Australian Aborigines are the indigenous people of Australia.
They have long been recognized as a race in classical anthropology and are one of the seven major races in the taxonomy proposed by Coon, Garn and Birdsell (1950). They have a distinctive blood group profile with ~73% group O (just under 50% in Europeans). The remaining 27% are A and there are virtually none from group B. Their distinctive racial identity was confirmed by the genetic analysis of Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi, and Piazza (1994).
The Europeans who first encountered the Australian Aborigines considered them to be a backward people. Thomas H. Huxley (1825-1895) considered them the “missing link” between apes and humans and Chase and John von Sturmer (1973, p. 6) claimed that they represented “one of the highest echelons bottom of the ladder of intellectual development.
1. IQ of Australian Aborigines
2. Brain Size of Australian Aborigines and Europeans
1. IQ of Australian Aborigines
The median value is 62. This corresponds to the mental age of an 11 year old European.
Table 8.1. IQ of Australian Aborigines
| Age | N | Test | g | Reas | Verb | Vis | Reference | |
| 1 | Adults | 56 | PM | 66 | 66 | 66 | Porteus, 1931 | |
| 2 | Adults | 24 | PM | 59 | 66 | 59 | Piddington & Piddington, 1932 | |
| 3 | Adults | 268 | Varions | 58 | – | – | Porteus, 1933a, 1933b | |
| 4 | Adults | 31 | AA/PF | 69 | 69 | Fowler, 1940 | ||
| 5 | Adults | 87 | PM | 70 | 70 | Porteus & Gregor, 1963 | ||
| 6 | 11 | 101 | QT | 58 | – | Hart, 1965 | ||
| 7 | Adults | 103 | PM | 74 | 74 | Porteus et al., 1967 | ||
| 8 | 5 | 24 | PPVT | 62 | 62 | – | De Lacey, 1971a, 1971b | |
| 9 | 6-12 | 40 | PPVT | 64 | 64 | De Lacey, 1971a, 1971b | ||
| 10 | Adults | 60 | CPM | 53 | 53 | – | Berry, 1971 | |
| 11 | 3-4 | 22 | PPVT | 64 | – | 64 | Nurcombe & Moffit, 1973 | |
| 12 | 6-14 | 55 | PPVT | 52 | 52 | Dasen et al., 1973 | ||
| 13 | 9 | 458 | QT | 58 | – | McElwain & Kearney, 1973 | ||
| 14 | 13 | 42 | SOT | 62 | – | Waldron & Gallimore, 1973 | ||
| 15 | 6-10 | 30 | PPVT | 59 | 59 | – | De Lacey, 1976 | |
| 16 | 25 | 22 | CPM/KB | 60 | 60 | – | 67 | Binnie-Dawson, 1984 |
| 17 | 4 | 55 | PPVT | 61 | – | 61 | – | Nurcombe et al., 1999 |
2. Brain size of Australian Aborigines and Europeans
Table 8.3. Brain size (cc) of Australian Aborigines and Europeans (sample sizes in parentheses)
| Europeans | Aborigines | Difference | Reference | |
| 1 | 1,426 | 1,229 (8) | 197 | Morton, 1849 |
| 2 | – | 1,217 (325) | – | Morant, 1927 |
| 3 | 1,198 (109) | Wagner, 1937 | ||
| 4 | 1,206 (29) | Klekamp et al.,1987 | ||
| 5 | 1,369 | 1,225 | 144 | Smith & Beals,1990 |
| 6 | 1,319 | 1,240 | 79 | Jurgens et al.,1990 |
| 7 | – | 1,178 (73) | – | Freedman et al.,1991 |
References for the whole page « Race differences in intelligence. An evolutionary Analysis », Chapter 8 pp. 68-77, Richard Lynn, Washington Summit Publisher, 1st edition 2006 and 2nd edition 2015.