Who were the first people on earth,and how are there different races?

Question

Who were the first people on earth,and how are there different races?

Answer 1

The first people on earth were, as best science can tell, African.  Homonids evolved as changing climate pushed the jungle south and abandoned a group of primates in the grassy plains of central Africa.

Since there was no one great movement, there were several branches of man to leave Africa.  The Neanderthals arrived in Europe first, but were then pushed to extinction when modern man followed.  (Neanderthal ruled Europe for 325,000 years, modern man just 25,000).  There were also branches that made it to Asia, also now extinct.

But eventually we encompassed the globe.  Different races are simply superficial exterior differences that helped us to survive in our respective climates.  Sunlight provides vitamin D, without which Norsemen would go insane.  Lighter hair, blue eyes, and light skin are meant to extract as much sunlight as possible.  Closer to the equator, this would cause the Irish beach nightmare: "fork in the microwave" (actual medical terminology).  So peoples living in this area became dark with the protecting melanin.  Eskimoes adapted to ward off frostbite.  

Racial differences among humans is very hard to designate, though.  A dispalced people can begin to un-adapt, re-adapt in a few generations.  These are not evolutionary changes but adaptions only.  We all share the genetic code that will cause our generational adaptations to follow the same course.

Try to find a copy of this Discovery Channel series if you want to know more: http://dhd.discovery.com/tvlistings/epis...

Answer 2

THE FRIST PEOPLE ON EARTH CAME FROM AFRICA. THE USED TO BE A BRIDGE THAT CONNECTED ALASKA TO EUROPE. PEOPLE FROM AFRICA STARTED MIGRATING TO DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE WORLD. THEN AS TIME WENT ON WE WOULD STETTLE IN THESE NEW SURROUNDING.WE ALL LOOK DIFFRENT BECAUSE WE ALL ADAPTED TO THE SOURROUNDING. THE PEOPLE IN AFRICA ARE BLACK BEACUSE OF HOW HARD THE SUN WOULD HIT OVER THERE. THE ONES THAT WENT UP TO EUROPE EVNTUALLY DIDN'T NEED IT AND IT STOPED. I MEAN ITS STILL I YOUR DNA BUT IT'S KIND OF LIKE IT MALFUNCTIONED. IT'S LIKE HOW IT IS TODAY. PEOPLE IN NEW YORK ARE USED TO COLD WEATHER MUCH MORE THAN PEOPLE THAN FLORIDA BECAUSE THEY ADAPTED TO IT. IN A STUDIE THEY SAID THAT ALL THE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD ARE 99% ALIKE. SO IT'S KIND OF STUPID THAT WE ARE RACSIT BECAUSE THAT MEANS WE ARE DOING THAT TO ARESELF

Answer 3

Defining evolving primates as people vs non-people hasn't happened yet, I don't think. The first whose mode of travel was mostly erect, bipedal, and mostly terrestrial? The earliest who are believed to have had language? The earliest documented "cradle of civilization"?

The second question might be more clear, easier to answer. Some physical attributes would have been more advantageous in one environment than another. Also we choose mates more like ourselves and our families, and with expectations of fitness to carry on ones' genes. Sure, a lot of others things but those are some of the simplest.

Answer 4

Here, meet our relatives:

Australopithecus ramidus - 5 to 4 million years ago

Australopithecus afarensis - 4 to 2.7 million years ago

Australopithecus africanus - 3.0 to 2.0 million years ago

Australopithecus robustus - 2.2 to 1.0 million years ago

Homo habilis - 2.2 to 1.6 million years ago

Homo erectus - 2 to 0.4 million years ago

Homo sapiens - 400,000 to 200,000 years ago

Homo sapiens neandertalensis - 200,000 to 30,000 years ago

Homo sapiens sapiens - 130,000 years ago to present

Before them, between 5 and 10 million years ago, there was our common ancestor with the apes. This is what is romantically called "The missing link".

The human race originated in Africa, and spread across the globe in two great periods of migration, the first by H erectus about 1-1.5 million years ago, the second by H sapiens, about 200,000 years ago. Both these migrations led to the splitting of humans into different groups, which adapted to different environments, in Europe they adapted to the cold climate by becoming stocky and perhaps hairier, and developed into the Neanderthals. Those that remained in Africa became H sapiens, and migrated again to all over the world, eventually also reaching the Americas, Asia, Australia etc via land bridges which have since receded into the seas. When H sapiens reached Europe, they eventually replaced the Neanderthals, who slowly became extinct. The most obvious adaptations include skin colour and eye shape, as adaptation to increased light radiation. But others include blood haemoglobinopathies, such as Haemoglobin S and thalassaemias as adaptations to develop resistance to malaria.

Answer 5

When God created Man he made everyone speak different tounges--languages--so they would form into different groups.  That's how races came to be.

Answer 6

The first civilizations popped up in the middle east. So it's assumed the first people were middle eastern. (Mesopotamia was the area)

There are differing races because as people moved to other lands they adapted to their environment. Skin colour, height, metabolism, and resistance to certain diseases in some races are good examples of this.

Answer 7

The Eskimos are the chief representatives of the oldest race on earth.

The Eskimos were the FIRST to discover North America.  AND they came from the Southern British Isles during the advance of the last Ice Age.

Just as there is a lot of diversity for flowers and plants, there must be a lot of diveristy for humans.

If everyone were the same race or even worse, mostly the same genetically,  all people could die in the event of one single lethal change in environment.

Different races have different preferences and vulnerabilities to disease and climate, also different talents and native endowments, allowing for the greater prospect of survival from the resultant diversity.

The SECOND people to discover North America were the predominantly red races from north of China.  There were some of the yellow (Chinese) race accompanying them and blended with them.  

They left because the Chinese finally proved militarily superior by means of their greater social cohesion and careful planning.

These migrants from Asia were entering in large numbers around 78,000 years ago.   Yes,  I believe they focused on migrating along the coastlines initially, as these were relatvely ice free during the last ice age,  and traversing the Canadian or U.S. Rockies would have been asking too much.

The ice had receeded nearly to its post-Renaissance condition by about 38,000 years ago.  This would have opened the way for spreading all the way East.

But the Central and Northern South American places will have an earlier history than the northeastern USA.

The oldest 'Indian' sites will be in the Pacific Northwest.  They achieved the early apex of their civilization in California, but this did not endure.

The later civilizations in Central America went through great ups and downs as well.

In Peru the leadership of the Incas developed from migrants from the East who crossed the oceans more than 60 centuries ago...

These latter were a blend of Nodite and Adamite.

You will find much extremely interesting history of the Adamities -- descended from Adam and Eve -- and the Nodites (Cain took a Nodite wife) who constituted the 'great men of old' and were the first to attempt construction of the fabled 'Tower of Babel' in THE URANTIA BOOK:  http://www.urantia.org/papers/toc.html