Przegląd Antropologiczny – Anthropological Review • Vol. 66, 3-21 (2003)

The decline of racein American physical anthropology

Leonard Lieberman,1 Rodney C. Kirk,1 Michael Corcoran 21 Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Central Michigan University,Mt. Pleasant, MI. 48859, USA; E-mail: liebe1l@cmich.edu2 Department of History, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, MI.48859, USA

ABSTRACT This paper is a review of how and why the race concept haschanged in the United States during the 20th century. In the 19th century theconcept of race provided the unchallenged folk taxonomy and the prevailingscientific paradigm for placing human biological and cultural variation intocategories called races. At the height of the eugenic and anti-immigrationmovement of the early decades of the 20th century, Boas and his students be-gan the critique of racism and aspects of the race concept. In the early 1950sWashburn proposed that the modern synthesis replace race typology with thestudy of processes and populations. In the 1960s new data on clinal geneticgradations provided tools for studying human variation while challenging therace concept. We present several kinds of documentation of the decline of therace concept over the 20th century, and place the above changes in the contextof the essential development of new genetic evidence. We also relate the de-cline of race to historical developments, the growth of the culture concept, andthe biographies of the participants. We reject political correctness and viewscience as a self-correcting endeavor to relate concepts to the empirical world.KEY WORDS race, cline, population, Boas, WashburnPrz. Antropol.–Anthropol. Rev. (2003), vol. 66, pp. 3-21, Fig. 1, Tables 2. ISBN 83-86969-92-X, ISSN 0033-2003

Race decline: The evidence

Several lines of evidence indicate thata majority of physical anthropologists inthe United States have rejected the con-cept of biological races. Since 1968 myseveral colleagues and I have been car-rying out a series of empirical studies

demonstrating the decline of the raceconcept [LIEBERMAN 1968; LIEBERMANand REYNOLDS 1978; LITTLEFIELD et al.1982; LIEBERMAN et al. 1989, 2003].A documented source of evidence of thedecline of support for the race concept isseen in a content analysis of the fre-quency of articles in the American

L. Lieberman et al.4

Journal of Physical Anthropology(AJPA) using either the race concept orthe traditional taxonomy of Caucasoid,Mongoloid, Negroid from 1918–2001(in odd-numbered years). In 1918 theAJPA began publishing and 60 percentof articles on human variation used therace concept or race taxonomies. In odd-numbered subsequent years (see Fig. 1),among 1,636 articles, the percentagevaried but gradually declined to 4 per-cent in 2001 (r = -.89, p = .01). Viewedin three periods (see Table 1) the per-centages using race were: 61 percent in1918–1943; 42 percent in 1945–1973;and 21 percent in 1975–2001 (chi-square = 179.48, df = 4, p < .01).

This change is reflected in introduc-tory textbooks of physical anthropologypublished from 1932 to 2003. Up to1969 only one author of three of 20 textsrejected race [MONTAGU 1945, 1951,1960]. A turning point came in the1970s when ten texts rejected race whilefive continued to accept the concept[LITTLEFIELD et al. 1982]. In the 1980s

the trend increased, and in the 1990snine texts rejected race [LIEBERMAN etal. 2003] and only one accepted theconcept [CAMPBELL 1998]. The patternof 1932–1969 had been completely re-versed.

A third source of information also in-dicated changes in the status of the raceconcept. A series of three questionnaireswas mailed to members of the AmericanAnthropological Association. Over thecourse of 21 years the survey responsesindicated increasing rejection of the raceconcept. In the 1978 series [LIEBERMANand REYNOLDS 1978] the questionnairewas mailed to college and universityresearchers and teachers of physicalanthropology. One of the questionsasked them to agree or disagree with thisstatement: “Races do not exist becauseisolation of groups has been infrequent,populations have always interbred.”Thirty-seven percent of 374 respondentsagreed (48 percent response rate). In asecond study in the series 42 percent(N = 148) of responding physical an-

0102030405060708090

1918

1921

1925

1929

1933

1937

1941

1945

1949

1953

1957

1961

1965

1969

1973

1977

1981

1985

1989

1993

1996

1999

Fig. 1. Race articles as percent of human variation articles. AJPA, 1918–2001. Mostly odd numberedyears (r = .89, p = .01)

The decline of race in American anthropology 5

thropologists rejected the race conceptby disagreeing with this statement:“There are biological races in the spe-cies Homo sapiens” (71 percent re-sponse rate; LIEBERMAN et al. [1989]).The third study occurred in 1999 andpresented the same statement, and 69percent of responding physical anthro-pologists rejected the concept (46 per-cent response rate; LIEBERMAN et al.[2003]).

As noted, the period of change meas-ured in different types of studies seemedto occur at different times and rates.There was a gradual decline after 1935in the AJPA (Fig. 1). The textbook de-cline begins in the 1970s, and the sur-veys indicated a change in the 1980s. Inpart, this is because somewhat differentpopulations are involved. Those whopublished in the AJPA were engaged inresearch and were more often membersof the American Association of PhysicalAnthropology (AAPA). Those respon-ding to surveys were listed in the Ameri-can Anthropological Association Guideto Departments and Members (1973,1985, 1999), less likely to be membersof the AAPA and possibly more likely

to be teachers of the subject than re-searchers. Authors of texts includedboth sources. It is noteworthy that thefirst population to evidence decline ofrace were the researchers. The timing ofthe changes varied, but over the courseof the 20th century, acceptance of therace concept inherited from the 18th and19th century had undergone significantdecline.

