Caucasian

Caucasian is both an anthropological term relating to a specific race of Homo sapiens, and an geographical term relating principally to the indigenous peoples of the Caucasus region of eastern Europe.

Caucasian (anthropology)

In physical anthropology, Caucasian (Varietas Caucasia) is a race that includes most of the natives of Northern, Eastern and Central Europe, West and central Asia, North Africa, and as far east as the Indian subcontinent. This category was first proposed by the German scientist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840), who coined the term in his treatise "On the Natural Varieties of Mankind" in 1775. His studies based the classification of the Caucasian race primarily on skull features, which Blumenbach claimed were optimized by Georgian people, one of the indigenous peoples of the Caucasus.

Later anthropologists such as Carleton Coon have further expanded upon the classification of the Caucasian race proposed by Blumenbach, and have subdivided the group into Nordic, Alpine, Mediterranean, and at times Dinaric and Baltic subdivisions. However, it is clearly observable that many people do not correspond easily to one such subracial type or another.

There is currently extensive debate on the scientific validity of racial classifications, and many people reject systems of racial classification as inherently arbitrary and subject to wide divergences in most populations. But Caucasian remains a common term in North America to describe whites of northern, eastern and western European descent. Southern Europeans are often termed as 'Latins'. Caucasian peoples of Asian, African, or Mediterranean origin are generally excluded from the popular definition of Caucasian. As a matter of fact, the term retains some accuracy only when applied to forensic anthropology in North America. Its relevance is debatable as a physical anthropological, ethnic/cultural or socio-political concept.

While the term Caucasian is still used for the lack of a better word in describing the peoples of western Eurasia, careful speakers generally limit the term to describe the Caucasian peoples and the inhabitants of Asia Minor, especially when describing any specific ethnic or cultural traits.

Popularly, the word "white" is used synonymously with "Caucasian" in North America, especially in government terms.

Caucasian (geography)

In geography, the term Caucasian is used to refer to some 40 distinct ethnic groups in the Caucasus region of eastern Europe. For more information on Caucausian ethnology, see the Caucasus article.

Literature

• V. Alekseev. A study of the paleoanthropology of the Caucasus (a monograph), Moscow, 1962 (in English)
• M.G. Abdushelishvili. About Craniology of the ancient and modern population of the Caucasus (a monograph), Tbilisi, 1966 (in Russian)
• M.G. Abdushelishvili. The genesis of the aboriginal population of the Caucasus in the light of anthropological data (a monograph), Tokyo, 1968 (in English)