Final answer:
The five historic categories for determining race from skulls are Caucasian, Mongolian, Malayan, Ethiopian, and American. However, this approach is scientifically invalid as modern science shows that race cannot be biologically categorized.
Step-by-step explanation:
The five categories that were used to determine race based on skull characteristics, as proposed by the field of craniometry, are Caucasian, Mongolian, Malayan, Ethiopian, and American. It's important to note that this practice and the underlying assumptions about race have been debunked and are considered a pseudoscience. Modern biological anthropologists, geneticists, and biologists have demonstrated that race as a biological concept is not valid due to the wide variation of human traits along spectra and complex patterns of inheritance.
Furthermore, the concept of race has changed significantly throughout history and across cultures, often being associated with superficial physical characteristics, and is now understood as a social construct rather than a strictly biological one.