View source for Caucasian race

{{Short description|Outdated grouping of human beings}}
{{About|the outdated race concept|the peoples of the Caucasus Mountains|Ethnic groups in the Caucasus|the US racial classification "White" or "Caucasian"|White Americans}}
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The '''Caucasian race''' (also '''Caucasoid''',{{efn |name=Etymology |The traditional anthropological term ''Caucasoid'' is a conflation of the demonym ''Caucasian'' and the [[Greek language|Greek]] suffix ''eidos'' (meaning "form", "shape", "resemblance") implying a resemblance to the native inhabitants of the Caucasus. It etymologically contrasts with the terms ''Negroid'', ''Mongoloid'' and ''Australoid''.<ref name=Freedman1984>{{Cite journal |last=Freedman |first=B. J. |title=For debate... Caucasian |journal=British Medical Journal |publisher=Routledge |volume=288 |issue=6418 |year=1984 |pages=696–98 |doi=10.1136/bmj.288.6418.696 |pmc=1444385 |pmid=6421437 }}</ref> For a contrast with the "Mongolic" or [[Mongoloid race]], see footnote #4 pp. 58–59 in [[Christopher I. Beckwith|Beckwith, Christopher]] (2009). ''Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present''. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-691-13589-2}}. {{OCLC|800915872}}.}} '''Europid''', or '''Europoid''')<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Pearson|first1=Roger|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HjANAAAAYAAJ|title=Anthropological glossary|date=1985|publisher=R. E. Krieger Pub. Co.|page=79|isbn=9780898745108 |access-date=21 July 2015}}</ref> is an [[Historical race concepts|obsolete racial classification]] of [[human]]s based on a now-disproven theory of biological race.<ref>{{Cite book|author=Templeton, A.|title=How Evolution Shapes Our Lives: Essays on Biology and Society|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=2016|editor1=Losos, J.|place=Princeton; Oxford|pages=346–361|chapter=Evolution and Notions of Human Race|doi=10.2307/j.ctv7h0s6j.26|quote=... the answer to the question whether races exist in humans is clear and unambiguous: no.|editor2=Lenski, R.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Wagner|first1=Jennifer K.|last2=Yu|first2=Joon-Ho|last3=Ifekwunigwe|first3=Jayne O.|last4=Harrell|first4=Tanya M.|last5=Bamshad|first5=Michael J.|last6=Royal|first6=Charmaine D.|date=February 2017|title=Anthropologists' views on race, ancestry, and genetics|journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology|volume=162|issue=2|pages=318–327|doi=10.1002/ajpa.23120|pmc=5299519|pmid=27874171 |bibcode=2017AJPA..162..318W }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|author=American Association of Physical Anthropologists|author-link=American Association of Physical Anthropologists|date=27 March 2019|title=AAPA Statement on Race and Racism|url=https://physanth.org/about/position-statements/aapa-statement-race-and-racism-2019/|access-date=19 June 2020|website=American Association of Physical Anthropologists}}</ref> The ''Caucasian race'' was historically regarded as a biological [[taxon]] which, depending on which of the historical race classifications was being used, usually included ancient and modern populations from all or parts of [[Europe]], [[Western Asia]], [[Central Asia]], [[South Asia]], [[North Africa]], and the [[Horn of Africa]].<ref name="TROE1">{{Cite book|last=Coon|first=Carleton Stevens|title=The Races of Europe|publisher=The Macmillan Company|year=1939|location=New York|pages=400–401|quote=This third racial zone stretches from Spain across the Straits of Gibraltar to Morocco, and thence along the southern [[Mediterranean Sea|Mediterranean]] shores into [[Arabian Peninsula|Arabia]], [[East Africa]], [[Mesopotamia]], and the [[Iranian Plateau|Persian highlands]]; and across [[Afghanistan]] into [[India]] [...] The Mediterranean racial zone stretches unbroken from [[Spain]] across the [[Strait of Gibraltar|Straits of Gibraltar]] to [[Morocco]], and thence eastward to India [...] A branch of it extends far southward on both sides of the [[Red Sea]] into southern Arabia, the [[Ethiopian Highlands|Ethiopian highlands]], and the [[Horn of Africa]].|author-link=Carleton S. Coon}}</ref><ref name="TROE99">{{Cite book|last1=Coon|first1=Carleton Stevens|title=The Living Races of Man|last2=Hunt|first2=Edward E.|publisher=[[Jonathan Cape]]|year=1966|location=London|page=93|quote=[[Capsian culture|Late Capsians]] from North Africa are clearly Caucasoid and, more specifically, almost entirely Mediterranean.|author1-link=Carleton S. Coon|author2-link=Edward Eyre Hunt Jr.}}</ref>

