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The Caucasian race (sometimes called the Caucasoid race) is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as, "relating to a broad division of humankind covering peoples from Europe, the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa" or "white-skinned; of European origin" or "relating to the region of the Caucasus in SE Europe."[1] The concept's existence is based on the now discredited typological method of racial classification.[2]
In Europe (especially in Russia and the surrounding area), Caucasian usually refers exclusively to people who are from the Caucasus region or speak the Caucasian languages.
The term Caucasian originated as one of the racial categories recognised by 19th century craniology and is derived from the region of the Caucasus mountains[3].It has various meanings.
Caucasoid race is a term used in physical anthropology to refer to people of a certain range of anthropometric measurements [4]. The concept of a "Caucasian race" or Varietas Caucasia was first proposed under those names by the German scientist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840).[5] His studies based the classification of the Caucasian race primarily on skull features, which Blumenbach claimed were optimized by the Caucasian Peoples.[6] Blumenbach writes:
<blockquote>Caucasian variety - I have taken the name of this variety from Mount Caucasus, both because its neighborhood, and especially its southern slope, produces the most beautiful race of men, I mean the Georgian; and because all physiological reasons converge to this, that in that region, if anywhere, it seems we ought with the greatest probability to place the autochthones (birth place) of mankind.[6]</blockquote>
Populations, formerly called "varieties," are no longer distinguished by Latin names, according to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature.
The Caucasus was historically an area of fascination for Europeans.[7] Prometheus and Jason and the Argonauts were myths featured in the Caucasus.[8] Greek mythology considered women from the Caucasus to have magical powers.[7] In Greek mythology, this area was thought of as a kind of hell since Zeus imprisoned many Titans who opposed him (e.g. Prometheus) there.
Another reason the Caucasus had such an attraction to Blumenbach and other contemporaries was because of its proximity to Mount Ararat, the tallest peak in Anatolia, where according to the Biblical account, Noah's Ark, eventually landed after the flood. The tribe of Japheth was supposed to have originated in the Caucasus, then spread north and westwards. Historically, the Russian borderlands of the Caucasus and Georgia were a source of sex slaves for Middle Eastern and Mediterranean peoples.[7]
For Blumenbach the beauty of the slave women from the Caucasus came to associate the word Caucasian with "enslaved embodiments of vulnerability". Blumenbach was enthralled by the beauty he claimed to see in exemplary Georgian skulls, so he named his racial type after the famed beauty of the Caucasian peoples. After Blumenbach's time, the term Caucasian was no longer associated with peoples from the Caucasus but continued to be used as a racial indicator.[7]
With the development of racial theory the term Caucasoid (Caucasian-like) also came into use to encompass a larger grouping of populations with similar skull-shapes, including many North African, South Asian and Middle Eastern peoples.[7] Carleton Coon did not use the term Caucasian and Caucasoid interchangeably. He used the term "Caucasian" or "Caucasic" to reference the subdivision of Caucasoids located around the Caucasus.[9]
With the turn away from racial theory in the late 20th century the term "Caucasian" as a racial classification fell into disuse in Europe. Thus, in the United Kingdom, "Caucasian" is more likely than in the United States to refer to people from the Caucasus, although it may still be used as a racial classification. [10]
In New Zealand, the terms more commonly used to describe white people are Pākehā or "European New Zealander". In Australia the more common terms are White or Anglo-Celtic or Anglo-Saxon Australian; also despite "Aussie" being a generic term, it is sometimes applied to white Australians with the intent of excluding other Australians (Used by both those who are classed as "Aussies" and those that aren't)[11].
In the United States, "Caucasian" has primarily been used as a distinction based on skin color, for a group commonly referred to as White Americans, as defined by the government and Census Bureau.[7] In the past, the court case United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923) found persons of Subcontinental Indian origin to be Caucasian in race, but they are currently classified as Asian-Indian.
In 1934, Carleton S. Coon redefined Caucasian race as Caucasoid race based on typology. [12]
Sarah A Tishkoff and Kenneth K Kidd state, "Despite disagreement among anthropologists, this classification remains in use by many researchers, as well as lay people."[13] According to Leonard Lieberman, Rodney C. Kirk, and Alice Littlefield, the concept of race has all but been completely rejected by modern mainstream anthropology.[14]
The Oxford English Dictionary defines Caucasoid as as noun or adjective meaning Of, pertaining to, or resembling the Caucasian race.[15] The suffix -oid can indicate "a similarity, not necessarily exact, to something else"[16], so Caucasoid can mean "resembling" the Caucasian race, itself a term with an inexact definition. Likewise, it can mean pertaining to or belonging to the Caucasian race.
In the past, the United States National Library of Medicine used the term Caucasoid as a "racial stock". The "racial stock" categorization scheme was replaced in 2004 with Continental Population Groups which focuses on geographic origins.[17]