Explaining the declinein an accepted truth

Concepts embedded in scientific dis-ciplines and in public opinion do not justfade away, they must be critiqued,challenged with data, and replaced bymore useful concepts. It would requireabout half of the 20th century for theessential development of concepts anddata relating to heredity and genetics toenable rejection of the thinking of the19th century. G.W. STOCKING [1968:163] states that “physical anthropologyaround 1900 had wandered far into ablind alley from which it was not reallyto emerge for another fifty years.”

Table 1. Race articles in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology in three periods, as a percent of articles on human variation

Period1918–1943 1945–1973 1975–2001 TotalRace

% (N) % (N) % (N) (N)

Used 61 (172) 42 (189) 21 (193) (554)Undecided 5 (15) 6 (25) 5 (44) (84)Not used 33 (93) 52 (236) 74 (669) (998)Total humanvariation articles 99* (280) 100 (450) 100 (906) (1,636)

Chi-square = 179.48, df = 4, p <.01*Some totals vary from 100 due to rounding

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STOCKING [1968] summarized the 19thcentury idea of race as it was used in1900:

Physical anthropologists had started froma preevolutionary polygenist conceptionof “pure race” as an assemblage of traitsmanifest in every individual race member,essentially unchanged by time or circum-stance. They had carried on their investi-gations in a period when there was muchspeculation about heredity but no gener-ally accepted theory of its processes(p. 163).

At the start of the 20th century beliefin race and racism were establishedtruths in American folk beliefs and inthe beliefs and publications of scientists.In 1918, in the preface to the first issueof the American Journal of PhysicalAnthropology, the editor and founder,Aleš HRDLIČKA [1918] described animportant objective of physical anthro-pology as “the study of the more primi-tive human races” (p. 19). He added the“effects of racial mixtures” (p. 20), and“the growing science of eugenics”(p. 21). In 1915, he stated that those whocannot keep pace are being eliminatedby nature (quoted by RANKIN-HILL andBLAKEY [1999: 115]) and, in 1927, heconcluded that “the real problem of theAmerican Negro lies in his brain”(1927: 208-9, quoted by RANKIN-HILLand BLAKEY [1999: 115]). In the earlydecades of the 20th century, Hrdličkawas expressing the widespread views ofsociety and the scientific community.

In the early decades of the 20th cen-tury the idea of eugenics appealed to thepublic and to early geneticists. The in-fluential ideas of the time included race,racism, race purity, social Darwinismand a very simple view of dominant andrecessive genes that could be used to

bring about race improvement. Slowly,beginning early in the 20th century,research would challenge and qualify ordisprove the elements of the race con-cept, but the influence of new geneticknowledge would not begin until a newparadigm, the modern synthesis, wasestablished, starting in the 1930s, withchange possibly reflected in the declineof race articles in the AJPA beginning in1935 (see Figure 1).

Influence of the modernsynthesis and genetics

The period of the modern synthesis isone of rapid change in evolutionarybiology from approximately 1936 to1947 [MAYR 1980]. HUXLEY [1942]identified the evolutionary synthesis interms of an interaction of “small geneticchanges . . . and recombination and theordering of this genetic variation bynatural selection” [MAYR 1980: 1]. Thesynthesis had two effects. First, itbrought to an end the conflict betweenthose who believed evolution was theresult of mutations and those who util-ized natural selection as the primemover. Second, and crucial in relation tothis paper, it opened the door to an ex-pansion of genetic analyses of popula-tions that would in time bring an end tothe viewing of races as homogeneoustypologies. It did not lead directly to arejection of the race concept, but madepossible a rejection of parts of that con-cept that in time would contribute to thedecline of race.

The thinking of T. DOBZHANSKY[1937], one of the leaders and supportersof the synthesis, illustrates the influence

The decline of race in American anthropology 7

of genetics on the race concept withoutyet rejecting it:

In classical morphology and anthropology,races are described usually in terms of thestatistical averages for all the characters inwhich they differ from each other. . . Thedifficulty is however that from the point ofview of genetics such an attempt to deter-mine to which race a given individual be-longs is sometimes an unmitigated fallacy.The fact which is very often overlooked inmaking such attempts is that racial differ-ences are more commonly due to varia-tions in the relative frequencies of genesin different parts of the species populationthan to an absolute lack of certain genes insome groups and their complete homozy-gosis in others (p. 61).

DOBZHANSKY [1937] states that the“fundamental units of racial variabilityare populations and genes, not the com-plexes of characters which connote inthe popular mind a racial distinction”(p. 62). In this way Dobzhansky led theway from typologies of racial similarityto genetic thinking. MONTAGU [1942]made early use of genetics and the mod-ern synthesis in his proposal to replacethe race concept with that of ethnicitywhich referred to an ethnic group asa population whose genetic makeupchanged in relation to geographic andcultural barriers. He also made use ofthe principles of gene flow and inde-pendent assortment in meiosis to dis-prove the myth of racial homogeneityand purity [MONTAGU 1941].

The wide-spread belief that raceswere separate homogeneous populationswas analyzed in the study by geneticistLEWONTIN [1972] of 17 hereditarytraits in which he found that only 6.3percent of genetic diversity is accountedfor by differences between races (seealso RELETHFORD [2002], BROWN and

ARMELAGOS [2001]). This research wassummarized in the phrase that there ismore variation within populations thanamong them. It became a widely-usedgenetic fact to refute the notion thatraces were discrete and different fromeach other and that their members hadvery similar traits.

