Re: Re: Re: Some input
Originally posted by TIGER
You didn't pay attention to what I said. Indeed, Middle Easterners ARE Caucasians, but they are not Europeans.
You said that most people cannot distinguish from a Northern Asian (Mongolian, Chinese, Siberian) from a South Asian (Vietnamese, Filipino), but I could. In the same vien, no Lebonese could be mistaken for a Belgian, Frenchmen, Czech. Some people think Caucasian is synonomous with European, but it is not. Europeans do not cluster with Middle Easterners. Even the Southern Europeans are closer to Central and Western Europeans than the Middle East.
I see what you're saying now, Tiger. But still the question stands -- why bother separating Middle Easterners and Europeans -- who are both clearly Caucasian, when we're discussing the spectrum of hair colors across the Eurasian continent?
Btw, I beg to differ about Southern Europeans being closer to Western Europeans. I guess a blood sample/gene analysis would provide the ultimate proof, but visually, I say Italians and Southern Slavs (from the Balkans and below) share very similar characteristics to people from the Near East.
I lived in Italy for a bit, and with the exception of Italians from the extreme North (who had alpine features... think Austrian/Swiss), most had olive skin and dark-brown and even black hair. Many men had coarse, thick beards and 5 O' clock shadows like the Arabs do. Some had green/blue eyes, but most had hazel eyes.
The Spaniards follow an analagous pattern. They share many similar features with the Northern Africans, who are a mixture of African and Middle Eastern peoples. They are more isolated from other Souther European nations b/c they are far out west, but nonetheless they are dark. It's proof that there's been millenia of race-mixing with Africans and Euros, providing those intermediate features. Congruously, the same goes for Italy, Greece and the Near East. There has been a strong Turkic influence over the centuries in Southern Europe, with the rise and power of different empires.
So, I have to say that I strongly disagree. But don't get mad, they are just my opinions.