How would multi-race humanoid evolution happen?

If we were to pull the following races out of a D&D players handbook and remove them from the setting/history of Faerun and look at them from a biological/non-magic perspective (no other planes of existence, no Fey realm etc etc etc)

• Human
• Elf
• Halfling
• Gnome
• Dwarf
• Orc
• Half Elf
• Half Orc

I feel it is logical to assume that the races all branched from a common ancestor, after all it is statistically fascinating that humanoids evolved at all.

What I want to know is:

1. What would the evolutionary tree look like? (A diagram like the one shown below would be excellent.)
   
   (Original Source: http://palaeos.com/systematics/tree/images/treeolif.jpg)

2. What factors (non-magical) would drive the evolution of such varying humanoid species?

posted about 9 years ago

James‭

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