The belief in the lesser intelligence ofAfrican-Americans and European supe-riority, was a companion to the idea ofrace in the 19th and much of the 20thcentury [HERRNSTEIN and MURRAY1994]. Did European ancestry meangreater intelligence? Intelligence testswere given to 350 African Americanschool children in Philadelphia [SCARRet al. 1977]. Each person’s degree ofAfrican and European ancestry wasestimated from blood samples indicating12 hereditary traits that were more likelyto have either African or European an-cestry, corroborated by degree of skincolor. The researchers found that“Blacks who had a large number ofEuropean ancestors did no better orworse than blacks of almost total Afri-can ancestry” [SCARR and WEINBERG1978: 32].

The complete rejection of the exis-tence of race was extended back hun-dreds of thousands of years by geneticistTEMPLETON [1998]:

Because of the extensive evidence forgenetic interchange through populationmovements and recurrent gene flow goingback at least hundreds of thousands ofyears ago, there is only one evolutionarylineage of humanity and there are no sub-species or races under either the tradi-tional or phylogenetic definitions. Humanevolution and population structure havebeen and are characterized by manylocally differentiated populations coexist-ing at any given time, but with sufficient

L. Lieberman et al.8

genetic contact to make all of humanity asingle lineage sharing a common long-term evolutionary fate (p. 647, emphasisadded).

TEMPLETON [2002] also summarized thearbitrariness and lack of empirical con-sistency in race categories:

. . . if the frequency of blood types is usedas a marker, the Irish and Nigerians wouldbe placed in the same biological race (seeBoyd 1950). Because Melanesians andsome Africans “share dark skin, hair tex-ture, and cranial-facial morphology, theyhave sometimes been placed in the samerace, but genetically Europeans are closerto Africans and Melanesians than Africansand Melanesians are to each other (p. 46).

Late in the 20th century when studiesof apes had accumulated it was possibleto compare the amount of genetic varia-tion with variation among chimpanzees,which were 98 percent similar to hu-mans. The comparisons to the “greatapes indicated that humans are unique inhaving little genetic variation as well aslittle genetic structure in their genepool” [KAESSMAN and PÄÄBO 2002: 1].

Further evidence of the influence ofthe 20th century concepts and data ispresent in 1996 in the American Asso-ciation of Physical Anthropologists’statement rejecting the 19th century ideaof race. The statement, presented as arevision of the 1964 UNESCO statementon race (see MONTAGU [1972]) assertedthat (AAPA Statement on biologicalaspects of race [1996: 569-70], empha-sis added):

As scientists who study human evolutionand variation, we believe that we have anobligation to share with other scientistsand the general public our current under-standing of the structure of human varia-tion from a biological perspective. Popu-lation conceptualization of race was de-

rived from 19th and early 20th centuryscientific formulations. These old racialcategories were based on externally visi-ble traits, primarily skin color, features ofthe face, and the shape and size of thehead and body, and the underlying skele-ton. They were often imbued with non-biological attributes, based on social con-structions of race.

The AAPA Statement [1996] goes onto emphasize biological variation:

. . .much of the biological variation amongpopulations involves modest degrees ofvariation in the frequency of sharedtraits. . .. . .There is great genetic diversity withinall human populations. Pure races, in thesense of genetically homogeneous popu-lations, do not exist in the human speciestoday, nor is there any evidence that theyhave ever existed in the past. . .. . .The geographic pattern of geneticvariation within this array is complex, andpresents no major discontinuity. Humanscannot be classified into discrete geo-graphic categories with absolute bounda-ries. . .. . .The human features which have univer-sal biological value for the survival of thespecies are not known to occur more fre-quently in one population than in anyother. Therefore it is meaningless from thebiological point of view to attribute a gen-eral inferiority or superiority to this or tothat race.. . .For many millennia, human progress inany field has been based on culture andnot on genetic improvement. . .Partly as a result of gene flow, the heredi-tary characteristics of human populationsare in a state of perpetual flux. Distinctivelocal populations are continually cominginto and passing out of existence.The biological consequence of matingdepend only on the individual geneticmakeup of the couple, and not on their ra-cial classifications. Therefore, no biologi-cal justification exists for restricting in-termarriage between persons of differentracial classifications.

The decline of race in American anthropology 9

There is no necessary concordance be-tween biological characteristics and cul-turally defined groups. On every conti-nent, there are diverse populations thatdiffer in language, economy, and culture.There is no national, religious, linguisticor cultural group or economic class thatconstitutes a race. However, human beingswho speak the same language and sharethe same culture frequently select eachother as mates, with the result that there isoften some degree of correspondence be-tween the distribution of physical traits onthe one hand and that of linguistic andcultural traits on the other.. . .genetic capacity is known to differamong individuals. The peoples of theworld today appear to possess equal bio-logical potential for assimilating any hu-man culture. Racist political doctrines findno foundation in scientific knowledgeconcerning modern or past human popu-lations (pp. 569-70, emphasis added).

The influence of clines

Strong genetic influence weakeningthe race concept is also seen growingout of the concept of clines and sup-porting data. Clines referred to grada-tions of genotypes or phenotypes over ageographic area, and were distributedwithin and across racial and nationalboundaries. In 1938 HUXLEY proposedthe concept of clines, but clarified that itwas not a taxonomic entity, otherwise itmight be confused with race. At aboutthe same time HUXLEY and HADDON’S[1936] book, We Europeans, presentedone of the early maps of a cline showinggradations in the B blood type starting ata low frequency in Spain and increasingtowards Moscow. They advocated re-placing the concept of race with that ofethnic groups, yet they also presentedphenotypic description of the traditional

human races, illustrating the difficultyof abandoning racial labels and theirmorphology.

