The “Australoid” and “Negroid” Races. 
By L. H. Dudley Buxton, D. Sc., Reader in Physical Anthropology, University of Oxford. 
The light which the examination of man’s physical form can throw on 
ethnological problems is a very debateable one. It is, however, of great 
importance to study every possible form of evidence in the hope that even data, 
which at first seem remote, may eventually prove of value in the elucidation 
of ethnological problems. The difficulties are considerable. In the first place, 
in this age of increasing specialization, ethnology and physical anthropology 
are drifting apart, and the students of the one are not always in a position 
to appreciate the problems of the other. Moreover, in discussing prehistoric 
races, we may have to call in yet other expert witnesses, geologists, archaeo 
logists, and even meteorologists, and eventually we may be so surrounded by 
a cloud of witnesses that their evidence may like the arrows of the Persians 
only serve to darken the sun. In this paper I propose to deal with certain 
questions concerning the so-called Australoid and Negroid peoples and to 
leave out, except where it is absolutely necessary, any reference to any other 
races of mankind. 
First as to method physical anthropologists are by no means agreed. 
The anatomical school, without neglecting other sides, are primarily con 
cerned with morphological considerations. Trained in the medical schools, 
but to a large extent inheriting their anthropological tradition from 
Broca, they have been for the most part interested in the description and 
comparison of man’s anatomical characters. Many of the great German 
schools, founded originally by Virchow, and for various reasons representing 
a rather separate tradition, have laid a great stress on measurements on the 
living, and although this side has been carried out systematically in France 
and Italy and spasmodically in England, it has been most practised in Germany. 
Workers of all n Hons have measured the living all the world over, but there 
has been a recent endency by some writers rather to deprecate the value of 
such work. A very Efferent tradition has been inaugurated by the Biometric 
School under Professor Karl Pearson. Being mathematicians rather than 
anatomists they followed the methods in measurement of the German more 
than the English and French anatomists. They have collected together in a 
precise and minute way most of the published material, and have submitted 
it to statistical tests. It is unfortunate, but perhaps inevitable, that the very 
technical nature of their publications has prevented the use being made of 
their work which would otherwise have been made. 
In this paper I shall try and see what light can be thrown on the 
problems before us by the work of die various schools, and I should like here 
Anthropos XXX. 1935. 1