Scientists managed to determine the time when the human race was divided into groups, which later became isolated from each other and turned into modern races.
It was found that humanity began to paint in different colors about 260 thousand years ago.
The search for the first people on the planet is engaged in two categories of scientists. Anthropologists and archaeologists are looking for ancient bones and determining their age, and the second category of researchers is trying to read the genome.
The most ancient human remains, which from the point of view of anatomy did not differ from modern ones, were discovered in Morocco, their age is estimated by scientists at 300 thousand years. Among modern people, the Bushmen can boast of the most ancient DNA - a small ethnic group living on the African continent, which is so different not only from the representatives of the Caucasian race, but also from the Negroids that scientists have singled them out into a separate group - the Khoisan or Capoid. The capoids separated from the rest of humanity about 100-160 thousand years ago.
The most ancient sites of the ancestors of the modern Bushmen people are located in South Africa. In the area of three different sites dating back to the Stone and Early Iron Periods, the remains of seven people were discovered, from which scientists were able to isolate DNA. After analyzing the genetics, they came to the conclusion that the remains could belong to carriers of the mitochondrial haplogroup L0d, which is currently found among native speakers of the Bantu language - people living in sub-Saharan Africa. A comparative analysis of fossil samples with archival data on the genotypes of the inhabitants of the African continent showed that the remains of the Stone Age could belong to the Capoids, and the remains of the Bronze Age - to people who are relatives of the Bantu speakers.
In addition, anthropologists also managed to establish some details related to the period of early human history. For this purpose, scientists used the genome of a boy from Ballyto Bay, which is well preserved. Its DNA was not affected by genetic mixing, which allowed researchers to assess how much the hunter-gatherers of KwaZulu-Natal diverged from other peoples. Scientists have compared the boy's DNA and 12 genomes that belonged to modern and ancient people. The results obtained indicate that the separation of the Khoisan peoples from the Homo sapiens clan took place approximately 285-365 thousand years ago.
We will remind, earlier scientists argued that the first division of the human race into groups took place about 100-160 thousand years ago. In the new dating, the process of dividing the Homo sapiens into groups was postponed by about half the time that had elapsed since the separation of the Neanderthals and Denisovans 700-760 thousand years ago. As the researchers note, these two groups diverged from each other at about the same time, then the division of the human race into separate groups.
The results obtained in the course of research by scientists, thus, postponed the process of dividing humanity into separate groups by almost 150-200 thousand years. This happened until the moment when a reasonable man left Africa and moved to the territory of the Middle East and Europe.
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