Taking up a old discussion, I think it is impossible to make a clear assertion of different "European races", that are either unrelated enough as to deserve a categorical discrimination, and on the same time common enough in pure variety in the modern population of Europe to actually call them "races".
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Originally Posted by Mynydd
Anthropology? Before starting to define sub-races, it seems that all derive more or less from at least two types from the Upper Paleolithic: the Aurignacoids and the Cromagnoids. So there we have at least two races.
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Europeans may indeed all derive from two "races" of humans - but to say that those two racial types are dominant today would require categorization of the additional sub-races, and to define objectively which of these two supposed mother races they derive from. I dont think you can objectively discount the likeliness that many sub-races are in fact the result of admixture between these humans - and even the sub-races have mixed so much, that there population of Europe which is dominantly 1 sub-race is much lesser than the population of Europe which is mixed, consisting of different "races" or "sub-races".
Even if one proto-Europid race does not exist, the two races that would supposedly define "Europid" (indigenous to Europe) have mixed so much, that it is no longer valid to use them in a modern context. It is not even valid to use the sub-races of Europid, since they too, have mixed in a modern context, where these sub-races are far from separate.
That is only an assumption though, since the hypothetical existence of one ancestral proto-Europid is a possibility, that I dont see has been refuted, nor made necessary to speculate further on.
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Originally Posted by Mynydd
Now, are we all pretty mixed even at the level genetics and of the assumed races and their sub-divisions? Sure we are, but often one type is predominant over the others and it is there where differences start.
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Some sub-races may be predominant in some areas, but unless you can give an example of it, I dont see any racial pattern in Europe which can be clearly defined and specified as such - the admixture is simply too high to talk of European races in modern times.
Further, even the geographically remoter (or at least supposedly) sub-races such as Mediterranid and Nordid are often cited as being related. I've heard Nordid referred to even as a sub-strand of Mediterranid on many occasions. I dont think the Nordid race is as significant in reality as many anthropologists and anthropology "enthusiasts" would have it, since it isnt even predominant in the Nordic countries. The fact that it is based on pigmentation is really the essence of it - it is, perhaps, a depigmented Mediterranid variety with high rates of blondism, and any attempt to specify its specific racial qualities will always result in failing to some extent, because it gets subjective, and many will disagree.
Since pigmentation is the most easily mutating quality which is considered racial, it should be discounted when possible, especially in individual cases. Or else, you will end up with ideas such as "the Nordish race".
Since Europe is the most genetically homogeneous continent of the world, we are forced to assert that the sub-races or proposed races are after all more closely related ancestrally than i.e. the sub-races of any other continent. Many people like to see Europe as the most diverse continent, but in reality we are one of the most homogeneous ones, all though we have much visible variation - such as pigmentation, and hair color. Judging from i.e. African people I've seen through time, I dont think we can say they have less craniofacial variation though - their skulls are widely known for being much more diverse than European by anthropologists, and this diversity is also the reason why many people believe in the out of Africa model.
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Originally Posted by Kalevi
A European (or Caucasoid) race does exist, and it is clearly and well differentiated from African and East-Asian races but has lots of internal variation too. I don't have a strong opinion about what is a sensible way to map this internal variation, but what I see is mostly a great mess of partially overlapping gradients instead of anything compact.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/science/26human.html |
Agreed. We must look at any racial concept of all of Europe as a scope/spectrum, not 1 or 2 phenotypes/genotypes, with sub-types. Genetic clusters also attest to the factuality of a such approach and view of the anthropology of modern Europe. Perhaps at the time of their origin it would be valid to do so, but after they have been mixed in every population of the continent, there is only a diffused spectrum left. This spectrum fades as we move away from Europe, but I believe even cultural factors also do so - and then it is not so hard to understand why there may be Middle Eastern or North African Europids. These regions have just had much more non-Europid admixture than the Europids of Europe, which is also what makes them distinguishable today, but I believe in ancient ages, before this admixture, it would be easier to take them for Europid, such as when the Egyptians depicted the Asians and Lybians as light-brown haired, pale-skinned peoples.