THE GEOGRAPHICAL ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN BIOLOGY (the anthropological aspect)

Among the various problems relating to the man-nature relationship, little work has been done on the mechanism by which extreme natural environments, such as those observed in the Arctic, in continental Siberia, in the tropics and in highlands, affect the human organism. A Moscow University anthropologist discusses the geographical distribution of some anthropologic traits and concludes that some physiologic and morphologic features inherent in members of different races and ethnic groups tend to adapt themselves to particular environments without posing an obstacle to existence in other ecological settings. It is found in particular that members of different races or ethnic groups will display similar adaptive characteristics in a given environment while members of a particular ethnic group will show different adaptive tendencies in different environments. The article is based on the author's book Geograficheskaya sreda i biologiya cheloveka (Geographical Environment and Human Biology), published in Moscow in 1977.]