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Physical anthropology
Almost all peoples inhabiting Sub-Saharan Africa refer to the Negroid race that consists of three small races.
The Pygmy people, who are traditionally engaged in hunting and collecting and inhabit the equatorial forests, represent the Negrille race. They are characterized by small height (on average about 140 cm), thin lips and a broad nose. The Pygmy race is not numerous.
The San (Bushmen) and the Khoikhoi (Hottentot) form the Khoisan race in southern Africa. Their skin is lighter and more wrinkled than that of the representatives of the Negroid race, and has a yellowish color. Other peculiarities of the Khoisan race are epicanthus (Mongolian eye-lid) and steatopygia (tendency to accumulate fat at one’s hips and buttocks). Today the Khoisan people are few and mostly live in Botswana, Namibia, and in the south of Angola and Zambia, but once they used to occupy larger territories, most probably the entire southern half of Africa.
Among the minor Negroid races, the largest one is the Negro race. Its representatives are characterized with dark skin and eyes, curly hair, wide noses with low bridge of nose and thick lips. But within this race there are great variations: for example, people inhabiting the upper reaches of the River Nile are very tall, with subtle bones and have very dark skin, while the inhabitants of the Guinea coast of West Africa are shorter and thicker.
The inhabitants of Ethiopia, the Fulbe in West Sudan, as well as some peoples living in the southern border of Sahara, belong to the mixed Negroid-Caucasian race. Madagascar is inhabited by Mongoloids from South-East Asia who mixed with Negroids. The Berbers and the Arabs who nomadize over the Sahara desert and inhabit the territories along its southern border, belong to the Mediterranean type of the Caucasian race.
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