The presence of gradations and theirdiscordance had been noted even earlierin research by Boas. In Sweden “themost striking point is the lack of agree-ment between [hair color and stature]among themselves [and] with the vari-ability of the cephalic index” [BOAS1918: 425]. The concept of cline beganto enter anthropological awareness inthe 1950s when LIVINGSTONE [1958]published data indicating that the clinaldistribution of the sickle-cell allele (Hbs)corresponded to the distribution of ma-laria throughout West Africa, the Medi-terranean, and South Asia, demonstrat-ing that Hbs is not confined to one so-called race and that alleged boundarylines between so-called races are reallycontinuous gradations, not merely tran-sitions between one race and another.In the early 1960s LIVINGSTONE [1962]participated in the debate over the va-lidity of race and declared that “there areno races, there are only clines” (p. 279).

C.L. BRACE [1964] made use of theclinal concept urging the study of onetrait at a time in order to identify theexplanation for its geographic distribu-tion. He also published several clinalmaps of skin pigmentation, nasal index,hemoglobin S, and tooth size, showingtheir discordant distribution did not sup-port the idea of racial boundary lines.Over several decades J. BIRDSELL[1993] used the cline concept for ana-lyzing data on Australian aborigineswhich also illustrated discordant distri-bution. In 1975 he rejected his earlieruse of the race concept [BIRDSELL1972], and announced that “The use of

L. Lieberman et al.10

the term race has been discontinued

the term race has been discontinuedbecause it is scientifically undefinableand carries social implications that areharmful and disruptive” [BIRDSELL1975: 505].

The foregoing genetic and natural sci-ence research studies were developedincreasingly during the 20th century andcontinued into the 21st. They made itprogressively more unproductive to usethe race concept for research. As thecentury moved on, and as the above dataand concepts were presented, more andmore anthropologists were using them todevelop their critique of the idea of race.Lieberman and Kirk’s survey of 1999asked respondents about their support orrejection of biological race and foundthat among those who rejected the raceconcept 79 percent supported analyzingvariation in terms of clines rather thanraces, 78 percent rejected the idea ofhomogeneous populations, 80 percentsupported more variation within so-called races than among them and, for88 percent, gene flow invalidated label-ing distinct races (Table 2).

Development of the cultureconcept: Boas and Columbia

Early in the 20th century belief in thefixed and unchanging nature of racetraits was another idea accepted bymany anthropologists. Possibly the firstto challenge it with empirical data wasF. Boas. His 1912 research using metricevidence demonstrated small but sig-nificant changes in stature and headshape of second-generation children ofimmigrants, thus disproving the ideathat race characteristics do not change,and demonstrating that race biology was

The decline of race in American anthropology 11

influenced by environment. Althoughthe changes were relatively small, it wasan idea that ran contrary to the idea offixity of race and racial determinationthat prevailed at that time [GRAYLEE etal. 2003]. Boas had begun the critique ofthe race concept that gave both heredityand environment a role to play. Thecritique of race would be led by his stu-dents at Columbia University for almosthalf a century as they developed theculture concept.

The quotations cited earlier from theAAPA statement on race are based onthe genetic research of the 20th centuryand on the development of the conceptof culture, as seen in the several refer-ences to culture: that human progress isbased on culture and is not derived fromgenetic improvement; that there is nonecessary concordance between biologi-cal characteristics and culturally definedgroups, and any individual or group maylearn any culture. This idea of each so-ciety having a culture grew out of theresearch of Boas. From 1897 to 1902,through his leadership of the JessupNorth Pacific Expedition, he gatheredthe data to disprove the biological de-terminism that linked race, language,and culture. He did this by showing thatregional cultures exchange myths, cus-toms, and language. Through his cri-tique of unilineal evolution he demon-strated that the hierarchy of racial supe-riority was fallacious. Boas confrontedrace and racism using ethnographic ex-planations of cultural differences [BOAS1911, 1927]. The idea of culture pro-vided an alternative to biological race asa way of analyzing differences betweensocieties. Cultures, as different ways ofliving, could only be explained by

looking at the ecological setting of apopulation, its contact with other cul-tures, the exchanging of myths, customsand language, all of which were parts ofthat society’s complex history. Thecomparative empirical evidence wasreadily available. The Dutch in SouthAfrica built racial apartheid, unlike theircousins in the Netherlands who devel-oped a pluralistic society in which Afri-cans occupied a wide range of occupa-tions despite being perceived as inferior[BLAKELY 1993]. Each of the empiresof the 16th to the 20th centuries devel-oped diverse colonial cultures in relationto differing circumstances, but nonewere free of racism.

Also illustrative is the notion that anyindividual could learn any culture, yetcan help bring about change in the cul-ture they are learning. During the 20thcentury, students of Boas included morewomen, immigrants, African Ameri-cans, Puerto Ricans, and Jews. They hadexperienced discrimination based ontheir alleged biological inferiority. In thecontext of discrimination and historicalchange they would take the new dataseriously and examine its empirical va-lidity. These new recruits into anthro-pology would become part of the leader-ship that would reject race and racism.

We have reviewed the scientific influ-ences on race from Boas at ColumbiaUniversity and, from the accumulation ofgenetic knowledge during the 20th cen-tury, from the new concept of culture andthe entry of persons from different back-grounds into the anthropological disci-pline. Another major source of newknowledge and new influence came fromthe students of Hooton at Harvard and,as we will see, especially S. Washburn.

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A new physical anthropology:Hooton and Washburn

While Boas was studying changes inhead form and had begun training doc-toral students in cultural anthropology atColumbia University, Hooton, startingin 1913, was training physical anthro-pologists at Harvard. Hooton’s researchwas dedicated to reconstructing racialhistories from skeletal populations. InThe Indians of Pecos Pueblo, he classi-fied several prehistoric skulls to whichhe assigned racial labels. For Hootonthere were 29 races and subraces[STASKI and MARKS 1992]. He was alsocommitted to explaining behaviors as anexpression of biology.

