Origins of Human Races

American “Adam” Left a Genetic Marker
Sometime after humans came to the Western Hemisphere, 15,000 to 20,000 years ago, an extraordinarily rare genetic mutation occurred in one man who sired a son. The result was that the son’s Y chromosome, usually an exact copy, varied ever so slightly from the father’s.

Now DNA research shows that the son became a native American “Adam”. Some 90 percent of South America’s indigenous people and 50 percent of those in North America share that genetic marker, unknown in other male populations. “You can be from the Great Plains or from the Amazonian rain forest and have the marker,” says Peter Underhill of Stanford University, whose population-defining work has been confirmed recently by other scientific teams. “They’re from different ethnic groups, have different cultures, and speak different languages, but they share that common male ancestor.” Text by Boris Weintraub, National Geographic, October 1999

Pliopithecus, 10 to 23 Million Years Ago.

Proconsul, 17 to 21 Million Years Ago.

Aegyptopitecus, 28 to 30 Million Years Ago.

Smilodectes, 45 to 50 Million Years Ago.

Plesiadapis, 58 to 63 Million Years Ago.

Changing Primate Skulls
Some evolutionary strides made by primates during the Tertiary are shown by changing shapes of five skulls. The oldest belongs to a prosimian of the Paleocene epoch, the rodentlike Plesiadapis. The next, the skull of the prosimian Smilodectes, has an enlarged brain case and forward-directed eyes. Both Aegyptopithecus, a primitive ape, and Proconsul, a somewhat later ape, have faces that are more foreshortened and eye sockets closed at the sides. Pliopithecus has a still-larger brain case in relation to its face.
Source: Time Life, Early Man, Pg.33, 1965-1973

Image Source: Time Life, Early Man, Pg.30, 1965-1973