It is most likely that the ancient races of the Earth before the beginning of time, in the modern sense of the term, appeared only after the last glaciation ended and the Neolithic era began due to the appearance of the first crops of agriculture. Such cultures were able in a short time (on a historical scale) to greatly increase their population, due to which they ensured their dominance over a wide territory with their set of racial attributes.
Upper Paleolithic
Many researchers claim that there are no races in the Upper Paleolithic, calling it the "Upper Paleolithic polymorphism" of the human race. Anthropologist Drobyshevsky Stanislav believes that the whole point is not that the racial attributes of the Upper Paleolithic people did not fully form (or differentiate completely). This is because not one of the Upper Paleolithic groups was able to achieve any advantage over other groups for a long period.
Thus, it was rather not a high uniformity of the human race that was not fully formed (or not fully differentiated), but rather its high polymorphism (mosaicity). From this polymorphism of the most ancient races on earth later, modern types of races arose.
Before this happened, the small populations of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers that usually lived under conditions of some or even complete isolation from each other, with the help of automatic processes, the genetics accumulated so many local features that it is impossible to identify which outlines or a racial group that possesses distinct attributes.
The formation of ancient races
Today, researchers deny the adaptive nature of a large number of racial attributes. Those populations that were their carriers were simply lucky with respect to evolution. In turn, this made it possible to consolidate and spread a random set of attributes.
It is likely that an important role in such a process was played by the manifestation of the original crops of agriculture, in which it was possible to greatly increase their population in a relatively short period of time, while displacing the groups that were carriers of other ancient racial types of people closer to the borders of the range.
In approximately this way the races were formed, which are called large. At the same time, beyond the boundaries of the habitats of the most ancient race of people engaged in agriculture, there was no such “zeroing” of racial attributes based on the predominance of certain types of carriers.
As a result of this, the vast diversity of racial attributes was preserved among the Indians of America, the natives of Australia, the Khoisanoid South Africans, Melanesians and other groups. It should be noted here that such groups are not even an example of "protomorphic" (or "stagnant") in relation to the evolution of groups compared with the "big races".
On the contrary, in groups with a high population that lived in anthropogenic landscapes, the variability of attributes strongly decreased, showing a tendency to conservation of these attributes, which was violated only by the so-called metalization at the edges of habitats.
Biological evolution here has largely changed for development from the technical and social sides, while not stopping at all. At the same time, smaller populations that were isolated from each other, while feeling the strongest influence of natural selection on them, were more flexible, which allowed them to quickly accumulate traits, both adaptive and completely random and neutral in relation to evolution. Moreover, such attributes were noticeable in appearance.
Details on symptoms
Thus, the massive physique, which is commonly called robustness, is a relatively new evolution in the Australian indigenous people, which, accordingly, is a consequence of attempts to adapt to difficult living conditions, and not even a consequence of their archaic nature (or "protomorphism").
Moreover, archaeological data on recent historical time demonstrate that the tendency to increase massiveness in the most ancient Aboriginal race has been successfully replaced in the direction of fragility of physique (gracility). This happened most likely due to the progress of social or the change of living conditions to easier ones.
At the same time, European Australians find absolutely no biological signs of adaptation to the environment in which they live, even in the future. This happened because they surrounded themselves with a technosphere of high development, so to speak, a second nature, which provides an opportunity for a person who is poorly adapted to these conditions to exist in Australia.
The role of adaptability
From the point of view of evolution, European Australians are even more archaic (or “protomorphic”) in relation to the indigenous inhabitants of the continent, who relatively recently, on the scale of history, have received a whole range of features useful from the point of view of evolution.
In this case, it is not necessary to elevate the role of technology in the absolute. Nowadays, there are observations that allow you to monitor the impact of natural selection on a group of modern people who, in the second half of the 19th century, took part in the study of the Far North.
During the life of one generation of people, almost all settlers who did not adapt to the harsh living conditions in the Far North returned to their habitat. At that time, when only those who had an adaptive type, that is, certain features of physique and metabolism, that allowed him to adapt to extreme cold conditions, remained in difficult conditions.
An interesting fact here is that these same features of successful researchers were also found in the local indigenous population. If these conquerors of the North multiplied outside their group and at the same time were subjected to the harsh effects of natural selection, as was usually the case with migration from ancient people, this group would have a stable set of attributes for adaptation to extremely low temperatures over several generations.
Which race is ancient
The genetics of the populations of our time is capable of making the assumption that the races existing at the moment do not fully exhaust all the morphological and historical diversity of modern man. And also that the oldest lubo disappeared without a trace, or its signs were blurred later upon assimilation with other races.
On the question of which race is the oldest, the ethnologist V. Napolsky suggested that the Paleoural race was one of these before the beginning of time. At the moment, the signs of her stay on the planet are blurred between the Mongoloids from the west and the Caucasian Ural-Siberian race. Moreover, its attributes are not characteristic of either the Mongoloids or the Caucasians in general.
