotrichous (smooth form), cymotrichous (wavy form), and Ulotrichous (woolly form). In general, Mongoloid races have leiotrichous form of hair, cymotrichous among the Caucasoids whereas Negroes possess ulotrichous hair. The colour of hair shows a wide range of variation, especially in Europe and parts of Northern Asia. Among the Mediterraneans, hair is of darker colour, while in Northern Europe it is lighter ranging from light brown to reddish colour. Dark hair is common everywhere. Texture of hair may be coarse, medium or fine. The Chinese and the Japanese posses coarse hair while Caucasoid show medium hair.
(iv) Head
Head is readily measureable and is relatively independent of environmental fluctuations and hence it is a very important character. Therefore, it is used as a racial criterion by the Anthropologists. Cranial Index (CI), the ratio of the maximum head breadth to the maximum of head length multiplied by 100 is used for the classification of the population groups.
Cranial Index (CI) = (Breadth of Head / Length of Head) X 100
Table: Cephalic Index/Cranial Index (CI)
CI categories / Range in cm.Hyperdolichocephalic / up to 69.9
Dolichocephalic / 70.0-75.9
Mesocephalic / 76.0-80.9
Brachycephalic / 81.0-85.5
Hyperbrachycephalic / 85.6 onwards
According to the obtained value, it can be classified into different categories such as dolichocephalic (narrow head), mesocephalic (medium head) and brachycephalic (broad head). It is known that, Caucasoids have dolichocephalic to brachycephalic head form while negroids showed predominantly of dolichocephalic head form. Brachycephalic head form is quite common among the Mongoloids.
(v) Eye
Hooton has distinguished only two sharply contrasted varieties of eyes in modern man they are – the Mongoloid eye and the non-Mongoloid eye. In typical Mongoloid eye - the outer angle is higher than the inner angle, the slit (eye opening) is narrow and more interestingly the inner epicanthus (epicanthic) fold is present in varying degrees. As the name implies ‘the Mongoloid eye’ is found among the Mongoloid people and people having Mongoloid admixture. The typical non-Mongoloid eye is wide open and straight. The eye fold is not observed. This is found to occur in the members of the Caucasoid group.
(vi) Dermatoglyphics
Dermatoglyphics (derma – skin; glyphics - carve) means the study of the ridge patterns of the skin of the finger, palms, toes and soles. Galton has classified the various finger patterns into three types they are arches (A), loops (L), and whorls (W). The loop may be further classified into ulnar (Lu) and radial loop (Lr) based on the opening side. Such classification of finger patterns may be identified from the occurrence of triradius i.e. whorl posses two triradii, while only one triradius is present in loops. On the other hand, triradius is absent in arches.
Classification of Racial groups can also be made on the basis of frequency distribution of finger patterns. In general, whorls are most frequent among the Mongoloid population and least among the Caucasoid population. On the other hand, loops appear most frequently among the Caucasoid groups, while among the Mongoloid and Negroid groups - loops are found more or less equal frequencies.
(vii) Blood Group
In the study of racial groups, classification of racial groups using blood group is a new approach. Frequency distribution of Blood group of a particular population is found to have varied from other groups. For example, Caucasoids showed relatively high incidence of A2 with highest frequency of Rh-ve as compared to the other racial groups. Comparatively high incidence of blood group B with moderate frequency of Rh-ve is observed among the Negroids while low incidence of blood group A2 and rare distribution of Rh-ve is the characteristics features of Mongoloids.
Recent trends on Racial Criteria
These schemes of classification of human populations were largely based on morphological and anthropometric characters. In the last few decades, however, new methods with elaborate statistics and biometry along with the latest concepts on human genetics have added fresh dimension to the study of human population groups. Polymorphism of genes gives a tremendous knowledge in the study of different population groups. Study of haplotypes, inheritance of a cluster of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) in the DNA sequence among individuals, can help in constructing the haplotype maps showing the distribution of various haplogroups across the world.
Indian Context
Based on the above racial criteria, people of India can be classified into different racial groups who have shared common morphological features. Moreover, they can also be classified on the basis of geographical regions. For example, most of the population inhabiting in North-East India are basically of Mongoloid features whereas, Central and Southern part of India are predominantly inhabited by peoples having Australoid and Negroid racial elements respectively. However, the Caucasoid and Indo-Aryan elements are confined to the Northern part of the country.
