Australoid
/ˈɒstrəlɔɪd
/dated or offensive Usage
adjective
Relating to or denoting the broad division of humankind represented by Australian Aboriginal peoples.A strong case can be made out that the now ubiquitous straight or wavy-haired Australoid Aborigines weren't in fact Aboriginal, that is, first occupants....
- People had reached New Guinea and Australia from Indonesia by at least 40,000 years ago; there they developed Australoid characteristics in isolation.
- Skull types representing the Mediterranean, Mongoloid, Negroid and Australoid people represent the races of mankind.
noun
A person belonging to the Australoid division of humankind.Even so, the coastal and inland Aborigines did not regard these smaller Australoids as their own kind....
- The Australoids went to New Guinea, Australia, and Melanesia; the Mongoloids, through Micronesia and Polynesia.
- Likewise the Australoids of Indonesia were wiped out by the ‘Austronesian’ peoples from Taiwan and the Phillipines who expanded throughout almost all of the Pacific Basin.
Usage
The term Australoid belongs to a set of terms introduced by 19th-century anthropologists attempting to categorize human races. Such terms are associated with outdated notions of racial types, and so are now potentially offensive and best avoided. See Mongoloid (usage).