Traditional terms (developed in Europe) for identifying broad human groupings, like Caucasian, Negroid and Mongoloid, are too general and inadequate to account for the variety we find among humans. Findings since those early prescientific classifications help us appreciate and enjoy the rich variety we share in our human family.
There are some general informal categories, sometimes called "race," that help us classify various peoples of the world, but they are not strictly defined, and are used differently by different writers. The terms and categories used do not relate clearly to definite physical types.
This is one reason you will sometimes hear it said that there is only one race, the Human Race. All humans now living on Earth apparently share the same full gene pool. There is no simple relationship of physical features (physiognomy) or genetic structure to any clear groupings of peoples. We can of course perceive some general patterns, and these are the basis of our broad distinctions between various individuals and population groups.
The fascinating thing is that the farther back into genetic history we have been able to go (through recent DNA comparative study) the more similar we find the human stream to be, back to a single genetic grouping in central or eastern Africa.
