Historically, long before the discovery of the molecular mechanisms underlying genetics, scholars resorted to superficial classifications in their attempts to understand human diversity. Classification was con- ducted on the basis of somatology, which involved crude observations about external appearance. In 1758, in the famous tenth edition of his Systema Naturæ, Carl Linnæus distinguished between four geo- graphical subspecies of Homo sapiens, i.e. europaeus, afer, asiaticus and americanus. Later, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, in a dissertation which he defended at Göttingen in 1775, distinguished between what he imagined were five human races, namely the ‘white’ Caucasiae, the ‘yellow’ Mongolicae, the ‘black’ Aethiopicae, the ‘red’ Americanae and the ‘brown’ Malaicae (1776 [1795]: xxiii, xxiv). With his coinages, Blumenbach single-handedly invented the ‘Mongoloid’ and ‘Cauca- soid’ races. With regard to his Varietas Caucasia, Blumenbach opined: 

Later, Johann Christian Erxleben recognised four of the same races as Blumenbach but under different names, with his Homo sapiens europaeus, asiaticus, afer and americanus (1777: 1, 2) corresponding to Blumenbach’s Varietas Caucasia, Mongolica, Aethiopica and Americana (1795 [1776]: 304, 307, 310, 319) respectively. As opposed to Blumenbach’s Varietas Malaica, Erxleben distinguished no separate Malay race, but he made finer distinctions in northern Asia, distinguishing a more northerly Homo sapiens tatarus from the Chinese phenotype, which he termed Homo sapiens asiaticus, and he grouped Lapps, Samoyeds and other Uralic peoples under a distinct heading named Homo sapiens lappo. In France in 1801, Julien-Joseph Virey basically followed Blumenbach in recognising five races, but he outdid Erxleben in his attempts further to subclassify within these races.