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It has been suggested that this article be merged into Caucasian race. (Discuss) Proposed since December 2006.

The Caucasoid race is one of five racial categories as defined by the physical anthropologist Carleton S. Coon in 1934. The other four races that Coon defined were the Mongoloid race, the Australoid race, the Negroid race and the Capoid race. These racial classifications were made on the basis of physical features. According to Leonard Lieberman, Rodney C. Kirk, and Alice Littlefield, The concept of race has all but been completely rejected by modern mainstream anthropology.

Today, over 60 years after Coon, Caucasian is not considered a race by either the European Bioinformatics Institute nor the National Library of Medicine. The European Bioinformatics Institute defines Caucasoid as an ethnic group (rather than a race) which has "historical origins in Europe, North Africa or Southwestern Asia, including India". The Institute identifies eight ethnic groups: American Indian, Australian Aboriginal, Black, Caucasoid, Hispanic, Mixed, Oriental and Pacific Islander.. In the past, the National Library of Medicine used the term Caucasoid as a "racial stock" term (the other "racial stocks" were Australoid, Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid). The "racial stock" categorization scheme was replaced in 2004 with Continental Population Groups which focuses on geographic origins.

But Caucasian race remains in use in the non-scientific community. The Oxford English Dictionary defines Caucasoid as as noun or adjective meaning Of, pertaining to, or resembling the Caucasian race. The suffix -oid can indicate "a similarity, not necessarily exact, to something else", 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.

Genetics

Spencer Wells, author of the acclaimed book The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey (2002)-- which explains how genetic data has been used to trace human migrations over the past 50,000 years, when modern humans first migrated outside of Africa-- states that there were two migrations out of Africa, with one group taking a southern route and populating southern India and southeast Asia, then Melanesia, Micronesia and Australia, and the other group, accounting for 90% of the world's non-African populace (some 5 billion people as of late 2006), taking a northern route, eventually populating most of Eurasia (largely displacing the aboriginals in southern India, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia in the process), North Africa and the Americas.

In his book The Real Eve, Stephen Oppenheimer hypothesizes that the peoples of the Eurasian continent and beyond descend from a South Asian origin, with the founding population of Caucasoids (Western Eurasians) originating in Northwest India and the founding population of Mongoloids (Eastern Eurasians) originating in Northeast India/Nepal. Caucasoids spread North and West into Central Asia, West Asia, North Africa and Europe and South into Southern India and Sri Lanka, while Mongoloids spread North and East into Siberia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Polynesia, the Americas and Greenland. According to Oppenheimer, there was only one migration out of Africa, via a southern route, that consisted of a mere 200 individuals. One group ended up populating Melanesia, Micronesia and Australia (the Oceanic or Australasian branch of non-Africans) while the other populated the rest of the non-African world and North Africa (the aformentioned Eurasian branch of non-Africans). All people are of an ultimately East African origin, however.

See Genetic views on race

Footnotes

1. Tishkoff, S. A., and Kidd, K. K. Implications of biogeography of human populations for 'race' and medicine: Nature Genetics, 36, S21 - S27 (2004)  
2. Leonard Lieberman, Rodney C. Kirk, and Alice Littlefield, "Perishing Paradigm: Race—1931-99," American Anthropologist 105, no. 1 (2003): 110-13
3. http://www.ebi.ac.uk/imgt/hla/help/ethnic_help.html
4. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/nd03/nd03_med_data_changes.html
5. http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50034773?single=1&query_type=word&queryword=Caucasoid&first=1&max_to_show=10
6. http://www.bartleby.com/64/C008/037.html

See also

• Genetic views on race
• Caucasian race
• Caucasian peoples
• European American
• European people
• Craniofacial Anthropometry
• White people

• Articles to be merged from December 2006
• Physical anthropology
• Race