From 1926 to 1951 Hooton had 28doctoral students who completed dis-sertations. There were 10 dissertationsthat included race in their title. A few ofthese authors would be lifelong defend-ers of the concept, i.e., C. Coon 1928,A. Brues 1940, and S. Garn 1948 (dateslisted here and below are for disserta-tions listed in GILES [1997: 500]). Invarious ways many of Hooton’s doctoralstudents used the concept of race butqualified the 19th century ideas about it.J.L. Angel (1942) studied ancient Greekskeletal material and demonstrated thatthe idea of racial purity was disprovedby the diverse ancestry reflected in thosebones. J. Birdsell (1942) demonstratedthree ancestral sources of AustralianAborigines, developed extensive clinaldata on them and, as stated earlier,would later completely reject the raceconcept. W. Howells (1934) would util-ize the race concept, but gatheredworldwide cranial measurements thatillustrate both diversity and “descrip-tive typology” [ARMELAGOS and VAN

GERVEN 2003], and eventually came toprefer the term population [OUSLEY andJANTZ 1996]. F. Hulse (1934) wouldlater write on races as changing episodesover time. G. Lasker (1945) was a criti-cal skeptic about race. In one way oranother most of these students ofHooton qualified the race concept mak-ing it easier for others to reject it.

A link between the influences ofColumbia and Harvard can be seen inH. Shapiro’s 1926 study of the descen-dants of Tahitian and English mutineerson the Bounty disproving the idea thatracial admixture was harmful. Shapiroproduced the first Ph.D. thesis underHooton, and was much influenced bythe Boasian orientation. He also was anadjunct faculty member at Columbia formany years.

The most influential of Hooton’sdoctoral students would be S. Wash-burn. His dissertation “A PreliminaryStudy of the Skeletons of Langurs andMacaques” (1940, in GILES [1997]), inpart, reflected Hooton’s interests.Among the dissertations by Washburn’sstudents (listed in SPENCER [1997])were R. Holloway 1964; R. Tuttle 1965;A. Almquist 1972; F.C. Howell 1953;and A. Mann 1968. Eleven of his doc-toral students worked on primate andanimal behavior. Among them wereI. DeVore 1962; P.J. Dolhinow 1963;P. Simonds 1963; J.B. Lancaster 1996;A. Zihlman 1966; S. Chevalier-Skolni-koff 1970; K.R. Gibson; and R.B. Lee.Of all of these, it should be made clearthat most did not finally reject race, anddid not do research using it or write indefense of it. Two of Washburn’s doc-toral students who completed disserta-tions on molecular anthropology wereV. Sarich (1967) and M. Weiss (1969).

The decline of race in American anthropology 13

Sarich would be a lifelong defender ofrace, but M. Weiss would join with A.Mann to reject it in their introductoryphysical anthropology textbooks [WEISSand MANN 1975, 1978].

Washburn’s indirect impact on raceis seen in that the research of most ofhis students at Harvard, Chicago, andBerkely concerns primate biologyand/or primate behavior, part of thetrend away from the study of racesmade possible by new specializations.His direct influence on the race conceptstarted in the late 1940s and the 1950s.WASHBURN [1953] encouraged physicalanthropologists to “replace typologicalconstructs with the core ideas of thenew synthesis of evolutionary theory –the genetic diversity of populations andthe modification of gene frequenciesthrough selection, mutation, and drift”[PATTERSON 2001: 121]. In 1953WASHBURN declared that “the goal ofphysical anthropology should not be theclassification of human diversity butrather explanation of the processesand mechanisms that gave rise to it”[PATTERSON 2001: 123, WASHBURN1963].

WASHBURN [1951, 1953] emphasizedprocess. “Natural selection, he insisted,operates on functional complexes, noton isolated traits” [ZIHLMAN 2001:182]. Washburn’s view stemmed fromhis efforts to analyze processes ofskeletal evolution and function. Hiswork was related to the major shift inbiology occurring during the 20th cen-tury based on thinking increasingly incontext of the neo-Darwinian synthesis.Washburn co-sponsored with Dobzhan-sky the 1950 symposium on the “Originand Evolution of Man” held at ColdSpring Harbor attended by 129 persons,

helping to diffuse the modern synthesisof genetics and Darwinian theory toprominent anthropologists and geneti-cists.

Washburn’s activities extending be-yond the classroom and beyond hiswork with his students included theSummer Seminars in Anthropologyfrom 1945 to 1952, and organizing twomajor Wenner-Gren Conferences – “TheSocial Life of Early Man” in 1959 and“Classification and Human Evolution”in 1962. He was active and influential inthe Wenner-Gren Foundation which wasa major source of funding and institu-tionalization of the “new physical an-thropology” in part, by sponsoring 47research projects and conferences from1951 to 1961 [HARAWAY 1988].

PATTERSON [2001] summarized sev-eral forces at work in the race contro-versy in the 1960s, including the think-ing of Washburn:

In 1962, Washburn (1963: 521) was askedby the Executive Board of the AmericanAnthropological Association to addressthe subject of race in his presidential ad-dress to that body. The issues of race andracism were once again making front-pageheadlines in the United States because ofthe school integration mandated by theAmerican Supreme Court’s 1954 decisionin Brown v. Board of Education. Race andracism were also debated in virtuallyevery number of Current Anthropologypublished between October 1961 and Oc-tober 1963. These issues were provokedinitially by Juan Comas’s (1961) critiqueof articles in the first issue of The Man-kind Quarterly which had recycled oldeugenic arguments that purported to sup-port claims regarding the mental inferior-ity of non-Whites. The publication ofCarleton Coon’s (1904-81) The Originof Races in 1962 added fuel to the fire(p. 122).

