ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses some of the institutional, personal and epistemic developments surrounding a new terminological and conceptual vein of research into human variation in the post-war era. It assesses human genetic variation in general, what would become known as 'human diversity', to make it epistemologically productive for the investigation of genetic characters and to establish the evolutionary history of mankind. In the 1950s, a considerable number of empirical studies in human genetics drew on endogamous groups, or 'isolates'. Many geneticists considered 'endogamous groups' to be the unit that best represented a genetic and evolutionary population, that is, an 'isolate', and hence provided a sound empirical basis for population genetic investigations. In a number of nations following World War II, geneticists founded institutions dedicated to the study of early human population genetics. The chapter concentrates on post-war studies in human genetics at the population level, providing insights into biological-anthropological aspects and into genetic mechanisms.