Introduced in the 1780s by members of the [[Göttingen school of history]],{{efn|name=GöttingenGargoyle|Cited by contributing editor to a group of four works by Baum,<ref name=Baum2006>{{harvnb |Baum |2006 |pp=84–85}}: "Finally, Christoph Meiners (1747–1810), the University of Göttingen 'popular philosopher' and historian, first gave the term Caucasian racial meaning in his ''Grundriss der Geschichte der Menschheit'' (Outline of the History of Humanity; 1785)&nbsp;... Meiners pursued this 'Göttingen program' of inquiry in extensive historical-anthropological writings, which included two editions of his Outline of the History of Humanity and numerous articles in ''Göttingisches Historisches Magazin''"</ref> Woodward,<ref name=Woodward>{{Cite book |author=William R. Woodward |title=Hermann Lotze: An Intellectual Biography |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/hermann-lotze/from-the-evolution-of-culture-to-the-human-sciences-18521858/42B9CC207238DF67E363EEB37F66413A |date=9 June 2015 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-1-316-29785-8 |pages=260 |quote=...&nbsp;the five human races identified by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach – Negroes, American Indians, Malaysians, Mongolians, and Caucasians. He chose to rely on Blumenbach, leader of the Göttingen school of comparative anatomy}}</ref> Rupke,<ref name=Rupke2002>{{Cite book |author=Nicolaas A. Rupke |title=Göttingen and the Development of the Natural Sciences |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tO6fAAAAMAAJ |year=2002 |publisher=Wallstein-Verlag |isbn=978-3-89244-611-8 |quote=For it was at Gottingen in this period that the outlines of a system of classification were laid down in a manner that still shapes the way in which we attempt to comprehend the different varieties of humankind – including usage of such terms as 'Caucasian'.|authorlink=Nicolaas Adrianus Rupke}}</ref> and Simon.<ref name=Simon2008>{{Cite book |author=Charles Simon-Aaron |title=The Atlantic Slave Trade: Empire, Enlightenment, and the Cult of the Unthinking Negro |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tnLaAAAAMAAJ |year=2008 |location=[[Lewiston, New York]] |publisher=[[Edwin Mellen Press]] |isbn=978-0-7734-5197-1 |quote=Here, Blumenbach placed the white European at the apex of the human family; he even gave the European a new name – i.e., Caucasian. This relationship also inspired the academic labors of Karl Otfried Muller, C. Meiners and K. A. Heumann, the more important thinkers at Gottingen for our project. (This list is not intended to be exhaustive.)}}</ref>}} the term denoted one of three purported major races of humans (those three being Caucasoid, [[Mongoloid]], and [[Negroid]]).<ref name="Pickering">{{Cite book|last=Pickering|first=Robert|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V0JheWC85h4C&pg=PA82|title=The Use of Forensic Anthropology|publisher=CRC Press|year=2009|isbn=978-1-4200-6877-1|page=82}}</ref> In [[biological anthropology]], ''Caucasoid'' has been used as an umbrella term for [[Phenotype|phenotypically]] similar groups from these different regions, with a focus on skeletal anatomy, and especially cranial morphology, without regard to [[skin tone]].<ref name="Pickering2">{{Cite book|last=Pickering|first=Robert|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V0JheWC85h4C&pg=PA109|title=The Use of Forensic Anthropology|publisher=CRC Press|year=2009|isbn=978-1-4200-6877-1|page=109}}</ref> Ancient and modern "Caucasoid" populations were thus not exclusively "white", but ranged in complexion from white-skinned to dark brown.<ref name="Blumenbach">{{Cite book|author=Johann Friedrich Blumenbach|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u9QKAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA265|title=The Anthropological Treatises of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach|publisher=Anthropological Society|year=1865|editor=Thomas Bendyshe|editor-link=Thomas Bendyshe|pages=265, 303, 367| isbn=9780878211241 }}</ref>

Since the second half of the 20th century, physical anthropologists have switched from a typological understanding of human biological diversity towards a genomic and population-based perspective, and have tended to understand race as a social classification of humans based on phenotype and ancestry as well as cultural factors, as the concept is also understood in the social sciences.<ref name="Caspari">{{Cite journal|last1=Caspari|first1=Rachel|year=2003|title=From types to populations: A century of race, physical anthropology, and the American Anthropological Association|url=https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65890/1/aa.2003.105.1.65.pdf|journal=American Anthropologist|volume=105|issue=1|pages=65–76|doi=10.1525/aa.2003.105.1.65|hdl-access=free|hdl=2027.42/65890}}</ref>

In the United States, the root term ''Caucasian'' is still in use as a synonym for people considered "[[White people|white]]" or of [[Europe]]an, [[Middle East]]ern, or [[North Africa]]n ancestry as defined by the United States census.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/note/US/RHI625219|title=Race}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Bhopal|first1=R.|last2=Donaldson|first2=L.|year=1998|title=White, European, Western, Caucasian, or what? Inappropriate labeling in research on race, ethnicity, and health|journal=American Journal of Public Health|volume=88|issue=9|pages=1303–1307|doi=10.2105/ajph.88.9.1303|pmc=1509085|pmid=9736867}}</ref>{{sfn|Baum|2006|p=3,18}} Currently, its continued usage as a racial descriptor has been criticized.<ref name=Hebst1997>{{Cite book |last=Herbst |first=Philip |title=The color of words: an encyclopaedic dictionary of ethnic bias in the United States |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_hZHAAAAMAAJ |date=15 June 1997 |publisher=Intercultural Press |isbn=978-1-877864-97-1 |quote=Though discredited as an anthropological term and not recommended in most editorial guidelines, it is still heard and used, for example, as a category on forms asking for ethnic identification. It is also still used for police blotters (the abbreviated Cauc may be heard among police) and appears elsewhere as a euphemism. Its synonym, Caucasoid, also once used in anthropology but now dated and considered pejorative, is disappearing.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Mukhopadhyay |first=Carol C. |editor=Mica Pollock |title=Everyday Antiracism: Getting Real About Race in School |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BMLcVcgn2V4C&pg=PA14 |date=30 June 2008 |publisher=New Press |isbn=978-1-59558-567-7 |pages=14– |chapter=Getting Rid of the Word 'Caucasian' |quote=Yet there is one striking exception in our modern racial vocabulary: the term 'Caucasian'. Despite being a remnant of a discredited theory of racial classification, the term has persisted into the twenty-first century, within as well as outside of the educational community. It is high time we got rid of the word Caucasian. Some might protest that it is 'only a label'. But language is one of the most systematic, subtle, and significant vehicles for transmitting racial ideology. Terms that describe imagined groups, such as Caucasian, encapsulate those beliefs. Every time we use them and uncritically expose students to them, we are reinforcing rather than dismantling the old racialized worldview. Using the word Caucasian invokes scientific racism, the false idea that races are naturally occurring, biologically ranked subdivisions of the human species and that Caucasians are the superior race. Beyond this, the label Caucasian can even convey messages about which groups have culture and are entitled to recognition as Americans.}}</ref><ref name=Dewanjuly2013>{{Cite news |last=Dewanjuly |first=Shaila |date=6 July 2013 |title=Has 'Caucasian' Lost Its Meaning? |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/sunday-review/has-caucasian-lost-its-meaning.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=2018-03-16 |quote=AS a racial classification, the term Caucasian has many flaws, dating as it does from a time when the study of race was based on skull measurements and travel diaries&nbsp;... Its equivalents from that era are obsolete – nobody refers to Asians as 'Mongolian' or blacks as 'Negroid'.&nbsp;... There is no legal reason to use it. It rarely appears in federal statutes, and the Census Bureau has never put a checkbox by the word Caucasian. (White is an option.)&nbsp;... The Supreme Court, which can be more colloquial, has used the term in only 64 cases, including a pair from the 1920s that reveal its limitations&nbsp;... In 1889, the editors of the original Oxford English Dictionary noted that the term Caucasian had been 'practically discarded'. But they spoke too soon. Blumenbach's authority had given the word a pseudoscientific sheen that preserved its appeal. Even now, the word gives discussions of race a weird technocratic gravitas, as when the police insist that you step out of your 'vehicle' instead of your car&nbsp;... Susan Glisson, who as the executive director of the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation in Oxford, Miss., regularly witnesses Southerners sorting through their racial vocabulary, said she rarely hears 'Caucasian'. 'Most of the folks who work in this field know that it's a completely ridiculous term to assign to whites,' she said. 'I think it's a term of last resort for people who are really uncomfortable talking about race. They use the term that's going to make them be as distant from it as possible.{{'-}}}}</ref> The term also sees usage in other English-speaking countries like Australia.<ref name="Sydney Morning Herald"/>

