The intellectual contributions of Nicolás León to physical anthropology, that have been overlooked in his historiographic bibliography, are the purpose of this paper. We review his ideas on the origin of mankind, of the peopling of the New World, and the biological variability of the indian populations of Mexico. We also try to elucidate how the way of thinking and the social atmosphere of his times influenced him. We conclude that he was a real pioneer of Mexican physical anthropology.Este trabajo tiene como propósito realizar un breve resumen bibliográfico de las obras del Dr, Nicolás León (1859-1929) en el campo de la antropología física en México, algunos temas que discutió este investigador se relacionaron con la somatología de grupos indigenas.