People of the world

Introduction

Previous chapters looked at the different human races and their origin. Human races differ one from another by language, hair, facial features and skin colour. The difference in human skin colour is due to differences in the amount of the pigment melanin. This chapter looks at interactions between human races on biological levels.

The classification of human beings

Scientific classification, or biological classification, is how biologists group and categorise extinct and living species of organisms. Scientific classification is also called scientific taxonomy. So how are we, humans, scientifically categorised?

Modern human beings are biologically classified as the following:

Domain: Eukaryota - our body cells have a well-defined nucleus.

Kingdom: Animalia - humans are eukaryotic multicellular heterotrophs

Phylum: Chordata - humans have a backbone

Class: Mammalia - humans have hair and nurse their young

Order: Primates - are characterised by large brain, stereoscopic (three-dimensional) vision and grasping hand

Family: Hominidae

Genus: Homo

Humans and their communities

Like most primates, humans are social by nature. That feature contributed a lot to the formation and structuring of human communities. Social interaction between humans is based on their traditions, rituals, ethics, values, social norms and laws which form the basis of human society.

Natural curiosity in humans has also 'sped up' the evolutionary development of our brain. Through history, humans have developed advanced tools, techniques and skills. Humans are the only known species that know how to build a fire, cook and make clothes.

The hominid brain has tripled in size over the last 4 million years. Australopithecenes' brain averaged about 500 cm3, the size of a chimpanzee's and modern Homo sapiens' brain is over 1,000 cm3.

Interactions between human races

A human race is defined as a group of people with certain common inherited features that distinguish them from other groups of people. All modern human beings belong to the one species, Homo sapiens. All races of mankind in the world can interbreed because they have so much in common. Today, most anthropologists recognise four basic human races: Mongoloid, Caucasoid, Negroid and Australoid. See image 2.

Based on the fossil record, one of the most popular theories of human origin states that the first humans evolved in Africa. Later, they migrated to other parts of the world, creating different human races. Human morphological changes are based on the interactions between their genomes and environment. Human populations have at times been isolated, but have never genetically diverged enough to produce any biological barriers to mating between members of different populations.

There is great genetic diversity within all human populations. According to human DNA studies, races in their 'pure form' do not exist in the human species today. Genetic laws and interactions between recessive and dominant genetic traits are factors that define human morphology. Some of these morphological differences are inherited and others, such as body size and shape, are influenced by nutrition, way of life and environment.

The genome of each species' population is subject to constant modifications. Human populations are subjected to the same laws of nature as other living organisms. Humans are in the process of ongoing changes caused by natural selection, adaptation to the environment and genetic mutations.

The human species has been migrating and interbreeding with human species from other populations for thousands of years. As a consequence, most humans are adapted to many of the Earth's environments in general, but to none in particular. For many thousands of years human evolution and progress in any field have been based not so much on genetic changes but on culture. Today, the human population cannot be classified into isolated geographical categories.

The subject of human racial differences has been a very controversial one for hundreds of years. Mating between members of different human groups tends to diminish any sort of differences between these groups. The obstacles of interbreeding between different groups of human populations have always been cultural and not biological. Usually, human beings who speak the same language and share the same culture select each other as mates because they relate more easily to each other.

The impact on the health of Aboriginal people brought on by European settlers

Different communities of the world have been interacting with each other for thousands of years. Wars, trading, travel and migration are all examples of these interactions.

When European settlers first came to Australia they brought significant changes into Indigenous communities. The settling of Australia was based on the notion that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples had no form of government or land management. They were seen as inferior beings and expected to die out. The scientific community hypothesised that they were the 'missing link' in Darwinian evolutionary theory and should be studied before they became extinct.

Eventually, the colonising government decided to round up the remaining Indigenous people and place them, for their own protection, in camps and institutions. Saltwater people were moved to the desert, northern people to the south, rival tribes were placed together and the Indigenous way of life was restricted and deemed improper. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were forbidden their normal diet of fresh Indigenous meats and plants. Instead, they were dependent on rations of European food staples like flour, sugar, tea, lard and tinned meat. Many people became sick.

Today, the Aboriginal diet is very different from the diet of their ancestors. It is rich in fats and sugar, high in kilojoules, but low in nutritional value. Diet-related diseases like cardiovascular disease and diabetes are very common in Indigenous communities. Alcohol and tobacco that were not known in Aboriginal communities before the arrival of European settlers also had a very negative impact on the health of Indigenous people.

Today the greatest achievements in addressing Aboriginal health have been based on elements of sovereignty. Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations ('ACCHO') are an excellent example. They are administered by an Aboriginal board that has been selected by the community the organisation services. See image 3.