==History of the concept==
===Caucasus as the origin of humanity and the peak of beauty===
In the eighteenth century, the prevalent view among European scholars was that the [[Early human migrations|human species had its origin]] in the region of the [[Caucasus Mountains]].{{sfn|Baum|2006|p=82}} This view was based upon the Caucasus being the location for the [[Searches for Noah's Ark|purported landing point of Noah's Ark]] – from whom the Bible states that [[Generations of Noah|humanity is descended]] – and the location for the suffering of [[Prometheus]], who in [[Hesiod]]'s myth had crafted humankind from clay.{{sfn|Baum|2006|p=82}}

In addition, the [[Physical attractiveness|most beautiful humans]] were reputed by Europeans to be the stereotypical "[[Circassian beauty|Circassian beauties]]" and the [[Georgians]]; both [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]] and [[Circassia]] are in the [[Caucasus]] region.{{sfn|Figal|2010|pp=81–84}}{{sfn|Baum|2006|p=82}} The "Circassian beauty" stereotype had its roots in the Middle Ages, while the reputation for the attractiveness of the Georgian people was developed by early modern travellers to the region such as [[Jean Chardin]].{{sfn|Baum|2006|p=82}}<ref>Chardin, 1686, [[iarchive:bub_gb_7YQCPSKqJ6gC/page/n193/mode/2up/|Journal du voyage du chevalier Chardin en Perse et aux Indes Orientales par la Mer Noire et par la Colchide]], p.204, "Le sang de Géorgie est le plus beau d'Orient, et je puis dire du monde, je n'ai pas remarqué un laid visage en ce païs la, parmi l'un et l'autre sexe: mais j'y en ay vû d'Angeliques."</ref>

===Göttingen school of history===
[[File:First use of the word Caucasian, 1785.png|thumb|upright|[[Christoph Meiners]]' 1785 treatise ''The Outline of History of Mankind'' was the first work to use the term ''Caucasian'' (''Kaukasisch'') in its wider racial sense. (Click on image for English translation of the text)]]

The term ''Caucasian'' as a racial category was introduced in the 1780s by members of the [[Göttingen school of history]] – notably [[Christoph Meiners]] in 1785 and [[Johann Friedrich Blumenbach]] in 1795{{efn|name=GöttingenGargoyle}}{{page needed|date=November 2020}}—it had originally referred in a narrow sense to the [[peoples of the Caucasus|native inhabitants of the Caucasus]] region.<ref>For example, such as in the ''Allgemeine Erdbeschreibung'' published by Meyer in 1777: {{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yak-AAAAcAAJ&q=%22Kaukasischen%22&pg=PA1435|title=Allgemeine Erdbeschreibung: Asien - Volume 3|date=1777|publisher=Meyer|page=1435}}</ref>

In his ''The Outline of History of Mankind'' (1785), the German philosopher Christoph Meiners first used the concept of a "Caucasian" (''Kaukasisch'') race in its wider racial sense.{{efn |name=GöttingenGargoyle
}}{{page needed|date=November 2020}}<ref>{{Cite book|last=Meiners|first=Christoph|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_bVFAAAAAcAAJ|title=Grundriss der Geschichte der Menschheit|publisher=Im Verlage der Meyerschen Buchhandlung.|year=1785|pages=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_bVFAAAAAcAAJ/page/n13 25]–}}</ref> As a supporter of the [[polygenist]] theory of human origins, he subscribed to a "''binary [greater] racial scheme''" of superior Caucasians and inferior [[Mongoloids]] in which he did not include [[Jews]] as Caucasians and to whom he ascribed a "''permanently degenerate nature''".<ref>Eigen, Sara. <u>The German Invention of Race.</u>  Suny Press:New York, 2006. {{ISBN|0-7914-6677-9}} p.205</ref> Using a "bundle of notions" led to creations of purported subraces on a continental and state basis with implied decreased respective scientific weight.<ref>{{Cite book| publisher = W. W. Norton & Company| isbn = 978-0-393-04934-3| last = Painter| first = Nell| title = The History of White People| location = New York, NY| date = 2010| page = [https://archive.org/details/historyofwhitepe00pain/page/90 90]| url-access = registration| url = https://archive.org/details/historyofwhitepe00pain/page/90}}</ref> Meiners' term was given wider circulation in the 1790s by many people.{{efn |name=MeinersGargoyle |Cited by contributing editor to a group of nine works by Mario,<ref>Luigi Marino, ''I Maestri della Germania'' (1975) {{OCLC|797567391}}; translated into German as ''Praeceptores Germaniae: Göttingen 1770–1820 ''{{OCLC|34194206}}</ref> Isaac,<ref>B. Isaac, ''The invention of racism in classical antiquity'', Princeton University Press, 2004, p. 105 ''{{OCLC|51942570}}''</ref> Schiebinger,<ref>[[Londa Schiebinger]], ''The Anatomy of Difference: Race and Sex in Eighteenth-Century Science'', [[Eighteenth-Cent. Stud.|Eighteenth-Century Studies]], Vol. 23, No. 4, Special Issue: The Politics of Difference, Summer, 1990, pp.&nbsp;387–405</ref> 
Rupp-Eisenreich,<ref>B. Rupp-Eisenreich, "Des Choses Occultes en Histoire des Sciences Humaines: le Destin de la 'Science Nouvelle' de Christoph Meiners", ''L'Ethnographie'' v.2 (1983), p. 151</ref> Dougherty,<ref>F. Dougherty, "Christoph Meiners und Johann Friedrich Blumenbach im Streit um den Begriff der Menschenrasse," in G. Mann and F. Dumont, eds., ''Die Natur des Menschen '', pp.&nbsp;103–104</ref> 
Hochman,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hochman |first=Leah |title=The Ugliness of Moses Mendelssohn: Aesthetics, Religion & Morality in the Eighteenth Century |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aBPEBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA74|date=10 October 2014 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-66997-5 |pages=74–}}</ref> Mikkelsen,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mikkelsen |first=Jon M.|title=Kant and the Concept of Race: Late Eighteenth-Century Writings |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KOvY6t4xc68C&pg=PA196|date=1 August 2013 |publisher=SUNY Press|isbn=978-1-4384-4363-8|pages=196–}}</ref> Painter,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Painter |first=N. |title=Why White People are Called Caucasian? |url=http://www.yale.edu/glc/events/race/Painter.pdf |access-date=2006-10-09 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131020105628/http://www.yale.edu/glc/events/race/Painter.pdf |archive-date=October 20, 2013 |df=mdy-all}}</ref> and Binden.<ref>Another online document reviews the early history of race theory.[http://anthropology.ua.edu/bindon/ant275/presentations/Pre-Darwinian.pdf 18th and 19th Century Views of Human Variation] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131021235531/http://anthropology.ua.edu/bindon/ant275/presentations/Pre-Darwinian.pdf |date=October 21, 2013 }} The treatises of Blumenbach can be found  [[iarchive:anthropologicalt00blumuoft|online]].</ref>}} Other members of the Göttingen school of history would make the addition of [[Negroids]].<ref name="Pickering">{{Cite book|last=Pickering|first=Robert|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V0JheWC85h4C&pg=PA82|title=The Use of Forensic Anthropology|publisher=CRC Press|year=2009|isbn=978-1-4200-6877-1|page=82}}</ref>

