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How did anthropometry attempt to measure differences between human populations?

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Overhead view of a diverse group of people standing in a circle, holding each other's hands in a gesture of unity and teamwork. — Race Skin color is one of the variables that has been used to classify people into different racial categories.

Anthropometry is the systematic collection and correlation of measurements of the human body, such as the proportions of the skull, nose, and limbs. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, this practice was frequently used to attempt to characterize various racial, ethnic, and national groups by identifying bodily features believed to be typical of them.1

During this period, researchers applied these measurements—often subjectively—to support theories that associated biological race with levels of cultural and intellectual development. For example, practitioners of craniometry measured skull capacity to argue that differences in brain size correlated with intelligence, thereby reinforcing hierarchies that labeled certain populations as inferior. These methods were used to provide a veneer of scientific legitimacy to the idea that human populations were fundamentally distinct, sometimes even arguing they constituted separate species.12

It is important to note that the concept of biological races as subspecies of Homo sapiens is scientifically invalid. Modern physical anthropology has moved away from using anthropometry to define racial types, recognizing that such traits do not group into patterns that allow for meaningful boundaries between human populations.3