L. Lieberman et al.14

WASHBURN [1963] explained hisview, putting race into a minor key,unlike the emphasis on race as a coreconcept that had prevailed in the firstdecades of the 20th century.

Since races are open systems which areintergrading, the number of races will de-pend on the purpose of the classification.This is, I think, a tremendously importantpoint. It is significant that as I was re-viewing classifications in preparing thislecture, I found that almost none of themmentioned any purpose for which peoplewere being classified. Race isn’t very im-portant biologically (p. 524).

Washburn was not directly rejectingrace, but reducing its biological impor-tance, possibly a strategic approach towhat in the 1960s was a widely acceptedconcept.

The diverse interests of Washburn’sstudents illustrates the change occurringas physical anthropology came to re-name itself biological anthropology.S. GARN [1982] commented on thisdiversification as an explanation for thedecreasing frequency of the study ofraces as reflected in textbooks of intro-ductory anthropology in the 1970s.

. . .physical anthropologists have foundmany new directions of interest, such asbone biology, primate behavior, dentalanthropology, demography, epidemiology,and human nutrition. These newer inter-ests are reflected in contemporary textsand especially in the several journals thatphysical anthropologists support (p. 649).

We believe this broadening of re-search areas to be a significant factor.Physical anthropologists research andpublish less on race because they attendto other areas of inquiry where the con-cept is of little or no use. Illustrative ofthis is that at its annual meetings, theAJPA “collaborates with seven other

organizations” including the HumanBiology Association, PaleopathologyAssociation, Dental Anthropology As-sociation, American Association ofDermatoglyphics, and the PrimateBiological Behavior Interest Group[LARSON 2000]. Paleoanthropology andgenetic or molecular anthropology mustbe added to Garn’s list of new speciali-zations.

The rejection of the 19th century raceconcept became evident late in the 20thcentury, but it had begun much earlierand taken most of the century for theresearch that would make the conceptuntenable to develop. Boas had beganthat research late in the 19th century,many subsequent studies (exampleslisted above) built up momentum, andWASHBURN [1963] supported the neo-synthetic framework that consolidatedthese developments and allied the newphysical anthropology with the Boasiancontributions. G. STOCKING [1968]noted this connection:

. . .when a “new” physical anthropologyemerged around 1950, it bore marked, ifonly analogical, similarity to Boas’thinking . . . the main similarity is a com-mon evolutionary dynamic. . . .He had adefinite idea of what a rigorous evolu-tionism required in terms of process on thepopulation level. . . .Viewed as a whole,his critique of racial formalism in physicalanthropology undercut many of the tradi-tional hierarchical assumptions of racialthinking in its broader and more popularforms (pp. 188-9).

A similar view is expressed more re-cently by R. CASPARI [2003]:

To some extent, the new physical anthro-pology espoused by Washburn repre-sented a re-alliance with the Boasian partsof anthropology that had questioned theassumptions of the race concept since the1890s. (p. 68).

The decline of race in American anthropology 15

What is left of biological race?

According to CASPARI [2003], Amer-ican physical anthropologists haveheeded Washburn’s call for a newphysical anthropology in that they havemoved from making types (races) theirsubject matter to populations as the ob-ject of study. Caspari also notes that twoof the three most salient attributes ordimensions of the race concept have“been less amenable to change” (p. 66).The dimension that has changed themost is biological determinism (i.e.,racism) of which CASPARI [2003] writesthat: “Biological determinism is not anecessary part of racial typologies andcan be rejected without the rejection ofthe race concept as a whole” (p. 67).

According to CASPARI [2003], the twodimensions of race that have changedleast are essentialism and evolutionaryessentialism (clades). Essentialism re-fers to the “intrinsic biology of the race”(p. 66). Evolutionary essentialism isbased on subspecific taxonomic catego-ries that are conceptualized as discretegroups whose essences (racial traits) hadseparate evolutionary histories, and“races like species categories, were de-picted as branches on an evolutionarytree. . . [with] independent evolution, atdifferent rates.” CASPARI [2003] ex-plains that “clades, defined as mono-phyletic groups. . . include an ancestraltaxon and all its descendants; clearly,races are not monophyletic and theirdepiction as clades is inappropriate”(p. 67, emphasis in original). We agreethat many research papers inappropri-ately present essentialism of humanraces and cladistic diagrams based ongenetic or morphometric distances likespecies on a tree.

We also agree that there has been ashift from race to populations as de-scribed by Caspari. We add one qualifi-cation to that based on examining allissues of the AJPA for the year 2001. Inthose issues we found only two articlesusing the race concept, and eleven usingthe term population. However, we found17 papers referring to the people studiedby some form of group name: Tibetan,Samoan, British, Maya, Cape colored,etc. The name may be a nation, geo-graphic location, an ethnic label, or pos-sibly “race”, or population.

We had expected to find more explicituse of concepts of ethnicity and cline inthe AJPA, but in the 2001 issue wefound little of either, and one referenceto ethnicity stated that the two ethnicgroups studied have remained distinctbreeding populations [MADRIGAL et al.2001]. As in the history of the AJPAfrom 1918 onward, the subject matter,be it race, population, or some otherentity, is not adequately defined. In gen-eral, we agree that we are in a state oftransition from race to population, withneed for greater clarification of the con-cept of population.

