Caucasian race

The Caucasian race was an old way people used to group humans based on ideas that are no longer believed to be true. It was thought that people from places like Europe, West Asia, North Africa, South Asia, and parts of Central Asia and the Horn of Africa all belonged to one racial group. This idea started in the 1780s by people from the Göttingen school of history.

Back then, people thought there were three major races: Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid. Scientists looked mostly at bones and skull shapes to decide who belonged to the Caucasoid group. But these people did not all have the same skin colour; some had very light skin and others had much darker skin.

Today, scientists understand human differences in new ways. They see that race is more about how people see themselves and their backgrounds, not just about biology. In the United States, the word Caucasian is still sometimes used to mean people of white or European, West Asian, or North African ancestry, but many people think this way of describing people is outdated. The term is also used in some other English-speaking countries like Australia.

History of the concept

Caucasus as the origin of humanity and the peak of beauty

In the 1700s, many European scholars thought humans began in the Caucasus Mountains. They believed this because of stories about Noah’s Ark landing there and myths about Prometheus, a figure who was said to have created humans from clay.

People from the Caucasus, especially from places like Georgia and Circassia, were often described as very beautiful by Europeans. These ideas about beauty came from old stories and travels by people like Jean Chardin.

Göttingen school of history

The word “Caucasian” to describe a group of people was first used in the 1780s by historians from Göttingen, Germany, such as Christoph Meiners in 1785 and Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in 1795. At first, it only meant the people who lived in the Caucasus Mountains.

Meiners wrote about a “Caucasian” group in 1785, thinking of them as a special and better group of people. Later, Blumenbach helped make the idea more well-known. Unlike Meiners, Blumenbach thought all humans came from the same place but still thought the Caucasian group was better in some ways.

Carleton Coon

Different people had different ideas about what the “Caucasian race” included. In 1939, Carleton S. Coon said this group came from mixing between older human types. His ideas about race were later found to be wrong and not based on real science.

Disproof by modern genetics

As science learned more, especially with genetics, people realized that the idea of clear human races does not hold up. Scientists found that humans do not fit neatly into separate groups, and the idea of race is not useful for understanding human biology.

Current scientific consensus

Today, scientists agree that there are no true human races. Alan R. Templeton said in 2016 that races do not really exist in humans.

Classification

In the 19th century, people thought of humans as being divided into three big groups, and one of these was called the Caucasoid group. This group included many different peoples from places like Europe, West Asia, and North Africa. Scientists back then tried to sort these groups into smaller types based on things like language.

Some scientists were not sure if certain groups, like the Dravidians and Sinhalese from India, belonged to the Caucasoid group or were their own special group. Over time, most decided they were part of the Caucasoid group.

There were many ideas about how to split the Caucasoid group into smaller types, and different scientists had different ideas. Some thought there were groups like Mediterranean, Nordic, and Alpine, among others. One scientist even suggested a special group called the Northcaucasian race for people from the North Caucasus area.

Usage in the United States and Australia

Further information: Race in the United States

In the United States, the word "Caucasian" has been used to talk about people often called "white people". This word "white" is also used when people fill out forms for the U.S. government. In the past, only people who were considered "free white persons" could become U.S. citizens. This changed over time with new laws in 1870, 1924, and 1952.

In 1923, a court case decided that people from India, even though they were sometimes called "Caucasian" by scientists, were not considered "white" in everyday terms and so could not become citizens. This was different from an earlier case in which the court had said that some people from India could be citizens. Later in 1946, a new law allowed people from India to become citizens, and big changes in 1965 opened up immigration to many more groups.

This created some confusion about whether people called "Hispanic" are counted as "white". The word Hispanic started out meaning people with Spanish heritage but now includes anyone from Spanish speaking countries. In other places, the word Hispanic is not used much.

The United States National Library of Medicine used to use the term "Caucasian" to talk about race but now uses the word European instead.

In Australia, police still use the word Caucasian along with words like Aboriginal, Asian, and other as of March 2025^[update].