[[File:Blumenbach-Caucasian.jpg|thumb|upright|Drawing of the skull of a [[Georgians|Georgian]] female by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, used as an archetype for the Caucasian racial characteristics in his 1795 ''De Generis Humani Varietate'']]
It was Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, a colleague of Meiners', who later came to be considered one of the founders of the discipline of [[anthropology]], who gave the term a wider audience, by grounding it in the new methods of [[craniometry]] and [[Linnean taxonomy]].<ref name="Bhopal">{{Cite journal|author=Bhopal R|date=December 2007|title=The beautiful skull and Blumenbach's errors: the birth of the scientific concept of race|journal=BMJ|volume=335|issue=7633|pages=1308–09|citeseerx=10.1.1.969.2221|doi=10.1136/bmj.39413.463958.80|pmc=2151154|pmid=18156242}}</ref> Blumenbach did not credit Meiners with his taxonomy, although his justification clearly points to Meiners' aesthetic viewpoint of Caucasus origins.<ref name="Baum88">{{harvnb|Baum|2006|p=88}}: "The connection between Meiners's ideas about a Caucasian branch of humanity and Blumenbach's later conception of a Caucasian variety (eventually, a Caucasian race) is not completely clear. What is clear is that the two editions of Meiners's Outline were published between the second edition of Blumenbach's On the Natural Variety of Mankind and the third edition, where Blumenbach first used the term Caucasian. Blumenbach cited Meiners once in 1795, but only to include Meiners's 1793 division of humanity into "handsome and white" and "ugly and dark" peoples among several alternative "divisions of the varieties of mankind." Yet Blumenbach must have been aware of Meiners's earlier designation of Caucasian and Mongolian branches of humanity, as the two men knew each other as colleagues at the University of Göttingen. The way that Blumenbach embraced the term Caucasian suggests that he worked to distance his own anthropological thinking from that of Meiners while recovering the term Caucasian for his own more refined racial classification: he made no mention of Meiners's 1785 usage and gave the term a new meaning.</ref> In contrast to Meiners, however, Blumenbach was a monogenist—he considered all humans to have a shared origin and to be a single species. Blumenbach, like Meiners, did rank his Caucasian grouping higher than other groups in terms of mental faculties or potential for achievement<ref name=Bhopal/> despite pointing out that the transition from one race to another is so gradual that the distinctions between the races presented by him are "very arbitrary".<ref>German: "sehr willkürlich": {{Cite book|author=Johann Friedrich Blumenbach|url=http://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/book/view/blumenbach_naturgeschichte_1797?p=83|title=Handbuch der Naturgeschichte|year=1797|page=61|quote=Alle diese Verschiedenheiten fließen aber durch so mancherley Abstufungen und Uebergänge so unvermerkt zusammen, daß sich keine andre, als sehr willkürliche Grenzen zwischen ihnen festsetzen lassen.|access-date=2020-05-24}}</ref> Alongside the anthropologist [[Georges Cuvier]], Blumenbach classified the Caucasian race by cranial measurements and bone morphology in addition to skin pigmentation.<ref>''On the Natural Variety of Mankind'', 3rd ed. (1795) in Bendyshe: 264–65; "racial face," 229.</ref> He ultimately imagined that the Caucasian race encompassed all of the ancient and most of the modern native populations of Europe, the aboriginal inhabitants of West Asia (including the Phoenicians, Hebrews and Arabs), the [[autochthones]] of Northern Africa (Berbers, Egyptians, Abyssinians and neighboring groups), the Indians, and the ancient [[Guanches]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yt0XAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA588|title=The New American Cyclopaedia: A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge, Volume 4|publisher=Appleton|year=1870|page=588}}</ref> This usage later grew into the widely used [[color terminology for race]], contrasting with the terms ''Negroid'', ''Mongoloid'', and ''Australoid''.<ref name="Bjfreedman">{{Cite journal|last=Freedman|first=B. J.|year=1984|title=For debate... Caucasian|journal=British Medical Journal|publisher=Routledge|volume=288|issue=6418|pages=696–98|doi=10.1136/bmj.288.6418.696|pmc=1444385|pmid=6421437}}</ref>

===Carleton Coon===
There was never consensus among the proponents of the "Caucasoid race" concept regarding how it would be delineated from other groups such as the proposed [[Mongoloid]] race. [[Carleton S. Coon]] (1939) included the populations native to all of [[Central Asia|Central]] and Northern Asia, including the [[Ainu people]], under the Caucasoid label. However, many scientists maintained the racial categorizations of color established by Meiners' and Blumenbach's works, along with many other early steps of anthropology, well into the late 19th and mid-to-late 20th centuries, increasingly used to justify political policies, such as segregation and immigration restrictions, and other opinions based in prejudice. For example, [[Thomas Henry Huxley]] (1870) classified all populations of Asian nations as Mongoloid. [[Lothrop Stoddard]] (1920) in turn classified as "brown" most of the populations of the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Central Asia and South Asia. He counted as "white" only European peoples and their descendants, as well as a few populations in areas adjacent to or opposite southern Europe, in parts of Anatolia and parts of the Rif and Atlas mountains.

