RACHEL CASPARI From Types to Populations: A Century of Race, Physical Anthropology, and the American Anthropological Association ABSTRACT In the 1960s, U.S. physical anthropology underwent a period of introspection that marked a change from the old physi- cal anthropology that was largely race based to the new physical anthropology, espoused by Washburn and others for over a decade, which incorporated the evolutionary biology of the modern synthesis. What actually changed? What elements of the race concept have been rejected, and what elements have persisted, influencing physical anthropology today? In this article, I examine both the scientific and social influences on physical anthropology that caused changes in the race concept, in particular the influence of the American Anthropological Association. The race concept is complicated but entails three attributes: essentialism, cladistic thinking, and biologi- cal determinism. These attributes have not all been discarded; while biological determinism and its social implications have been ques- tioned since the inception of the field, essentialism and the concomitant rendering of populations as clades persists as a legacy of the race concept. [Keywords: race, essentialism, physical anthropology] HE EVENTS SURROUNDING THE PUBLICATION of pologists that these biological subdivisions corresponded TCarleton Coon's The Origin of Races in 1962 reflect- to the social meanings of race, a notion that linked physi- ed a major change in U.S. physical anthropology. Coon cal and behavioral characteristics. This link between the suggested that five major races of humans evolved in par- components of an essence provided the basis for the bio- allel from Homo erectus at five different times and at differ- logical determinism prevalent in the racial thinking of the ent rates. He further suggested that each racial lineage time. Throughout the 20th century, race also had an evo- crossed the sapiens "threshold" at different times in pre- lutionary component. Races were effectively thought of as history and implied that the length of time each had been clades. Different essences were explained as a product of in the sapiens state was correlated with the level of "cul- poorly understood evolutionary processes, as exemplified tural achievement" of different racial groups. Coon con- by Coon's notion of independently evolving racial lineages. tended that Causcasoids and Mongoloids crossed this The discourse Coon's book spawned contributed to threshold considerably earlier than Africans (Negroids and currents within the field that ultimately forced an end to Capoids) and Australians (Australoids), a claim that clearly the old physical anthropology centered mainly on the had social implications. race concept and helped usher in the new physical anthro- Race had held immense importance within the field pology, espoused by Sherry Washburn, which had been of physical anthropology during the time leading up to developing throughout the 1950s. The new anthropology the publication of Coon's work. At the emergence of the was eclectic (incorporating various subjects from primates subdiscipline, race was the major theoretical foundation to genetics) and was an evolutionary science, whose popu- of anthropology; physical anthropology was virtually syn- lational approaches were incompatible with the essential- onymous with the study of race. In 1902, at the inception ism central to the race concept. The Origin of Races brought of the American Anthropological Association (AAA), most to a head the rifts within physical anthropology as a disci- anthropologists considered "race" to represent the way pline, the tensions between the subdisciplines of anthro- the human species was internally subdivided. Essentialism pology, and discussions about the role of anthropology in was implicit in this idea; a race was thought to represent a the public arena. natural category with unique features that defined the es- The AAA's reaction to the book was decisive. Washburn, 1 sence of that category. It seemed obvious to many anthro- then president of the association, delivered a scathing AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST 105(1):65-76. COPYRIGHT © 2003, AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION 66 American Anthropologist • Vol. 105, No. 1 • March 2003 address denouncing the book around the time of its publi- thropology as embodied by the AAA. It is interesting that cation at the AAA Annual Meeting in Chicago on Novem- as early as 1894, a quarter century prior to the emergence ber 16, 1962. The published version (Washburn 1963) is of physical anthropology as a true subdiscipline,*Boas be- much less harsh, focusing on the limited use of race as a gan to challenge the race concept. By the time physical valid object of study and the lack of scientific support for anthropology clearly emerged in the 1920s, Boas's follow- any claims of racial inferiority. Public denunciation of ers held some of the most powerful positions within U.S. Coon's ideas seemed necessary; segregationists were al- anthropology and were a dominant voice in the AAA. ready using them to bolster their arguments. There were a Therefore, the racial physical anthropology that was re- variety of responses from the scientific community. State- jected in the 1960s developed within a broader anthropo- ments on race were issued by both the AAA and the Ameri- logical context that had been grappling with the race con- can Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA). Sev- cept for years; parts of that community already questioned eral edited volumes appeared throughout the 1960s race, and the AAA had been involved in struggles over the critiquing the race concept. In 1966, Margaret Mead and issue of race between anthropology and government poli- Theodosius Dobzhansky organized an American Associa- cies and funding, as well as struggles between anthropol- tion for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) symposium ogy and other sciences. The rejection of race in the 1960s meant to deliver the scientific voice against a popular ra- was not so new; it was a part of the heritage of physical an- cism based on "misinformation" and "evil myths" about thropology within U.S. anthropology. race. As embodied by its organizers, the symposium repre- This history suggests that the race concept has no re- sented an alliance between Boasian cultural anthropology maining legacy in physical anthropology. What actually and evolutionary biology, including diverse perspectives changed? Is the race concept really dead? What elements from within anthropology, genetics, ethnology, psychol- of the race concept still persist and influence physical an- ogy, and sociology. With few exceptions, most anthro- thropology today? In this article, I address these questions, pologists had become opposed to hereditarian claims investigating them within the context of the scientific and about race and intelligence, and many were now skeptical social influences on mainstream physical anthropology of the race concept itself. What became clear by the mid- that were a major force in the evolution of the race con- 1960s was that race was no longer a unifying concept in cept. I argue that some elements of the race concept were mainstream physical anthropology, just as it had ceased to in fact rejected, but that others remain, subtly influencing be a unifying concept for anthropology as a whole since our views of what we today term "populations." Boas's work on race a half century earlier. In physical an- thropology, race was now a divisive concept. Although THE ATTRIBUTES OF THE RACE CONCEPT Washburn had published his ideas about the new anthro- pology earlier, this period marked a turning point in the The race concept that was examined and rejected by so discipline, with greater institutional introspection on the many in the 1960s includes assumptions about the cause race concept. Some have even argued that it marked the and nature of geographic and other kinds of variation. The demise of the race concept. history behind these assumptions has helped create the concept that we grapple with today. Although for the last Several factors influenced changing views about race 100 years the race concept has been thought about in within physical anthropology during this time. First, so- quasi-evolutionary terms, its most fundamental elements cial factors prompted scientists to challenge assumptions of biological determinism and intellectual inferiority asso- are essentialism, clades, and biological determinism. These ciated with the race concept. The Holocaust in the 1930s attributes are clearly related, and all of them have in- and 1940s and the controversy surrounding school deseg- formed the theories about human variation in physical regation in the early 1960s may have been the most im- anthropology. The race concept has changed, yet these at- portant examples. Another component of social pressure tributes of race have not all changed together. While bio- resulted from the relationship between anthropology and logical determinism and its social implications have been governmental interest in race and racial inequality, an in- questioned since the inception of the field, essentialism terest that had promoted the "racialization" of U.S. an- and the concomitant rendering of races as clades have thropology in the first place. Second, the race concept it- been less amenable to change. self was challenged by the populational principles espoused in the modern synthesis; evolutionary ideas were incom- Essentialism patible with the essentialist foundations