Caucasian
The term "Caucasian" historically refers to people of White European descent and was first introduced by German anatomist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in 1795. In his work, Blumenbach categorized humanity into five racial types, naming the European variety "Caucasian" based on his belief that their ancestors originated in the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between Europe and Asia. He regarded these individuals as the epitome of beauty and the first humans, asserting that they were the ancestors of all other racial groups. Over time, "Caucasian" became a standard term alongside others like "Mongoloid" for Asians and "Negroid" for Africans, often used to describe shared physical traits among these groups. However, since the mid-20th century, there has been a significant shift away from these racial classifications. Contemporary understanding emphasizes that such categories lack biological validity, as genetic diversity within groups is often greater than between them. Social scientists now favor population genetics and clinal models over traditional typological distinctions. Despite this, the term "Caucasian" persists in some contexts today.
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Caucasian
Caucasian is a term long-used to describe people of White (European) descent. The term was first introduced by the German anatomist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in 1795. In his book De generis humani varietate nativa, or On the Natural Varieties of Mankind (1975), Blumenbach divided humanity into five varieties, or types: Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, American, and Malay. He gave the name Caucasian to the European type because he believed that the ancestors of the Europeans originated in the Caucasus Mountains on the border of Europe and Asia from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea. He argued that the people of that area were the most beautiful humans, and because they were the ideal humans, they must have been the first ones created. Blumenbach then asserted that the Europeans were the ancestors of all the other types.
After Blumenbach’s development of the term, Caucasian, and its variant, “Caucasoid,” became the standard word used to refer to White people. In common usage, this term, along with its typological companion terms “Mongoloid” (for people of Asian descent) and “Negroid” (for people of African descent), came to be used popularly to describe a group of people who shared not only a common descent but also similar physical traits, such as hair form and body shape.
Since the mid-twentieth century, however, scientists and the general public have moved away from using these terms. Most modern practitioners agree that such racial categories are artificial social constructs with no biological basis and that while genetics do point to regional differences among groups, intragroup variation is wider than intergroup variation. Among social scientists who study race, ethnicity, and genetic variation, population genetics and clinal models have gained favor over typological models such as that devised by Blumenbach. Nonetheless, the term Caucasian continues to be used in some contexts.
Bibliography
Augstein, H. F. "From the Land of the Bible to the Caucasus and Beyond: Shifting Ideas of the Origin of Humankind." Race, Science and Medicine, 1700-1960, edited by Waltraud Ernst and Bernard Harris, Taylor, 2001.
Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich. "On the Natural Variety of Mankind." The Idea of Race, edited by Robert Bernasconi, Hackett, 2000, pp. 27–37.
"Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich (1752–1840)." Science in the Enlightenment: An Encyclopedia, edited by William E. Burns, ABC-CLIO, 2003, pp. 29–30.
Donovan, John, and Austin Henderson. "What Does 'Caucasian' Really Mean?" How Stuff Works, 28 Sept. 2023, science.howstuffworks.com/life/genetic/what-does-caucasian-really-mean.htm. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024.
Moses, Yolanda. "Why Do We Keep Using the Word 'Caucasian'?" Sapiens, 1 Feb. 2017, www.sapiens.org/culture/caucasian-terminology-origin. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024.
O'Neill, Dennis. "Models of Classification." Modern Human Variation: An Introduction to Contemporary Human Biological Diversity. Behavioral Sciences Department, Palomar College, 2013.
Shamambo, Luwi J., and Tracey L. Henry. “Rethinking the Use of "Caucasian" in Clinical Language and Curricula: A Trainee's Call to Action.” Journal of General Internal Medicine, vol. 37, no. 7, 2022, pp. 1780-82, doi:10.1007/s11606-022-07431-6. Accessed 22 Nov. 2024.
Sussman, Robert Wald. The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea. Harvard UP, 2014.