What were the origional races of human beings.?

Question

No religious explanations please

Answer 1

the first hominids which were the first bipedal ancestors of the Homo Sapiens were the Austrolapithicenes. These are the earliest hominids on our lineage branch.

Answer 2

Well, you have some interesting responses so far. Some have more opinion in them than verifiable scientific fact, however.

Let me suggest this to you: Go get a copy of "The Seven Daughters of Eve" by Bryan Sykes (easily found on amazon.com). This is a recent book that discusses our recent genetic ancestry, and is very readable. There's a cool twist here as well; the book comes with the info on how to send a sample of YOUR DNA to professor Sykes' lab, which they will then type--for a fee, of course.

Luca Cavalli-Sforza's publications are also great sources. Wolpoff and Caspari's "Race and Human Evolution" is another "must read" since they get into the "politics" of defining "race" since the 19th century.

You've asked a deep and controversial question, there is no simple answer unfortunately.

Good luck

Answer 3

Depends on if the Question is for a class on Cultural Anthropology or Sociology.

Anthropology answer- 3. The Caucasoid, the Mongoloid, and the *******. The Caucusoid being named after the Caucas Mountains where the earliest Caucasoid remains were found and their migration leads back to. The Mongoloids being the Asiatic peoples who inhabited and spread from Asia. And the ******* being the oldest and migrating from sub-Saharan Africa.

Sociology Answer- 1. The human race is not genetically different enough to be considered made up of multiple races. Genetically speaking, if humans were compared to dogs we would not be genetically different enough to have some of us be German Shepperd's and for others to be Chow or Rotties. We would not even be different enough to be Black labs vs Chocolate labs vs Yellow labs. We are so genetically similar we would all just be one type, i.e., Black Labs.

Answer 4

First there is nothing like races in the Homo Sapiens. We are the human race.
Africa is the place where the gene diversity is the largest, which means it is where the original gene stock of homo sapiens come from.

In Africa, among the 'blacks' there are many different ethnic groups which are mixing together. While in Europe, there are only 'white' so called caucassian, in Africa, you find west african black (bantu style), bushmen, pygmies and east african (ethiopian or masai). These are all completly different.

Homo Sapiens has been existing for 150 000 years. During 80 to 100 000 years, he has been living in Subsaharan Africa. And we cannot find asians or white in Africa.

It probably means that the present variation of skin colours we find in the world are quite recent. For the variations in shape of nose, eyes etc..., it can be find in Africa (See the eyes of Mandela, they look asiatic). So the original human genetic stock comes from Africa and then it got some alterations for example, loosing the melanine in order to synthetize the D vitamin when the winter night are getting so long. The clear colour is just an adaptation to northern latitudes.

Now, among african ethnic group, I will probably choose the Bushmen as the most likely candidates of all human beings ancestors. In addition their language is a complete isolate and does not enter in any big category of language. It is among the only language that cannot be group in a big family.

In addition, it is possible that asians and europeans have some interaction with pre-existing groups of Homo Erectus in Asia and Neandertal in Europe (The red hair gene is probably coming from Neandertal).

Finally, i will cite Cavalli Sforza "The classification into races has proved to be a futile exercise for reasons that were already clear to Darwin."

Answer 5

it depends how you define 'human'. since humans evolved gradually it's hard to pin down any particular original race - all had ancestors, at some point you may say they are no longer human but where? perhaps it's just a matter of personal preference. prior to 10,000 years ago all humans were stone-age hunter gatherers. prior to 200,000 years ago skeletons of human ancestors are noticeably different. before about 3 million years ago they had no stone tools, no fire. about 6 million years ago the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees lived (probably an as yet unknown species). they had ancestors too of course.

Answer 6

The ancients