Australoid

Encyclopedia : A : AU : AUS : Australoid

Australoid is a broad racial sub-classification of Australasian peoples having dark skin with straight/wavy hair in the case of Aboriginal Australians or hair ranging from straight to kinky in the case of Melanesian and Negrito groups, they are defined by the anthropologist Carleton S. Coon. Many Melanesian and Aboriginal Australians have naturally blonde or brown hair. Australoid peoples range from areas of Southeast Asia (particularly the Philippines, Malaysia, Melanesia), and parts of the Indian subcontinent. The term can refer to, as the name implies, the aboriginal peoples of Australia and New Guinea. It has also sometimes been used to include the aboriginal blacks of Asia, once commonly known as Negritos. Skulls comparable to Australoid peoples have also been found in the Americas, leading to speculation that peoples with morphological similarities to modern Australoids may have been early occupants of the continent.[Scientific American, Skulls Suggest Differing Stocks for First Americans, December 13, 2005][National Geographic, Americas Settled by Two Groups of Early Humans, Study Says, Dec 12, 2005] See also Pre-Siberian American Aborigines.

Mesolithic Southeast Asians have been found to display similarities to modern and ancient Australians, where it appears that Australoids survived in geographical isolation, while on the mainland early Australoids were assimilated or displaced by Mongoloids. The Andamanese, aboriginal inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, display similar phenotypes.

As with other phenotypical classifications of humanity, the value of the term Australoid has been in part challenged by genetic studies which have identified significant differences between distinct peoples who have been placed together within the category.

Notes

External links

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.