In 1939, Coon argued that the Caucasian race had originated through admixture between ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and ''Homo sapiens'' of the "Mediterranean type" which he considered to be distinct from Caucasians, rather than a subtype of it as others had done.<ref name="racesofeurope">{{Cite book|last=Coon|first=Carleton|title=[[The Races of Europe (Coon book)|The Races of Europe]]|date=April 1939|publisher=[[Macmillan Inc.|The Macmillan Company]]|page=51|author-link=Carleton S. Coon}}</ref> While Blumenbach had erroneously thought that light skin color was ancestral to all humans and the dark skin of southern populations was due to sun, Coon thought that Caucasians had lost their original pigmentation as they moved North.<ref name="racesofeurope"/> Coon used the term "Caucasoid" and "White race" synonymously.<ref>[http://www.snpa.nordish.net/chapter-XIII2.htm The Races of Europe, Chapter XIII, Section 2] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20060511214905/http://www.snpa.nordish.net/chapter-XIII2.htm|date=May 11, 2006}}</ref>

In 1962, Coon published ''The Origin of Races'', wherein he proposed a [[polygenist]] view, that human races had evolved separately from local varieties of ''Homo erectus''. Dividing humans into five main races, and argued that each evolved in parallel but at different rates, so that some races had reached higher levels of evolution than others.<ref name=Caspari/> He argued that the Caucasoid race had evolved 200,000 years prior to the "Congoid race", and hence represented a higher evolutionary stage.<ref name="Jackson">{{Cite journal|last1=Jackson|first1=J. P. Jr.|year=2001|title="In Ways Unacademical": The Reception of Carleton S. Coon's The Origin of Races|journal=Journal of the History of Biology|volume=34|issue=2|pages=247–85|doi=10.1023/a:1010366015968|s2cid=86739986}}</ref>

Coon argued that Caucasoid traits emerged prior to the Cro-Magnons, and were present in the [[Skhul and Qafzeh hominids]].<ref>The Origin of Races. Random House Inc., 1962, p. 570.</ref> However, these fossils and the [[Předmostí u Přerova (archeology)|Predmost]] specimen were held to be Neanderthaloid derivatives because they possessed short [[cervical vertebrae]], lower and narrower pelves, and had some Neanderthal skull traits. Coon further asserted that the Caucasoid race was of dual origin, consisting of early [[Dolichocephaly|dolichocephalic]] (e.g. [[Galley and Warden Hills|Galley Hill]], [[Combe-Capelle]], [[Téviec]]) and Neolithic Mediterranean ''[[Homo sapiens]]'' (e.g. [[Salvaterra de Magos|Muge]], [[Long barrow|Long Barrow]], [[Corded Ware culture|Corded]]), as well as Neanderthal-influenced [[brachycephaly|brachycephalic]] ''Homo sapiens'' dating to the [[Mesolithic]] and [[Neolithic]] (e.g. [[Mechta-Afalou|Afalou]], Hvellinge, Fjelkinge).<ref>{{Cite book|last=Coon|first=Carleton Stevens|url=https://archive.org/stream/racesofeurope031695mbp#page/n529/mode/2up|title=The Races of Europe|publisher=The Macmillan Company|year=1939|pages=26–28, 50–55}}</ref>

Coon's theories on race were much disputed in his lifetime,<ref name="Jackson" /> and are considered [[pseudoscientific]] in modern anthropology.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Sachs Collopy|first=Peter|date=2015|title=Race Relationships: Collegiality and Demarcation in Physical Anthropology|journal=Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences|language=en|volume=51|issue=3|pages=237–260|doi=10.1002/jhbs.21728|pmid=25950769}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Spickard|first1=Paul|title=Race in Mind: Critical Essays|date=2016|publisher=University of Notre Dame Press|isbn=978-0-268-04148-9|page=157|chapter=The Return of Scientific Racism? DNA Ancestry Testing, Race, and the New Eugenics Movement|doi=10.2307/j.ctvpj76k0.11|jstor=j.ctvpj76k0.11|quote=For more than four decades beginning in the late 1930s, the Harvard anthropologist Carleton Coon wrote a series of big books for an ever shrinking audience in which he pushed a pseudoscientific racial angle of analysis.|author-link=Paul Spickard|chapter-url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvpj76k0.11}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Selcer|first1=Perrin|date=2012|title=Beyond the Cephalic Index: Negotiating Politics to Produce UNESCO's Scientific Statements on Race|url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/662290|journal=Current Anthropology|volume=53|issue=S5|doi=10.1086/662290|quote=Most disturbingly for liberal anthropologists, the new generation of racist "pseudoscience" threatened to return to mainstream respectability in 1962 with the publication of Carleton Coon's ''The Origin of Races'' (Coon 1962).|s2cid=146652143|page=S180|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Loewen|first1=James W.|title=Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism|date=2005|publisher=New Press|isbn=9781565848870|location=New York|page=462|quote=Carleton Coon, whose ''The Origin of Races'' [...] claimed that ''Homo sapiens'' evolved five different times, blacks last. Its poor reception by anthropologists, followed by evidence from archaeology and paleontology that mankind evolved once, and in Africa, finally put an end to such pseudoscience.|author-link=James W. Loewen}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Regal|first=Brian|title=Searching for Sasquatch|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2011|isbn=978-0-230-11829-4|series=Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology|location=New York|pages=93–94|chapter=The Life of Grover Krantz|doi=10.1057/9780230118294_5|quote=Carleton Coon fully embraced typology as a way to determine the basis of racial and ethnic difference [...] Unfortunately for him, American anthropology increasingly equated typology with pseudoscience.|author-link=Brian Regal|chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230118294_5}}</ref>

