Southern New Hampshire University
ATH-101 Introduction to Anthropology
Module 2 Overview
Learning Objectives
Analyze the social and cultural aspects of race
Explain the historical influences for anthropology and its subfields
HUMAN EVOLUTION
Anthropologist Audrey Smedley (2007) wrote that “few topics in Western intellectual and social
history have been subjected to as much investigation, speculation, analysis, and theoretical
scrutiny as the phenomenon of race. . .. We almost never question its meanings or its reality” (p.
1). What is race? How do anthropologists seek to define or redefine race? What cultural and
social significance does race have in cultures? How do anthropologists seek to explain human
variation between groups? These topics will be addressed within this module.
In the 1960s, biological anthropologist Frank Livingstone argued that the “typological notion of
races was not compatible with the dynamic concept of natural selection” and that the use of a
concept that was fixed and nonadaptive did not “mesh well with studies of the causes of
variations in human populations” (Mielke, Kongingsberg, & Relethford, 2006, p. 18). Rather,
Livingstone contended that research should focus on;clines;(geographical variation of a single
trait) and further stated that “there are no races, there are only clines” (Livingstone, 1962, p.
279). Ashley Montagu, another biological anthropologist, reasoned that race was “an ambiguous,
overused, and very loaded term that should be dropped from the scientific literature since it
continued to mix biology, cultural, intelligence, personality, nations, etc. together” (Mielke,
Kongingsberg, & Relethford, 2006, p. 18).
Schultz and Lavenda (2012) point out the following:
Clinal variation explains why people searching for races have never been able to agree how
many races there are or how they can be identified. Clines are not groups. The only group
involved in clinal mapping is the entire human species. Each cline is a map of the
distribution of a single trait. Biologists might compare the clinal map of trait A and trait B
to see if they overlap, and, if so by how much. But the more clines they superimpose the
more obvious it becomes that that trait distributions they map do not coincide in ways that
neatly subdivide into distinct human subpopulations. Since the biological concept of race
predicts each overlap, the biological concept of race cannot be correct. In other words,
clinal analysis tests the biological aspects of race and finds nothing in nature to match it. (p.
83)
For example, skin color gets darker toward the equator and gets lighter the farther from the
equator one gets.
If there is no scientific evidence to support the existence of biological race, why is the concept of
race alive and well? One reason, as Smedley (2007) argues, is that people are not aware of the
social history of race. For example, in the 1700s, the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus suggested
that there were five races or subspecies of humans:;Homo sapiens afer, Homo sapiens
americanus, Homo sapiens asiaticus, Homo sapiens europeanus,and;Homo sapiens
ferus;(Fuentes, 2007). Linnaeus coded them as European white, Asians yellow, Africans black,
and Americans red (Marks, 2011). The last category (savages or wild men) existed only within
Linnaeus’s imagination. While Linnaeus categorized humans according to traits such as clothing
patterns, character, and behavior, the perceptions of skin color as a sure indicator of race is still
present (Fuentes, 2007). To be clear, anthropologists do not downplay the fact that race is an
emotionally charged social and cultural reality. Anthropologists only argue that, biologically and
genetically, there is no scientific proof that any other species or subspecies of humans exists at
this time, regardless of skin color or other traits.
REFERENCES
Fuentes, A. (2007).;Core concepts in biological anthropology. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
Marks, J. (2011).;The alternative approach to biological anthropology. New York, NY: Oxford
University Press.
Mielke, J. H., Kongingsberg, L. W., & Relethford, J. H. (2006).;Human biological variation.
New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Livingstone, F. (1962). On the nonexistence of human races.;Current Anthropology;3, 279–281.
Schultz, E. A., & Lavenda, R. H. (2012).;Cultural anthropology: A perspective on the human
condition;(8th ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.;
Smedley, A. (2007).;Race in North America: Origin and evolution of a worldview. (3rd ed.).
Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
