Caucasian race

The Caucasian race (also Caucasoid or occasionally Europid) is a taxon historically used to describe the physical or biological type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia, Central Asia, and certain parts of South Asia. The term was used in biological anthropology for many people from these regions, without regard necessarily to skin tone. First introduced in early racial science and anthropometry, the taxon has historically been used to denote one of the three proposed major races (Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid) of humankind. Although its validity and utility are disputed by many anthropologists, Caucasoid as a biological classification remains in use, particularly within the field of forensic anthropology.

Origin of the concept

The term "Caucasian race" was coined by the German philosopher Christoph Meiners in his The Outline of History of Mankind (1785). Meiners' term was given wider circulation in the 1790s by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, a German professor of medicine and member of the British Royal Society, who is considered one of the founders of the discipline of anthropology.