=== Criticism based on modern genetics ===
{{See also|Race and genetics}}
After discussing various criteria used in biology to define subspecies or races, [[Alan R. Templeton]] concludes in 2016: "[T]he answer to the question whether races exist in humans is clear and unambiguous: no."<ref name="Templeton2016">Templeton, A. (2016). EVOLUTION AND NOTIONS OF HUMAN RACE. In Losos J. & Lenski R. (Eds.), ''How Evolution Shapes Our Lives: Essays on Biology and Society'' (pp. 346-361). Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press. {{doi|10.2307/j.ctv7h0s6j.26}}.</ref>{{rp|360}}

==Classification==
In the 19th century ''[[Meyers Konversations-Lexikon]]'' (1885–1890), Caucasoid was one of the three great races of humankind, alongside [[Mongoloid race|Mongoloid]] and [[Negroid race|Negroid]]. The taxon was taken to consist of a number of subtypes. The Caucasoid peoples were usually divided into three groups on ethnolinguistic grounds, termed [[Aryan race|Aryan]] ([[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]]), [[Semitic race|Semitic]] ([[Semitic languages]]), and [[Hamitic race|Hamitic]] (Hamitic languages i.e. [[Berber languages|Berber]]-[[Cushitic languages|Cushitic]]-[[Egyptian language|Egyptian]]).<ref>''[[Meyers Konversations-Lexikon]]'', 4th edition, 1885–90, T11, p.&nbsp;476.</ref>

19th century [[Racial groups in India (historical definitions)|classifications of the peoples of India]] were initially uncertain if the [[Dravidians]] and the [[Sinhalese people|Sinhalese]] were Caucasoid or a separate ''Dravida'' race, but by and in the 20th century, anthropologists predominantly declared Dravidians to be Caucasoid.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Wright|first=Arnold|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q4xEAQAAMAAJ|title=Southern India, Its History, People, Commerce, and Industrial Resources|date=1915|publisher=Foreign and Colonial Compiling and Publishing Company|pages=69|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Sharma|first1=Ram Nath|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dDrYsjGq35wC|title=Anthropology|last2=Sharma|first2=Rajendra K.|date=1997|publisher=Atlantic Publishers & Dist|isbn=978-81-7156-673-0|pages=109|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Mhaiske|first1=Vinod M.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sbs4DwAAQBAJ|title=Forest Tribology And Anthropology|last2=Patil|first2=Vinayak K.|last3=Narkhede|first3=S. S.|date=2016-01-01|publisher=Scientific Publishers|isbn=978-93-86102-08-9|pages=5|language=en}}</ref>

Historically, the [[Race (classification of human beings)|racial]] classification of the [[Turkic peoples]] was sometimes given as "[[Turanid]]". Turanid [[Race (human categorization)|racial type]] or "minor race", subtype of the Europid (Caucasian) race with Mongoloid admixtures, situated at the boundary of the distribution of the [[Mongoloid]] and Europid "great races".<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Simpson|first1=George Eaton|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=01LfoBC6jZkC&pg=PA32|title=Racial and cultural minorities: an analysis of prejudice and discrimination, Environment, development, and public policy|last2=Yinger|first2=John Milton|publisher=Springer|year=1985|isbn=978-0-306-41777-1|page=32}}</ref><ref>''American anthropologist'', American Anthropological Association, Anthropological Society of Washington (Washington, D.C.), 1984 v. 86, nos. 3–4, p. 741.</ref>

There was no universal consensus of the validity of the "Caucasoid" grouping within those who attempted to categorize human variation. [[Thomas Henry Huxley]] in 1870 wrote that the "absurd denomination of 'Caucasian{{'"}} was in fact a conflation of his [[Xanthochroi]] (Nordic) and [[Mediterranean race|Melanochroi]] (Mediterranean) types.<ref>T. H. Huxley, "On the Geographical Distribution of the Chief Modifications of Mankind", ''Journal of the Ethnological Society of London'' (1870).</ref>
===Skull and teeth===
Drawing from [[Petrus Camper]]'s theory of [[facial angle]], Blumenbach and Cuvier classified races, through their skull collections based on their cranial features and anthropometric measurements. Caucasoid traits were recognised as: thin nasal aperture ("nose narrow"), a small mouth, facial angle of 100–90°, and orthognathism, exemplified by what Blumenbach saw in most ancient Greek crania and statues.<ref>"Miriam Claude Meijer, Race and Aesthetics in the Anthropology of Petrus Camper", 1722–1789, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1999, pp.&nbsp;169–74.</ref><ref>Bertoletti, Stefano Fabbri. 1994. The anthropological theory of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. In Romanticism in science, science in Europe, 1790–1840.</ref> Later anthropologists of the 19th and early 20th century such as [[James Cowles Prichard]], [[Charles Pickering (naturalist)|Charles Pickering]], [[Paul Broca|Broca]], [[Paul Topinard]], [[Samuel George Morton]], [[Oscar Peschel]], [[Charles Gabriel Seligman]], [[Robert Bennett Bean]], [[William Zebina Ripley]], [[Alfred Cort Haddon]] and [[Roland Dixon]] came to recognize other Caucasoid morphological features, such as prominent [[supraorbital ridge]]s and a sharp nasal sill.<ref>See individual literature for such Caucasoid identifications, while the following article gives a brief overview: ''How "Caucasoids" Got Such Big Crania and Why They Shrank: From Morton to Rushton'', Leonard Lieberman, Current Anthropology, Vol. 42, No. 1, February 2001, pp.&nbsp;69–95.</ref> Many anthropologists in the 20th century used the term "Caucasoid" in their literature, such as [[William Clouser Boyd]], [[Reginald Ruggles Gates]], [[Carleton S. Coon]], [[Sonia Mary Cole]], [[Alice Mossie Brues]] and [[Grover Krantz]] replacing the earlier term "Caucasian" as it had fallen out of usage.<ref>"People and races", Alice Mossie Brues, Waveland Press, 1990, notes how the term Caucasoid replaced Caucasian.</ref>{{MeyersLexikonEthnographicMap}}

