Turanid race (also Turanoid or South Siberian race) is a word from physical anthropology that no one uses any more. In the past, anthropologists used this word to talk about people from South Siberia, called the South Siberian race They did this because using old ideas about dividing humans into groups by race could make it look like Europeans colonialism was a good thing.
When anthropologists first used this word, they meant people living in Central Asia and Kazakhstan. In European books, writers called it part of the Caucasian race with some "Mongoloid" mixed in. The form with strongly bronze age Andronovo characteristics is the most ancient form of the Turanid type.
Ethnic connections and subdivision
The Turanid race was said to be connected to Turkic peoples, Mountain Tajiks of Xinjiang (Sarikoli) and the Pamir tribes. Historically, tt was characteristic of the Onogurs, Huns, Magyars, Pechenegs, Cumans, Ancient Uyghurs, Avars, Kabars, Khazars, the Volga Bulgars (8th–9th cc.) and was one of the composite elements of the ruling strata of the Hungarians at the time of the conquest. Turanoid skulls dating to the Mesolithic age were also discovered at the archaeological site of Alfalou in North Africa.
In 1952, German anthropologist Egon Freiherr von Eickstedt subdivided the Turanid type as follows:
Species: Homo sapiens Modern human
Subspecies I: Homines sapientes albi Europids
Series C: Homines s. albi brachimorphi Mountain race belt
Variety 4: H. s. eurasicus Turanid
Subvarieties: a) H. s. eur. turanicus Aralid b) H. s. eur. pamiriensis Pamirid
Related pages
Eurasian Avars
Huns
Turkic peoples
References
Leon Cahun L’histoire de l’Asie (1896). Ilse Schwidetzky, Turaniden-Studien, Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, F. Steiner Verlag, Mainz, (1950).
