How ethnically diverse were cavemen?

Question

Cavemen may not be the right word, but prehistoric, early tool-using humans. The stereotypical "caveman" image in popular culture looks pretty European. (Which I assume is because I'm from the West) But how much of our modern racial and ethnic traits were found in people from that time period? Do we know at all? Were prehistoric humans in sub-saharan Africa dark skinned with afro textured hair? Would cavemen in East Asia have had smaller nose bridges and narrower eyes? Or were humans at that time still very ethnically homogeneous and didn't split into more distinct races until later? Basically I just wondered, if I went back in time to when Homo Sapiens in what is now China were first starting to make tools and huts and farm, would those people look vaguely the same as modern east Asians? Or wildly different? And if different, then would they look the same or markedly different from the Homo Sapiens living in Africa or Europe or wherever at the same time?

Answer 1

This is only partial answer, but recall that as humans drifted north away from the Equator, natural selection favored reduced melanin. So all things equal, “cavemen” in colder climes would have had darker skin—and probably hair and eyes too.