The term "Australoid" was coined in ethnology in the mid 19th century, describing tribes or populations "of the type of native Australians". The term "Australioid race" was introduced by Thomas Huxley in 1870 to refer to certain peoples indigenous to South and Southeast Asia and Oceania. In physical anthropology, Australoid is used for morphological features characteristic of Aboriginal Australians by Daniel John Cunningham in his Text-book of Anatomy. An Australioidracial group was first proposed by Thomas Huxley in an essay On the Geographical Distribution of the Chief Modifications of Mankind, in which he divided humanity into four principal groups. Huxley's original model included the native inhabitants of South Asia under the Australoid category. Huxley further classified the Melanochroi as a mixture of the Xanthochroi and Australioids. Huxley described Australioids as dolichocephalic; their hair as usually silky, black and wavy or curly, with large, heavy jaws and prognathism, with skin the color of chocolate and irises which are dark brown or black. The term "Proto-Australoid" was used by Roland Burrage Dixon in his Racial History of Man. In a 1962 publication, Australoid was described as one of the five major human races alongside Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Congoid and Capoid. In The Origin of Races, Carleton Coon attempted to refine such scientific racism by introducing a system of five races with separate origins. Based on such evidence as claiming Australoids had the largest, megadont teeth, this group was assessed by Coon as being the most archaic and therefore the most primitive and backward. Coon's methods and conclusions were later discredited and show either a "poor understanding of human cultural history and evolution or his use of ethnology for a racialist agenda." Bellwood uses the terms "Australoid", "Australomelanesoid" and "Australo-Melanesians" to describe the genetic heritage of "the Southern Mongoloid populations of Indonesia and Malaysia". Terms associated with outdated notions of racial types, such as those ending in "-oid" have come to be seen as potentially offensive and related to scientific racism.
Controversies
Inclusion
The populations grouped as "Negrito", the Semang and Batek peoples, the Maniq people, the Vedda people of Sri Lanka and a number of dark-skinned tribal populations in the interior of the Indian subcontinent are also suggested by some to belong to the Australo-Melanesian group, but there are controversies about this inclusion. Research involving cranial morphology, made by Indian anthropologists, however, suggests that the SouthAsian Indian populations have different cranial characteristics from Australoid groups. This difference has possibly been strengthened in recent times due to intermarriage with peoples of different origins. A genetic study in 1985 suggested connections between tribal peoples of Southern India and Sri Lanka and Negrito populations of the Philippines and Malaysia. Genetic studies have also found evidence of shared ancestry between Andaman Islanders and a genetic component found in peoples of the Indian subcontinent.
Distribution
Besides the Papuans, Australian Aboriginals and, Melanesians, the "Australoid" category is sometimes taken to include various tribes of India and Negritos. The inclusion of Indian tribes in the group is not well-defined, and is closely related to the question of the original peopling of India, and the possible shared ancestry between Indian, Andamanese, and Sahulian populations of the Upper Paleolithic. The suggested Australo-Melanesian ancestry of the original South Asian populations has long remained an open question. It was embraced by Indian anthropologists as emphasizing the deep antiquity of Indian prehistory. Australo-Melanesian hunter-gatherer and fisherman tribes of the interior of India were identified with the Nishada Kingdom described in the Mahabharata. Panchanan Mitra following Vincenzo Giuffrida-Ruggeri recognizes a Pre-Dravidian Australo-Veddaic stratum in India. Alternatively, the Dravidians themselves have been claimed as originally of Australo-Melanesian stock, a view held by Biraja Sankar Guha among others. South Indian tribes specifically described as having Australo-Melanesian affinities include the Oraon, Munda, Santal, Bhil, Gondi, the Kadars of Kerala, the Kurumba and Irula of the Nilgiris, the Paniyans of Malabar, the Uralis, Kannikars, Mithuvan and Chenchus.. But other Indian anthropologists of the post-colonial period, such as S. P. Sharma and D. N. Majumdar, have gone as far as claiming Australo-Melanesian ancestry, to a greater or lesser extent, for almost all the castes and tribes of India. Individuals with Australo-Melanesian phenotypes existed possibly also in East Asia at least since Middle Paleolithic, such as Liujiang but were largely displaced by migrations of Eastern Eurasianrice farmers since Neolithic, who may have spread from Siberia or Central China to Southeastern Asia during Mesolithic and Neolithic and after adopting farming to the rest of Southeast Asia and Oceania.
Physical features
In physical anthropology, the Australo-Melanesian group is characterized primarily by its characteristic dental morphology. In Java, "Australo-Melanesian dentitions" are found in fossils until the mid-Holocene, but are replaced by modern "Southern Mongoloid dentitions" in the Neolithic, suggesting the displacement and assimilation of the aboriginal Australo-Melanesian population by the Austronesian expansion.
Criticism based on modern genetics
After discussing various criteria used in biology to define subspecies or races, Alan R. Templeton concludes in 2016: "he answer to the question whether races exist in humans is clear and unambiguous: no."
