Final answer:
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach introduced a taxonomy dividing humans into five races based on craniometry, but these categories have since been discredited.
Step-by-step explanation:
In the late 1700s, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, a German physician and anthropologist, introduced a taxonomy that divided humans into five races based on craniometry, a pseudoscience that studied human head shape and brain size. These categories were 'Caucasian' for White people, 'Mongolian' for Asians, 'Malayan' for Brown people, 'Ethiopian' for Black people, and 'American' for Indigenous people of the Americas. Blumenbach's taxonomy was hierarchical, with White people placed at the top.
However, it is important to note that Blumenbach's racial categories have since been discredited. The social construction of race is now widely accepted, and organizations such as the American Association of Anthropologists, the American Sociological Association, and the American Psychological Association have rejected such explanations of race. Current research in biological anthropology also shows that there are no real racial categories biologically, as human traits vary along a spectrum and racial distinctions are inaccurate.