The Australoid race is a broad racial classification. The concept originated with a typological method of racial classification.[1][2][3] They were described as having dark skin with wavy hair, in the case of Veddoids from South Asia and Aboriginal Australians, or hair ranging from straight to kinky in the case of Papuan, Melanesians and Negrito groups.
According to this model of classification, Australoid peoples ranged throughout Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, New Guinea, Melanesia, and India. In the mid-twentieth century an argument emerged that Australoids were linked to proto-Caucasoids.
In the out of Africa theory, the ancestors of the Australoids, the Proto-Australoids are thought to have been the first branch off from the Proto-Capoids to migrate from Africa about 60,000 BCE, migrating along the now submerged continental shelf of the northern shore of the Indian Ocean and reaching Australia about 50,000 BCE.
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In the late nineteenth century, anthropometric studies led to a proposition of racial groups, one of which was termed "Australioid" by Thomas Huxley in an essay 'On the Geographical Distribution of the Chief Modifications of Mankind' (1870), in which he divided humanity into four principal groups (Xanthochroic, Mongoloid, Negroid, and Australioid).[5]
Huxley also concluded that the Melanochroi (Peoples of the Mediterranean race) are of a mixture of the Xanthochroi and Australioids.[6] Later writers dropped the first "i" in Australioid, establishing Australoid as the standard spelling.
According to Peter Bellwood, "many of the present Southern Mongoloid populations of Indonesia and Malaysia also have a high degree of Australo-Melanesian genetic heritage."[7]
One proponent, R. Ruggles Gates, argued in 1960 that "If the Ainu are partly of Australoid origin it is also clear that they are even more nearly derived from archaic Caucasian ancestry".[8] M.K. Bhasin (2006) suggests that the "Australoids" "differentiat[ed]... perhaps from a common type before the separation of the Mongoloids and Caucasoids"[9]
Huxley's original model included populations in India. Some scholars still use the term Australoid to denote the small populations, mainly of some of the Adivasi and the Andamanese people in India and the Veddas in Sri Lanka. The American Journal of Physical Anthropology (1996, p. 382) by American Association of Physical Anthropologists. L. L. (Luigi Luca) Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi and Alberto Piazza in their text, The History and Geography of Human Genes (1994, P. 241) both use the term.
Balgir (2004)[10] designates tribes as Australoid or Proto-Australoid according to language family:
It may be mentioned here that the major scheduled tribes of Orissa belong to three linguistic groups, namely, Indo-Aryan or Indo-Europeans, i.e. Non-Australoid, Austro-Asiatic (Mundari) speakers, i.e. Proto-Australoid, and Dravidian (Gondi or Kuvi) speakers, i.e. Australoid. Proto-Australoid racial group includes Bhumiz, Gadaba, Juang, Kharia, Koda, Kolha, Mahali, Mirdha, Munda, Santal and Saora tribes. Tribes like Bathudi, Bhatra, Binjhal, Bhuyan, Lodha and Saunti belong to non-Australoid racial stock while Australoid racial stock is represented by Gond, Kondh, Kissan, Oraon, Paraja and Pentia Halva tribes.
Kashyap (2006)[11] designates 23 out of 54 Indian populations studied as Australoid, of which one speaks an Indo-European language (Dhangar of Maharashtra), 4 speak Austro-Asiatic languages (Kurmi of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar Kurmi of Bihar, and Juang and Saora of Orissa), and 18 speak Dravidian languages. 7 populations were designated as Mongoloid, and the remaining 24 as Caucasoid. No Proto-Australoid category was used. Note: Some mislabeling of Balgir's categories has occurred. Proto-Australoid embraces Dravidian speakers, whereas Australoid differs from these latter two.
Forensic anthropologist Caroline Wilkenson wrote in 2004 that Australoids have the largest brow ridges "with moderate to large supraorbital arches".[12] Caucasoids have the second largest brow ridges with "moderate supraorbital ridges".[12] Negroids have the third largest brow ridges with an "undulating supraorbital ridge".[12] Mongoloids are "absent browridges", so they have the smallest brow ridges.[12]
Huxley wrote in 1870 that Australoids are usually dolichocephalic;[4] their hair is usually silky, black and wavy;[4] they usually have large, heavy jaws and prognathism;[4] their skin is the color of chocolate and the irises are dark brown or black.[4]
Skulls of peoples with Australoid morphologies have been found in the Americas, leading to speculation that peoples with phenotypical similarities to modern Australoids may have been the earliest occupants of the continent.[13][14][15] These have been termed by some Pre-Siberian American Aborigines. If this theory is correct, it would mean that some Proto-Australoids continued the Great Coastal Migration beyond Southeast Asia along the continental shelf north in East Asia and across the Bering land bridge, reaching the Americas about 52,000 BCE.
Christy Turner notes that "cranial analyses of some South American crania have suggested that there might have been some early migration of "Australoids."[16] These early Americans left signs of settlement in Brazil which may date back as many as 50,000 years ago. However, Turner argues that cranial morphology suggests "Sinodonty" in all the populations he has studied.
One of earliest skulls recovered by archaeologists is a specimen named Luzia. According to archaeologist Walter Neves of the University of São Paulo, Luzia's Paleo-Indian predecessors lived in South East Asia for tens of thousands of years, after migrating from Africa, and began arriving in the New World, as early as 15,000 years ago. Some anthropologists have hypothesized that Paleo-Indians migrated along the coast of East Asia and Beringia in small watercraft, before or during the last Ice Age.
Neves' conclusions have been challenged by research done by anthropologists Rolando Gonzalez-Jose, Frank Williams and William Armelagos who have shown in their studies that the cranio-facial variability could just be due to genetic drift and other factors affecting cranio-facial plasticity in Native Americans.[17][18][19]
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