Chapter VII 



HUMAN RACES 



Ales Hrdlicka 



ONE of the plainest facts regarding man is that he differs, 

 physically as well as otherwise. Physically he differs 

 so that, except in the rare cases of "identical" or 

 one-egg twins, every individual may readily be told apart 

 from all others. This is individual variation, which, while 

 general to all living forms, is most pronounced in man. 



In every human community, however, from the larger 

 family groups or "hnes" onward, there are evidences of the 

 formation of strains, the individuals of which approach or 

 resemble each other in pigmentation, stature, build, and 

 more or less even in physiognomy. The larger the human 

 group the more such strains there usually are, and the 

 more some of these tend to become established, both soma- 

 tologically and territorially. Such strains now form types, 

 which, if allowed further to develop and multiply and segre- 

 gate, begin to assume the status of races; which, with time, 

 develop again their own strains and types and perhaps 

 races. 



Thus human variation and differentiation go on; and thus 

 they have gone on since the beginnings of man, producing 

 various races, most of which perished in the long struggle 

 of human ascent. But others persist to this day, and it is 

 the study and classification of these surviving as well as 

 their daughter races that have, long since, been one of the 

 serious concerns of Anthropology, and that will be succinctly 

 dealt with in the following pages. 



MAN AND SPECIES 



In biological classification man constitutes the ultimate 

 distinct genus of the Primates, the genus Homo. The com- 

 ponents of this most widely distributed genus present 

 extensive physical variation, and this variation occurs in 

 numerous more or less distinct strains, the larger and better 



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