THE HUMAN SPECIES 



525 



The racial enigmas. There are many groups of people who do not fit 

 well into any scheme of racial classification. Most of these are transitional 

 populations in the zones between the regions occupied by the European, 

 Asiatic and African races, or populations produced by recent racial 

 mixture. A few constitute veritable puzzles for the anthropologist. Chief 

 among these are the Australoids, the Bushmen, the Polynesians, the 

 Basques, and the Ainus; the last group has already been discussed in 

 treating the "Whites." 



Fig. 31.11. Melanesian Negroes. Left, a young man of Malaita, Solomon Islands, showing 

 strongly Negroid traits somewhat modified by Micronesian influence, as is common among 

 the coastal Melanesians. (Photo by Dr. Justin W. Leonard.) Right, a Papuan from Mount 

 Hagen in eastern interior New Guinea, showing mixture of Australoid and Negritoid traits. 

 (Photo by M. J. Leahy, couitesy American Museum of Natural History.) 



The Australoids, the aborigines of Australia, resemble Negroes in their dark 

 brown skin and broad noses, and are like "Whites" in having hair that is straight 

 to curly and abundant on face and body. In other respects they are unique. The 

 skull is long, narrow, low-crowned, and thick-walled, with small brain capacity. 

 The forehead recedes strongly, the brow ridges are heavy, and the nose is deeply 

 notched at the root. The lower face is protrusive, with large teeth and lips that 

 are full but thinner than in Negroids. No other race shows so many primitive 

 traits. 



The Australoids are sometimes classified with the Negroids, sometimes with 

 the Caucasoids and often are left unplaced. There is a growing tendency to accord 

 them primary rank, as is done by Howells, Coon, and Boyd. They are nevertheless 

 so primitive that they might almost have been ancestral to the other major 

 groups. The Australoids have certainly had a long independent history and did 

 not originate in Australia. The Pleistocene Wadjak skulls from Java are Aus- 



