 historical race concepts have varied across cultures and over time, and have been controversial for social, political and scientific reasons. until the 19th century, race was thought by many to constitute an immutable and distinct type or species which shared particular racial characteristics, such as body constitution, temperament and mental capacities. ==etymology== the word "race", interpreted to mean common descent, was introduced into english in about 1580, from the old french rasse (1512), from italian razza, which may have been derived from the arabic word "ras" "Ø±Ø£Ø³" meaning the head of someone or something. in this context, "ras" points to the root or the head of selected species. the etymology can be further traced back to latin gens or arabic "genat" "Ø¬ÙÙØ§Øª" meaning clan, stock or people and genus meaning birth, descent, origin, race, stock, or family, and cognate with greek genos (Î³Î­Î½Î¿Ï) "race, kind," and gonos "birth, offspring, stock [...]." this late origin for the english and french terms is consistent with the thesis that the concept of "race" as defining a small number of groups of human beings based on lineage dates from the time of christopher columbus. older concepts, which were also based at least partly on common descent, such as nation and tribe entail a much larger number of groupings. during the age of enlightenment, europeans tried to define race as a biological concept, in keeping with their scientific ideas. in the centuries that followed, scholars made attempts to classify and define racial types, and to determine racial origins and correlates. as forensic anthropologists, biomedical researchers, and other scholars have collected and analyzed data on individuals and populations, some maintain that race denotes scientifically practical distinctions. ==earliest views on ethnic differences== in many ancient civilizations, individuals with widely varying physical appearances became full members of a society by growing up within that society or by adopting that society's cultural norms. (snowden 1983; lewis 1990). when the lighter ancient egyptians were in power, they called the darker group "the evil race of ish". when the darker ancient egyptians were in power, they called the lighter group "the pale, degraded race of arvad". these differences also related to different cultural groups who competed for power. for example, the ancient egyptian sacred text called book of gates identifies fou
Historical_definitions_of_race