Types of Upper Paleolithic
Stanislav Drobyshevsky (anthropologist) points out that human Upper Paleolithic morphological diversity may have manifested itself much stronger than in our days, and that it is impossible to conduct an accurate diagnosis of human skulls of those times using modern classification of races. Belonging to a specific time period or geographical location is also not expressed.
In particular, Drobyshevsky, based on finds in Europe, gives a description of the following ancient races of people on earth or morphological types, which are distinguished by different authors. Some of them were isolated on the basis of a single skull:
- solutrean;
- brunn-przedmostsky;
- Aurignacian;
- Oberkassel;
- Brunian
- Barma Grande;
- Chancellade;
- Cro-Magnon;
- grimaldian.
It is noted that at the same time in the Middle East there was a continuity of Inatufians and Pre-Natufians, who differed in features of proto-Europeans, sometimes mixed with Negroids. Although the Natufians are different from the Afalui Taforalt groups from North Africa.
Among the finds in East Africa, the Negroid types (much more massive compared to modern ones), Ethiopian, and also Bushmen were noticeably distinguished.
Skulls of the Upper Paleolithic from the territories of Indonesia, China and Southeast Asia often do not contain Mongoloid features, while there is a noticeable relationship with the equatorials of the east. As a rule, they are classified as a “type of australo-melanesia” or “proto-australoids”.
A huge number of regional finds are not described with the technologies of modern classification of races, while they contain the features of the Mongoloids from the south, as well as the Ainu, Australoids, Zemon (or Emon), classical Indians and other groups.
Mix of different populations
With group isolation in the form of populations that have various characteristics that distinguish them from others, isolation in the geographic area plays the most important role. This isolation was caused by the ancient races on earth, as a rule, by gigantic distances and a small number of people in the group.
The migration of such groups or the increase in their number of people resulted in contact of populations and, as a result, physical mixing of different races or, as they call it, crossbreeding. Due to this cross-breeding, anthropologically mixed types arose, that is, small races. These include Polynesian, South Siberian and others.
All the most common human races are capable of producing large joint offspring. Even those populations that were most isolated (Native Americans or Australian aborigines) did not have enough centuries of isolation until incompatibility in a biological sense with other groups.
The effects of crossbreeding
The result of cross-breeding as a whole was people with a mixed set of racial attributes. In areas of dense contact of habitats, the result was whole mixed races that possess similar attributes at the population level.
Thus, the result of mixing the Caucasian and Negroid races is mulattos, while the Mongoloid and Caucasian are mixed. Nowadays, most of the people who inhabit the planet belong to mestizos to one degree or another. An example is the inhabitants of South and Central America.
Moreover, a certain stability of racial accessories in such mestizo groups makes it possible to look at them as independent small races that are in their formation period.
A large number of studies have already been conducted, which demonstrated the absence of the effects of mixing the two races that are physically harmful to the offspring. And all because their origin was a relatively recent event. In addition, they constantly contacted in a variety of historical periods.
The decline of ancient civilizations
The Mayan civilization that existed in antiquity originated about four thousand years ago in the area where Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico are now located. Since the year 900 AD, the Mayan population has begun to decline rapidly, and the cities of this civilization have begun to empty, and no one knows for sure why.
However, today there are several versions that are considered to be the main ones, why did such a progressive civilization as Maya, which created its own calendar and writing, owning such sciences as mathematics, architecture and astronomy, disappear so rapidly.
Possible causes of the disaster
One hypothesis is that the protracted drought that caught Central America around 900 AD was the very cause of the disappearance of a magnificent civilization. The theory was founded after studying sediment samples from one of the oldest lakes in Mexico. Conclusions were made by specialists from the University of Florida and Cambridge.
Specialists from Russia agree that it was nature that destroyed the Maya civilization from within its state system. They believe that the people, due to a prolonged drought, rebelled against the priests who held the ruling posts, because the latter still did not manage to "call" the rain. Experts believe that because of this, civilization has withered in just a few decades.
There is a theory that frequent earthquakes caused the death of Maya. Another theory of the Mayan fall says that the collapse was caused by the wars that became more frequent during that unfortunate period, as well as the instability of domestic politics.
Caribbean Drought
In their attempts to find out the cause of the extinction of the oldest races of the world in the Caribbean, the researchers conducted a deep inspection of sediment deposits on the bottom of the lake called Chichankanab, which is located in the northern part of the Yucatan Peninsula.
In the first place, specialists had the task of studying the isotopic composition of water. This is because during drought, water molecules combine with the crystal-like structure of the rocks.
A researcher named Nick Evans explains that the evaporation of heavier isotopes is slower. For this reason, their large percentage in the sediment indicates that in the period studied by scientists, this land was dominated by drought.
It turned out that around 900 AD there was less rainfall than normal for the year. In periods of greater drought, these figures reached 70%, despite the fact that the relative humidity was several percent lower than our time.