=== Subraces ===
The postulated subraces vary depending on the author, including but not limited to [[Mediterranean race|Mediterranean]], [[Atlantid race|Atlantid]], [[Nordic race|Nordic]], [[East Baltic race|East Baltic]], [[Alpine race|Alpine]], [[Dinaric race|Dinaric]], [[Turanid race|Turanid]], [[Armenoid race|Armenoid]], [[Iranid race|Iranid]], [[Indid race|Indid]], [[Arabid race|Arabid]], and [[Hamitic]].<ref name="Ency2001">{{Cite book|author=Grolier Incorporated|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HI1FAAAAYAAJ|title=Encyclopedia Americana, Volume 6|publisher=Grolier Incorporated|year=2001|isbn=978-0-7172-0134-1|page=85|orig-year=First published 1833}}</ref> Some authors also proposed a ''Pamirid race'' (or ''Pamir-Fergana race'') in Central Asia, named after the [[Pamir range]] and the [[Fergana valley]].<ref>''Памиро-ферганская раса''&nbsp;— article from the [[Great Soviet Encyclopedia]] (3rd edition).</ref>

[[H.G. Wells]] argued that across Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, West Asia, Central Asia and South Asia, a Caucasian physical stock existed. He divided this racial element into two main groups: a shorter and darker ''Mediterranean'' or ''Iberian'' race and a taller and lighter ''Nordic'' race. Wells asserted that Semitic and Hamitic populations were mainly of Mediterranean type, and Aryan populations were originally of Nordic type. He regarded the [[Basques]] as descendants of early Mediterranean peoples, who inhabited western Europe before the arrival of Aryan [[Celts]] from the direction of central Europe.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Wells|first1=H. G.|url=https://archive.org/stream/outlineofhistory00wellrich#page/118/mode/2up|title=The outline of history, being a plain history of life and mankind|date=1921|publisher=The Macmillan Company|pages=119–123, 236–238|access-date=8 August 2017}}</ref>

The "Northcaucasian race" is a sub-race proposed by [[Carleton S. Coon]] (1930).<ref>Carleton S. Coon, ''[http://www.theapricity.com/snpa/racesofeurope.htm The Races of Europe]'' (1930){{page needed|date=May 2018}} 
[https://books.google.com/books?id=2Fx6pzonsCIC&pg=PA132 ''Race and Racism: An Introduction''] [https://www.amazon.com/Race-Racism-Introduction-Carolyn-Fluehr-Lobban/dp/0759107955 (see also)] by Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, pp 127–133, December 8, 2005, {{ISBN|0759107955}}
{{Cite web|author=Dmitry Bogatenkov|author2=Stanislav Drobyshev|title=Anthropology and Ethnic History|url=http://www.ido.edu.ru/psychology/anthropology/6.html|publisher=[[Peoples' Friendship University of Russia]]|language=ru}}</ref> It comprises the native populations of the [[North Caucasus]], the [[Balkars]], [[Karachays]] and [[Vainakhs|Vainakh]] ([[Chechen people|Chechens]] and [[Ingushs]]).<ref>{{Cite web|author=Dmitry Bogatenkov|author2=Stanislav Drobyshev|title=Racial variety of Mankind, section 5.5.3|url=http://www.ido.edu.ru/psychology/anthropology/5.html#5.5.3|publisher=[[Peoples' Friendship University of Russia]]|language=ru|access-date=April 21, 2020|archive-date=July 19, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110719022610/http://www.ido.edu.ru/psychology/anthropology/5.html#5.5.3|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>[http://school.bakai.ru/?id=hispb010103 School Bakai - Ethnogenesis the North Caucasus indigenous population]</ref>

An introduction to anthropology, published in 1953,<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Beals|first1=Ralph L.|title=An Introduction to Anthropology|last2=Hoijer|first2=Harry|publisher=The Macmillan Company|year=1953|place=New York}}</ref> gives a more complex classification scheme:
* "Archaic Caucasoid Races": [[Ainu people]] in Japan, [[Australoid race]], [[Dravidian peoples]], and [[Vedda]]
* "Primary Caucasoid Races": Alpine race, Armenoid race, Mediterranean race, and Nordic race
* "Secondary or Derived Caucasoid Races": Dinaric race, East Baltic race, and Polynesian race<ref>Listed according to: {{Cite book|last=Nida|first=Eugene Albert|url=https://archive.org/details/customsculturesa00nida|title=Customs and Cultures: Anthropology for Christian Missions|publisher=Harper and Brothers|year=1954|place=New York|page=283|url-access=registration}}</ref>

==Usage in the United States and Australia==
{{Further|Race in the United States}}

Besides its use in anthropology and related fields, the term "Caucasian" has often been used in the United States in a different, social context to describe a group commonly called "[[white people]]".<ref>{{Cite conference |last=Painter |first=Nell Irvin |author-link=Nell Irvin Painter |date=November 7-8, 2003 |title=Collective Degradation: Slavery and the Construction of Race: Why White People Are Called 'Caucasian'? |url=http://www.yale.edu/glc/events/race/Painter.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131020105628/http://www.yale.edu/glc/events/race/Painter.pdf |archive-date=October 20, 2013 |conference=Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Gilder Lehrman Center International Conference at Yale University |location=New Haven, Connecticut |publisher=Yale University |access-date=October 9, 2006 |df=mdy-all}}</ref> "White" also appears as a self-reporting entry in the U.S. Census.<ref name="Census2010">{{Cite web|date=March 2011 |editor=Karen R. Humes |editor2=Nicholas A. Jones|editor3=Roberto R. Ramirez|title=Definition of Race Categories Used in the 2010 Census|url=https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-02.pdf|access-date=April 25, 2014|publisher=United States Census Bureau|page=3}}</ref> Naturalization as a United States citizen was restricted to "free white persons" by the [[Naturalization Act of 1790]], and later extended to other resident populations by the [[Naturalization Act of 1870]], [[Indian Citizenship Act of 1924]] and [[Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952]]. The [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] in ''[[United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind]]'' (1923) decided that Asian Indians were ineligible for citizenship because, though deemed "Caucasian" anthropologically, they were not ''white'' like European descendants since most laypeople did not consider them to be "white" people. This represented a change from the Supreme Court's earlier opinion in ''[[Ozawa v. United States]]'', in which it had expressly approved of two lower court cases holding "high caste Hindus" to be "free white persons" within the meaning of the naturalization act. Government lawyers later recognized that the Supreme Court had "withdrawn" this approval in ''Thind''.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Coulson|first1=Doug|date=2015|title=British Imperialism, the Indian Independence Movement, and the Racial Eligibility Provisions of the Naturalization Act: United States v. Thind Revisited|journal=Georgetown Journal of Law & Modern Critical Race Perspectives|volume=7|pages=1–42|ssrn=2610266}}</ref> In 1946, the U.S. Congress passed a new law establishing a small immigration quota for Indians, which also permitted them to become citizens. Major changes to immigration law, however, only later came in 1965, when many earlier racial restrictions on immigration were lifted.<ref>[http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5076/ "Not All Caucasians Are White: The Supreme Court Rejects Citizenship for Asian Indians"], ''History Matters''</ref> This resulted in confusion about whether American Hispanics are included as "white", as the term ''[[Hispanic]]'' originally applied to Spanish heritage but has since expanded to include all people with origins in [[Spanish speaking countries]]. In other countries, the term ''Hispanic'' is rarely used.

