Races of man / by Sonia Cole.

  • Sonia Mary Cole
Date:
1965
Catalogue details
    41/150 page 36
    than 50%. It is also high among Berbers of the Great Atlas, who on linguistic grounds are believed to be related to the Basques. The groups with the highest frequency in northern and central Europe are cde and CDe; in the Mediterranean region, the incidence of the rhesus negative decreases considerably, while CDe increases. In Africa south of the Sahara, cde has a frequency of about 20% 5 but the Negroids are characterized by a unique preponderance of cDe, which reaches 60% or more in some tribes. The rare gene D u in the combination of cD u e is also highly characteristic of Africa, where it has an average frequency of 6% in every population tested for it. Apart from among a few peoples in the eastern Mediterranean area, D u is almost unknown outside Africa (Mourant, 1954). A gene known as V, which also forms part of the rhesus system, has a frequency of 20% in several African populations and less than 1% in all others studied so far (Mourant, 1959). Distributions in south-western Asia and most of India are similar to those of the Mediterranean. In eastern Asia and the Pacific islands, the gene d is absent or very rare5 in these areas the highest frequencies are CDe and cDE, while cDe and CDE also occur. The latter rare group is particularly common among the Australian aborigines. It is interesting that the distribution of rhesus types in the Australians resembles both that of the Caucasoids and the Mongoloids5 the Aus- traloids are considered to be derived from an archaic White stock in Asia. The gene d is also rare or absent among American Indians and Eskimos; both these people have high and approximately equal frequencies of CDe and cDE. A high incidence of cDE is confined to these people and to the Polynesians, suggesting a common ancestry (or migrations between Polynesia and America). The rhesus series promises to be most useful in the study of racial relationships when more information about the distribution of the rarer groups has been col lected. The Henshaw and Hunter genes are closely linked with the rhesus system as is also the factor known as V; in the series so far studied both are almost, if not exclusively, confined to Africans (Mourant, 1959). It is probable that other rhesus genes remain to be discovered and very likely it will be found that this great polymorphism or variability has some adaptive value in combating disease. The M, N, Ss Groups The frequencies of M and N vary less than those of the ABO groups and the rhesus series5 their distribution throughout the world is about 55% M and 45% N.
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