Science and history,not political correctness

Are some scientific concepts influ-enced by history? Does the inevitablehistorical association of race and racismallow scientists to study race but ignorethat connection? The 1996 AAPAstatement quoted above, examines bothrace and racism. The developing geneticknowledge of the 20th century did notgive scientific basis to racism and itseugenic companion, but neither did it

L. Lieberman et al.16

suddenly bring down the hierarchy ofracism that ruled the thinking of thepublic and most scientists in the firstdecades of the 20th century:

. . . in the 1930s a number of geneticistsbegan to realize that heredity was morecomplex than had been previouslythought. As Provine has shown, however,there was no new scientific evidence in-troduced in the crucial period between1939 and 1949, the period of decisive shiftin attitudes toward race in most westerncountries. As Provine points out, it wasthe war – and (especially) postwar revela-tions of Nazi genocide – that broughtabout the end (insofar as it ended) of theracialist consensus (PROCTOR [1988: 175],citing Provine 1973).

In 1945 the Second World War endedand according to the historian, G.M.FREDRICKSON [2002]:

The Second World War. . . was the climaxand turning point in the history of racismin the twentieth century. It, and the ColdWar that followed quickly on its heels,revolutionized the context within whichgroups thought of as “races” confrontedeach other and interacted. Events in the1940s and 1950s would establish patternsof thought and action concerning race andracism that would endure for the rest ofthe century. The specific results of the warthat most shaped attitudes toward racewere the Holocaust and the beginning ofdecolonialization in Asia and Africa. Thefirst aroused widespread soul-searchingand moral revulsion by revealing whathappened when extreme racism was car-ried to its logical outcome. The secondeventually gave geopolitical significanceto many new independent nations thatwere composed of people whose skincolor made them abhor and denounce thepersistence of white supremacy (p. 127).

FREDRICKSON [2002] adds that “thehorrible truth revealed by the liberationof the death camps in 1945 could not

be evaded” (p. 128). For example, theeugenics movement that had benefitedfrom scientific respectability in theUnited States and Britain in the firstdecades of the 20th century “did notsurvive the revelation of what the Nazishad done in its name” (p. 128).

As stated, according to several sourcesthe developing genetic knowledge didnot diminish the race concept, but atfirst stimulated “the quest for new andmore scientific racial traits. . . .The im-pact of genetics had to wait until thedevelopment of a synthetic theory ofevolution in the 1930s” (ARMELAGOSand VAN GERVEN [2003: 55], emphasisin original). That full impact of thesynthetic theory did not occur until the1950s, and followed the revelations ofthe Nazi atrocities of World War II. Weargue that the increasingly significantimpact of genetics occurred followingthese events. Some aspects of geneticshad been available in the early 1940s inthe writing of A. MONTAGU [1941,1942], but their significance was notwidely recognized until the more com-plete awareness of genocide later in the1940s.

It would be naive to reject the influ-ence of history and equally naive toaccept its influence without consideringthe accumulating genetic knowledge.Many of the supporters of eugenics inthe 1920s and 1930s were from the po-litical left, they would become oppo-nents of racism in the 1940s, and theywould have the support of the accumu-lating scientific research, and wouldthus have been sensitized to its signifi-cance by historical events.

Occasionally a student will suggestthat the race concept has been rejected

The decline of race in American anthropology 17

because of political correctness arisingfrom the horrified reaction to the holo-caust in World War II Nazi Germany.We must acknowledge that politicalcorrectness is a generic aspect of humanbehavior. Without conformity to groupexpectations human societies would beanarchies devoid of cultural patterns. Anexample of the negative consequencesof political correctness is seen in thewidespread belief that there were supe-rior and inferior races. Colonialism,involving the conquest, exploration andslaughter of millions of people in theAmericas, Africa and parts of Asia wasrationalized by the belief in the inferior-ity of the alleged races inhabiting thoseareas [COCKER 1998]. The rejection ofthe race concept by most anthropologistsbeginning most recently in the 1960s,was based on the genetic evidence re-viewed earlier. Conformity to politicalcorrectness was not the cause of thesechanges; rather awareness of the uses ofrace in colonialism, slavery, segregation,and in the holocaust stimulated re-examination of the race concept usingthe new genetic data that was accumu-lated throughout the 20th century. Thepresence of new genetic data does notguarantee that the data will be givencareful consideration. This considerationcame about as a new generation of an-thropologists with new biographicalexperiences entered the discipline andexamined the new data that developedduring the century. Those who charac-terize these developments as politicalcorrectness are using simplistic reduc-tionism, and a naive conception of sci-ence in an ivory tower. Scientists muststruggle with and develop new data inthe context of biography and history.

Summary

The concept of biological race has de-clined significantly in frequency of usein physical anthropology in the UnitedStates during the 20th century. We pres-ent three kinds of evidence of this rejec-tion of what was a core concept: (1) Thefrequency of articles using the raceconcept in the AJPA declined from60 percent in 1918 to 4 percent in 2001(r = -.89, p = .01). (2) Content analysisof university level textbooks of intro-ductory physical anthropology for 1980-99 found only one textbook which sup-ported the race concept. (3) A series ofmailed questionnaires to members of theAmerican Anthropological Associationfound that while 37 percent of respond-ing physical anthropologists rejected therace concept in 1978, this rose to 69percent in 1999.

Explaining this conceptual revolutionrequires consideration of three kinds ofchanges. First, new theory and clinaldata, second, the context of history (seeWEISS [2003]), and third, new biographi-cal experiences of anthropologists thatconnect the other two kinds of change.

