Cromag, fairly obviously if you stick someone from the Congo, Mongolia and Finland in a lineup you are not going to mistake them. It seems that forensic people can pick this much from skeletons too. There are of course many other ways of distinguishing background and location - an English friend of mine claims he can pick what street in London people come from as soon as they open their mouth, and my Kenyan friends claim they know which of 40 tribes someone is from just be looking at them.
The problem started with Linnaeus original classification of the world into 3 races, which has turned out to be invalid. Sure you can cluster the people of the world into different groups based on average physical characteristics, but why 3? Why not 6? Certainly the Aborigines dont fit into the original groups, neither do the Arabs, the Kazakhs or many other racial groups.
The Americans continue to ask ppl in the Census what "race" they are from - but in the end it boils down to what you think you are, just as with aboriginality in Australia. The genome project has seriously weakened Linnaeus' position and everyone has backed away from it.
