Typology in
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
was the categorization of the human species by races, based solely on traits that are readily observable from a distance such as head shape, skin color, hair form, body build, and stature. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, anthropologists used a typological model to divide people from different ethnic regions into
races, (e.g. the
Negroid
Negroid (less commonly called Congoid) is an obsolete racial grouping of various people indigenous to Africa south of the area which stretched from the southern Sahara desert in the west to the African Great Lakes in the southeast, but also to i ...
race, the
Caucasoid race
The Caucasian race (also Caucasoid or Europid, Europoid) is an obsolete racial classification of human beings based on a now-disproven theory of biological race. The ''Caucasian race'' was historically regarded as a biological taxon which, de ...
, the
Mongoloid race
Mongoloid () is an obsolete racial grouping of various peoples indigenous to large parts of Asia, the Americas, and some regions in Europe and Oceania. The term is derived from a now-disproven theory of biological race. In the past, other terms ...
, the
Australoid race
Australo-Melanesians (also known as Australasians or the Australomelanesoid, Australoid or Australioid race) is an outdated historical grouping of various people indigenous to Melanesia and Australia. Controversially, groups from Southeast Asia a ...
, and the
Capoid race
Capoid race is a grouping formerly used for the Khoikhoi and San peoples in the context of a now-outdated model of dividing humanity into different races. The term was introduced by Carleton S. Coon in 1962 and named for the Cape of Good Hope. ...
which was the racial classification system as defined in 1962 by
Carleton S. Coon).
The typological model was built on the assumption that humans can be assigned to a race based on similar physical traits. However, author Dennis O'Neil says the typological model in anthropology is now thoroughly discredited.
[O'Neil, Dennis. Palomar College. "Biological Anthropology Terms." 2006. May 13, 2007.]
/ref> Current mainstream thinking is that the morphological traits are due to simple variations in specific regions, and are the effect of climatic selective pressures.[Modern Human Variation: Models of Classificatio]
/ref> This debate is covered in more detail in the article on Race (classification of human beings), race.
See also
* Racial Mapping
Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly from an e ...
* Craniometry
Craniometry is measurement of the cranium (the main part of the skull), usually the human cranium. It is a subset of cephalometry, measurement of the head, which in humans is a subset of anthropometry, measurement of the human body. It is dis ...
* Craniofacial anthropometry
The history of anthropometry includes its use as an early tool of anthropology, use for identification, use for the purposes of understanding human physical variation in paleoanthropology and in various attempts to correlate physical with racial ...
Notes
References
*Brown, Ryan A and Armelagos, George, "Apportionment of Racial Diversity: A Review" Evolutionary Anthropology 10:34–40 200
{{Historical definitions of race
Anthropology
Historical definitions of race