THE ANIMAL, MAN (ANTHROPOLOGY) 561 



Furthermore, whatever the criteria that are employed, it is quite 

 certain that in no case does there anywhere exist today a i)ure race 

 of mankind, vuicontaminated by any other race. The nearest ap- 

 proach to biological racial purity would be expected among inbred 

 peoples, which have been isolated from diverse parental stocks for 

 a long time, as, for example, the Eskimo tribes of the north, the hairy 

 Ainu aborigines of northern Japan, the Igorots of the Philippines, 

 the Veddahs of southern Ceylon, and the Pygmies of Africa. 



Dr. Hrdlicka divides Homo sapiens into three primary races ac- 

 cording to the pigmentation of the skin, namely, white, yellow-brown, 

 and black. Skin color in itself is no measure of either inferiority 

 or superiority. Its only biological significance is that it may possibly 

 be regarded as an environmental adaptation to prevailing amounts 

 of ultraviolet light in different regions of the earth. Even if a 

 correlation between skin pigment and sunlight is demonstrated, the 

 probable cause of it is more reasonably explained as an hereditary 

 adaptation enabling the darker races to live successfully in tropical 

 regions of greater intensity of sunlight, rather than that dark skin 

 is the result of exposure to excessive sunlight, which has become 

 hereditary. Unfortunately it is a superficial criterion that cannot 

 be applied to our fossil Pleistocene ancestors of whose skin we have 

 no knowledge. There is evidence, however, that these three great 

 primary divisions of mankind were differentiated from each other 

 before the time when the records of written history were begun. 



The White race, which may include individuals all the way from 

 light blondes to dark brunettes, is frequently further divided into 

 at least four sub-races, namely, the Mediterranean, Armenoid, 

 Alpine, and Nordic. Individuals of the Mediterranean sub-race are 

 typically short, slender, olive-skinned, narrow-nosed, and long- 

 headed. They include various peoples of the Mediterranean coasts, 

 Spaniards, Portuguese, Greeks, Cretans, some Italians, Persians, 

 Berbers, Arabs, Phoenicians, most Egyptians, and some English. 

 The Armenoid sub-race, characterized frequently by a prominent 

 convex nose, have, in many instances, a decided flair for commerce, 

 and an outstanding capacity for survival and advancement even 

 under adversity. They include Armenians, Turks, Syrians, some 

 Persians, and certain Jews. The Alpine sub-race is made up for the 

 most part of stocky, round-headed people, including some Russians, 

 Greeks, Swiss, North Italians, South Germans, Balkans, Czechs, 

 Poles, and French. The members of the Nordic sub-race are charac- 



