The Distribution of Types of Skin Color

Abstract

SKIN color and hair form have been used in the classification of mankind, and they are, it is true, obvious and convenient distinguishing marks; but there is a danger in such usage. We too easily slip into the habit of considering, for example, that the people with dark skin and kinky hair form a profoundly distinct group marked off by all their characteristics from the rest of the human race and that the so-called Nordic race can be described simply as light-colored of hair, eyes, and skin. Study shows, however, that among the people with dark skin and kinky hair there are many important differences in the bony frame of body, limbs, and head, and the samne is true of the blond peoples of Northwest Europe. Another of our common mistakes is to treat the individual as a unit, whereas he is in reality a mosaic of diverse inheritances affected in a variety of ways by environmental factors working especially upon his growth, and some of these factors may bring regional adaptations to climatic and other influences. It may thus happen that successive drifts of mankind into an area, despite their diversities of inheritance, come to resemble one another to some extent in one or more characteristics. Groups with diverse origins as regards skull and skeleton may be dark-skinned and kinky-haired; and people with light coloring may share the same inheritance of skull or skeleton with people of dark skin and kinky hair. It is the outstanding fact of archeology that early drifts of culture, demonstrable in fashions of stone implements, can be traced over wide areas. For example, the Acheulean hand ax of the Lower Paleolithic has a certain similarity whether found in Britain, France, Spain, Africa, Southwest Asia, or even India. We cannot say that people of the same physical type took this culture, or others, to these lands, but we can infer that there have been longdistance migrations of great importance, and no doubt also culture drifts through contacts of adjacent peoples. The further point to be borne in mind is that in early days, when men drifted about as hunters and collectors, food conditions kept groups small, and they tended to use large areas; in other words, density of population was very low. England and Wales probably had a good deal less than one million people even under Roman rule, and in earlier times numbers were much smaller. Indeed, it has often been estimated that the population of