Metrical features of Aboriginal crania from coastal New South Wales, Australia

Abstract

The racial origin of the Australian Aboriginal is still the subject of much controversy, despite the considerable number of studies which have been made over the last 100 years. Past investigations have included many aspects of physical anthropology, archaeology, linguistics and social anthropology, but different approaches, techniques and interpretations have resulted primarily in two basically opposed hypotheses. These are: (a)The Aboriginal Australians are the descendants of a single basic stock which invaded the virgin continent. Local differences found to-day in the frequencies of some of their physical features are primarily the result of chance variations which became established in semi-isolated populations (cf. Abbie, 1951). (b) Successive waves of immigrants of different basic stock colonized the Australian continent. The frequency variations of certain features found between Aborigines inhabiting the different parts of the Australian continent are closely related to the varying proportions of the contributing stocks in these populations (cf. Birdsell, 1949 and 1950).