Where Do You Begin?

[Oresai]

I never studied classification. The first thought I gave to it, to be honest, was on another forum, which also had areas dedicated to it and a wealth of information that was to someone like me, with no knowledge at all, a little frightening...
And so because of that forum and this one, I now find myself looking at random people on tv and trying to guess their ethnic origin or race, without realising I`m doing it!
Of course, the trouble is, I know absolutely nothing about such things.
Is there an idiots guide? Or something that makes easy reading, to ease my way into learning about it? Maybe something which gives plain and basic pointers to look for in faces or body types?
Much of the information I`ve looked at tends to assume the reader has had a grounding in such a subject, but I haven`t.
Any advice greatly appreciated.

[Fortis in Arduis]

Although the geographical distribution of the sub-races do correlate with the geographical distribution of DNA haplotypes, physical classification and taxonomy are a pseudo-science.

I am not an expert myself but Carleton Coon's 'Race of Europe' is the definitive work, according to many. It costs about £50 to buy new. Sigurd has a copy. It makes interesting reading, if you like the subject matter, and there is a good section on Keltic-Nordics.

[Oresai]

Thanks, I`ve read about Coon before, I think some of his work is available online? I really would like to learn more about this, it`s fascinating to be able to look at someone and tell their ancestry.
"We are the sum of our ancestors...their lives have gone into making us who we are"

[Goswinus]

Although the geographical distribution of the sub-races do correlate with the geographical distribution of DNA haplotypes, physical classification and taxonomy are a pseudo-science.

I am not an expert myself but Carleton Coon's 'Race of Europe' is the definitive work, according to many. It costs about £50 to buy new. Sigurd has a copy. It makes interesting reading, if you like the subject matter, and there is a good section on Keltic-Nordics.

It's not a pseudo-science, it works on another level and is to some degree interconnected with DNA haplotypes. It's not because quantumphysics warped our perception of how reality is build and given substance, than the laws of Newton are invalidated and hence redundant.

[Fortis in Arduis]

It's not a pseudo-science, it works on another level and is to some degree interconnected with DNA haplotypes. It's not because quantumphysics warped our perception of how reality is build and given substance, that the laws of Newton are invalidated and hence redundant.

I work with the three doshas, vata, pitta and kapha, which derive from the five elements, so I do appreciate what you are saying, but I also suspect that a more updated system of racial taxonomy is in the pipeline and I have to tell you that my classification of 'sub-nordic' means very little to me, because it says very little about my physiology.

In the same way that the Linnean system of taxonomy is being phased out in favour of the evolutionary tree, so shall physical anthropology be replaced by something not dissimilar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_tree

In the future, those who win the game will be the players who can match their DNA to each other and evolve their culture onward, not those who just look similar, or just have a similar culture.

Such peoples will resort to abstraction to protect their flimsy ethnicities, but nature will always be unkind, so it is better to avert the danger which has not yet come.

[Goswinus]

There is here around a thread where I went to discuss the untenable use of the term "Sub-Nordid" given that it had in various classifications and its proper origins therein; it was a slightly revised piece of irrelevant writing which originally was written for Skadi Forum in 2006 or 2007.
It doesn't matter as nearly no one actually cared back then to go through it and use it.

Since 2003 I have tried to correct information on racial anthropology and bring the many, sometimes conflicting pieces of this huge jigsaw puzzle into a more or less coherent, harmonious and easy accessible tableau, using archaeology and paleaoanthropology to back up the theories proposed in my writings. But hey, who gives a damn when I wrote about Azilian culture, pot shards and huts, moats and kitchenalia of the Seine-Oise-Marne and Funnel Beaker culture, the difference between East Mediterrenean and Transdanubian religious symbolism and the problem of acculturation and so forth, even though it might have helped to explain where when who came from and how skull type this and mandible that was introduced in a given corner of Europe.

And the countless PDF's and commentaries scattered over forum pages about species, race and evolution, re-emerging or not up from the Neolithic, where largely unread too, except maybe for the abstract.

Anyway, I, and a couple of friends of mine, were working on this evolutionary anthropology of races before taxonomy in forums degenerated into a mixture of a running joke, a raffle and a vanity context...

End of rant.

[Vulpix]

Oresai, have a look at SNPA . You will also find Coon's The Races of Europe book available there .

[Oresai]

Many thanks, I will.

[TiBi]

Hi guys,
do you have suggestions for me on what to read to help me know more about Taxonomy?
I am reading The Races Of Europe, I don't necessarily agree with the assumptions it moves from but I find it interesting nonetheless.
Advice?

Thank you very much in advance.

[Osprey]

View Agrippa's posts in Skadi and Theapricity.
That should be enough, putting more than a particular amount of time is wastage, because these 'taxonomies' are just for the sake of the viewer's hobby and should not be considered as passionate pursuit.
Just a general advice, do what you will!