The [[United States National Library of Medicine]] often used the term "Caucasian" as a race in the past. However, it later discontinued such usage in favor of the more narrow geographical term ''European'', which traditionally only applied to a subset of Caucasoids.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Tybaert |first1=Sara |last2=Rosov |first2=Jane |date=Nov–Dec 2003 |title=MEDLINE Data Changes - 2004 |url=https://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/nd03/nd03_med_data_changes.html |journal=[[NLM Technical Bulletin]] |issue=335 |pages=e6 |quote=The MeSH term Racial Stocks and its four children (Australoid Race, Caucasoid Race, Mongoloid Race, and Negroid Race) have been deleted from MeSH in 2004. A new heading, Continental Population Groups, has been created with new identification that emphasize geography.}}</ref>

In Australia, the federal and state police forces continue to use the descriptor Caucasian, along with ''[[Aboriginal Australians|Aboriginal]]'', ''Asian'', and ''other''<ref name="Sydney Morning Herald">{{cite web |last=Tadros |first=Edmund |title=Police urged to change ethnic labels |website=The Sydney Morning Herald |date=24 April 2007 |url=https://www.smh.com.au/national/police-urged-to-change-ethnic-labels-20070424-gdpzbj.html |access-date=21 March 2025 | quote =The council said NSW police should use the national standards, adopted in 1993 by other police forces, which use four terms to describe appearance in public communications about crimes: Aboriginal, Asian, Caucasian and other.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Ethnicity & Crime in NSW: Politics, Rhetoric & Ethnic Descriptors |website=Australian Arabic Council |date=15 January 2003 |url=https://aac.org.au/ethnicity-crime-in-nsw-politics-rhetoric-ethnic-descriptors/ |access-date=21 March 2025}}</ref> {{as of |lc=yes |March 2025}}.<ref>{{cite web |title=Appeal to locate teenage girl missing from the Northern Beaches |website=[[NSW Police]] Public Site |date=21 March 2025 |url=https://www.police.nsw.gov.au/news/news_article?sq_content_src=%2BdXJsPWh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGZWJpenByZC5wb2xpY2UubnN3Lmdvdi5hdSUyRm1lZGlhJTJGMTE3NDAzLmh0bWwmYWxsPTE%3D |access-date=21 March 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Arrest after robbery at Elizabeth |website= [[South Australia Police]] |date=17 March 2025 |url=https://www.police.sa.gov.au/sa-police-news-assets/northern-police-district/arrest-after-robbery-at-elizabeth |access-date=21 March 2025}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Anthropometry]]
* [[Leucism]]
* [[Race (human categorization)]]
* [[Race and ethnicity in the United States Census]]
* [[Race and genetics]]

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

===Bibliography===
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===Literature===
* {{Cite book|author=Augstein, HF|title=Race, Science and Medicine, 1700–1960|publisher=Routledge|year=1999|isbn=978-0-415-18152-5|editor1=Harris, Bernard|location=New York|pages=58–79|chapter=From the Land of the Bible to the Caucasus and Beyond|editor2=Ernst, Waltraud}}
* {{Cite book|last=Baum|first=Bruce|title=The rise and fall of the Caucasian race: a political history of racial identity|publisher=New York University Press|year=2006|isbn=978-0-8147-9892-8|location=New York}}
* Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich (1775) ''On the Natural Varieties of Mankind'' – the book that introduced the concept
* {{Cite book|author=Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi Luca|title=Genes, Peoples and Languages|publisher=Allen Lane|year=2000|isbn=978-0-7139-9486-5|location=London|author-link=Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza}}
* {{Cite book|author=Gould, Stephen Jay|title=The Mismeasure of Man|publisher=Norton|year=1981|isbn=978-0-393-01489-1|location=New York|author-link=Stephen Jay Gould}} – a history of the pseudoscience of race, skull measurements, and IQ inheritability
* {{Cite book|author=Guthrie, Paul|title=The Making of the Whiteman: From the Original Man to the Whiteman|publisher=Research Associates School Times|year=1999|isbn=978-0-948390-49-4|location=Chicago}}
* {{Cite book|author1=Piazza, Alberto|url=https://archive.org/details/historygeography00luig|title=The History and Geography of Human Genes|author2=Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi Luca|author3=Menozzi, Paolo|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=1996|isbn=978-0-691-02905-4|location=Princeton, New Jersey|author-link1=Alberto Piazza|author-link2=Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza|name-list-style=amp}} – a major reference of modern population genetics
* {{Cite book|author=Stoddard, Theodore Lothrop|url=https://archive.org/details/StoddardRacialRealitiesInEurope|title=Racial Realities in Europe|publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons|year=1924|location=New York|author-link=Lothrop Stoddard}}
* {{Cite book|author1=Wolf, Eric R.|title=The Hidden Frontier: Ecology and Ethnicity in an Alpine Valley|author2=Cole, John N.|publisher=University of California Press|year=1999|isbn=978-0-520-21681-5|location=Berkeley, California|name-list-style=amp}}

{{Historical definitions of race}}
{{White people}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Caucasian Race}}
[[Category:Historical definitions of race]]
[[Category:Biological anthropology]]
[[Category:Pseudoscience]]