The new theory developed in twophases. In the first decades of the 20thcentury F. BOAS [1911] and his studentsdevelop the theory of culture, explainingwhy societies differ and at the same timerejecting racial determinism, and racialhierarchy. Beginning in the early 1950sS. WASHBURN [1951] rejects racial ty-pology and advocates the study ofpopulation processes, bringing the mod-ern evolutionary synthesis into physicalanthropology. The new data consists ofthe many detailed studies, early in the

L. Lieberman et al.18

century, of the culture of various humansocieties demonstrating how changeoccurs, and the fact that people of ap-parently similar race have many differ-ent cultures and that environment mayalter biology (BOAS 1912). After mid-century, F. LIVINGSTONE’S [1958] studyof sickle cell gene frequencies provideda clinal geographic (gradations) alterna-tive to discrete and homogenous races,and C.L. BRACE [1964] persuasivelyheld that the study of each clinal distri-bution provides a useful approach to thestudy of human variation. R. LEWONTIN[1972] utilized genetic data that demon-strated that most human variation ex-isted within populations (races), andvery little between them.

These and other studies provided thebasis for challenging the race concept.But change would be accelerated byhistorical developments that helpedovercome the power of thinking in termsof race and racism. The Great Depres-sion, beginning in 1929, provided per-suasive evidence that poverty was notcontrolled by genetic heredity, despitethe continued eugenic orientation ofscientists. More influential was theknowledge of the use of race to justifyextermination of Jews, Gypsies, andPoles in World War II [FREDRICKSON2002]. There is a tendency for some todismiss the decline of race as the resultof political correctness. That positionallows those who favor the race conceptto continue to do so. In fact, the fall ofrace is due the development of solidempirical evidence, new theoreticalapproaches, and the sensitizing assis-tance of historical events.

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Streszczenie

Częstość posługiwania się pojęciem rasy biologicznej w Stanach Zjednoczonych syste-matycznie malała w ciągu XX wieku. W pracy przedstawiamy trzy rodzaje dowodów nawzrastającą tendencję do odrzucania tego fundamentalnego pojęcia: (1) Udział artykułóww oficjalnym czasopiśmie Amerykańskiego Towarzystwa Antropologów Fizycznych(AAPA) – American Journal of Physical Anthropology, w których wykorzystywano pojęcierasy, spadł z 60 % w 1918 r. do 4 % w roku 2001 (Rys. 1, Tab. 1) (r = -0,89; p = 0,01).(2) Analiza zawartości podręczników akademickich do kursów antropologii fizycznej, z lat1980–99, wykazała, że tylko w jednym z nich uznano istnienie ras. (3) Kolejne kwestiona-riusze przesłane pocztą do członków American Anthropological Association pozwoliły nawyciągnięcie wniosku, że odsetek antropologów fizycznych odrzucających pojęcie rasywzrósł z 37 % w 1978 r. do 69% w 1999 roku (patrz też Tab. 2).

Aby wyjaśnić tę rewolucję pojęciową należy rozważyć trzy kategorie przyczyn: po pierw-sze nowa teoria i rozwój koncepcji zmienności klinalnej, po drugie kontekst historyczny(patrz WEISS [2003]) i, po trzecie, nowe doświadczenia osobiste antropologów, które stałysię pomostem łączącym przyczyny biologiczne z historycznymi.

Nowe podejście do problemu zróżnicowania człowieka rozwijało się w dwóch fazach.W pierwszej dekadzie XX w. F. BOAS [1911] i jego uczniowie rozwijali teorię kultury, wy-jaśniając przyczyny różnic między społecznościami i odrzucając determinizm rasowy i po-glądy o hierarchii ras. We wczesnych latach 50. S. WASHBURN [1951] odrzucił typologięrasową i stał się rzecznikiem badań procesów populacyjnych, wprowadzając postulaty nowejsyntezy ewolucyjnej do antropologii fizycznej. Nowe dane pochodzące z licznych badań

The decline of race in American anthropology 21

przeprowadzonych w początkach XX wieku na różnych społeczeństwach reprezentującychrozmaite kultury pokazały zachodzące w nich zmiany, ujawniły również, że ludzie tej samej,,rasy” tworzą wiele odmiennych kultur, a środowisko ma wpływ na biologię badanych grupludzkich [BOAS 1912]. W drugiej połowie wieku F. LIVINGSTONE [1958] badając częstościwystępowania genu sierpowatości krwinek wykazał, że zmiany tej częstości mają charaktergradientów geograficznych (klin), a nie nieciągłych rasowych skupień. C.L. BRACE [1964]przekonywał, że badanie klinalnej zmienności poszczególnych cech jest przydatnym i właś-ciwym podejściem do opisu zmienności człowieka. R. LEWONTIN [1972] wykorzystał danegenetyczne by wykazać, że większość zmienności genetycznej człowieka realizuje się we-wnątrz populacji (ras), a tylko jej cząstka między nimi.

Wszystkie te badania dały podstawę do zakwestionowania pojęcia rasy. Zmiany te zostałyprzyspieszone przez wydarzenia historyczne, które ułatwiły pokonanie potęgi myśleniaw kategoriach ras i rasizmu. Wielki Kryzys, zapoczątkowany w 1929 r. wyraźnie pokazywał,że ubóstwo nie jest kontrolowane przez geny, wbrew przekonaniom zwolenników eugeniki.Jeszcze większy wpływ miało ujawnienie wykorzystania koncepcji rasowych do uza-sadniania eksterminacji Żydów, Romów czy Polaków podczas II Wojny Światowej[FREDRICKSON 2002]. Istnieje tendencja do przypisywania spadku popularności ras wymo-gom politycznej poprawności. Taki pogląd pozwala zwolennikom koncepcji rasowych pozo-stać przy swoim. W rzeczywistości upadek pojęcia rasy jest wynikiem nagromadzenia rze-telnych danych empirycznych, rozwoju wiedzy teoretycznej i syntetyzującego działaniafaktów historycznych.