Conclusion
At present, classification of humans into different racial groups is replaced by the term ethnic group. As we know that there is only one human species, there are no objective reasons for splitting at any lower sub-groups. According to the American Anthropological Association, the present day inequalities between human groups are not consequences of their biological inheritance; rather, these inequalities are products of historical and contemporary social, economic, educational and political circumstances.
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Summary
The application of different somatometric measurements and somatoscopic (morphological) observations in racial classification like skin colour and hair form and colour is used basically to distinguish major races of the world. The different stature categories ranging from pygmy, short, medium, tall, very tall to giant have been used to differentiate Caucasoids, Mongoloids and Negroids. Different shades of skin colour and hair colour have also been used to distinguish the major races. Similarly head form, eyes, nose and face form are also important criteria used for distinguishing the major racial groups.
Glossary
1. Racial criteria: Traits used in classification of races
2. Leucoderms: The white skinned people
3. Xanthoderms:The yellow-skinned people
4. Melanoderms: Black-skinned people
5. Melanin: Pigment having black which is mainly reflected in the skin colour.
6. Cephalic index: It is a ratio between breadth and length of the head.
7. Pygmy: People with short height (approximately less than 129.9cm)
8. Dermatoglyphics: Study of the ridge patterns of the skin of the finger, palms, toes and soles.
9. Haplotypes: Inheritance of a cluster of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) in the DNA sequence
10. mtDNA: Mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acid
FAQs
1. Which racial elements are confined to the Northern parts of India?
Ans: Caucasoid elements are predominantly confined to the Northern India.
2. Can blood groups be considered as racial criteria?
Ans.Yes, Anthropologists have considered ABO blood group system for classifying races.
3. What is stature?
Ans.It is a term used to define the height of an individual.
4. Can fingerprint patterns be used as racial criteria?
Ans.Yes, fingerprint patterns were used for differentiating racial groups.
5. Who are Negroids?
Ans. Negroids are those people who possess long heads coupled with very broad nose and spiral or peppercorn type of hair.
6. What are somatoscopic traits?
Ans.Somatoscopic traits are the morphological features of an individual that are useful in differentiating racial groups.
7. Who are mongoloids?
Ans. Mongoloids are those people who have straight and coarse hair coupled with small noses and exhibit epicanthic eye fold
8. What would be the type of head if the cranial index exceeds beyond 81.0?
Ans.It would be a brachycephalic type of head.
9. What is meant by cephalic Index?
Ans. It is a ratio between maximum head breadth and maximum head length.
10. Which major racial group exhibit maximum variation in eye colour?
Ans.Caucasoids exhibit maximum variation in eye colour.
Quiz
1. Which racial elements are confined to the North-Eastern parts of India?
(a) Caucasoid
(b) Negroid
(c) Mongoloid
Ans: (c) Mongoloid
2. Important characteristic features of Mongoloid is ______
(a) Dolicocephalic head
(b) Epicanthic eyefold
(c) Narrow nose
Ans: (b) Epicanthic eyefold
3. Which DNA is appropriate for tracing the matrilineal line?
(a) Y-DNA
(b) nDNA
(c) mtDNA
Ans: (c) mtDNA
4. Which DNA is appropriate for tracing the patrilineal line?
(a) Y-DNA
(b) nDNA
(c) mtDNA
Ans: (a) Y-DNA
5. Who possesses the broadest nose?
(a) Caucasoid
(b) Negroid
(c) Australoid
Ans.(b) Negroid
Assignment:
1. Describe the use of Stature as criteria for racial classification.
2. How would you make use of skin colour in racial classification?
3. Discuss the relevance of hair (colour and form) in differentiation of major races.
4. Discuss how different categories of stature are associated with major races of the world.
5. How would you make use of head form in differentiating major races?
6. Describe various criteria that have been used to differentiate major races.
7. Discuss the importance of eye colour and form in discriminating racial groups.
References
1. Baker, John R. (1974). Race.Oxford University Press. London & New York
2. Brace, L.L. (2005).Race is a four letter word. Oxford University Press.London & New York.
3. Hooton, E.A. 1926.Methods of racial classification .Science.63:75-81.
4. Kall A.K. 1994. The Ethnology of India.MunshiramManoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi.
5. Montagu, A. (1997) Man’s most dangerous myth: The fallacy of race. Altamira Press.
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